This project will produce a website that educators could use to develop an understanding of my proposed empathy-development methodology by generating discussion plans for science fiction texts. As my larger BPhil research is specifically geared towards high school English classes, that is the demographic of educator I have in mind, however, it could plausibly be used by any level educator. I also see it more as a tool to help educators understand than the methodology than to give them viable discussion plans, as these texts are fairly niche. If this site were to be expanded further, it could contain a feature where the educator could select the grade level to tailor the discussion plan, but I do not anticipate that being part of this first iteration.
The goal is that at the end of the semester, 11 weeks from now, the website will contain a few sample texts and discussion plans as proof of concept and the custom discussion plan function illustrated in my wireframe, where the user could select multiple texts and criteria to generate a more complex discussion outline.
In its simplest form, the discussion plan requires three things: identifying ways to apply empathy development tools, highlighting evidence in the text, and writing discussion questions. After that I will need to write discussion outlines unique to each story and then discussion plans for the intersection of different traits to demonstrate the possibility of the custom discussion plan tool which I do not believe will be entirely functional by the end of the semester.
The intended user would be an educator, likely a college professor (science fiction comes up very rarely in grade school) or a high school teacher at a teacher training, with moderate to high technology usage. This product would most appeal to educators who prioritize student-centered learning and social reconstructionism.
I will be working with public domain science fiction short stories. The data pulled will relate to: science fiction tropes, axes of analyses (race, class, gender, ability, orientation), and examples of and opportunities for the application of empathy development tools, currently limited to the application of specific cognitive behavioral and dialectical behavioral therapy elements. I want to extract this data in order to identify places in the text where educators could pose questions and what evidence they could base those questions on or what evidence they could expect their students to provide in their responses. The best way to visualize the data would be in an outline format that would be print friendly.
I am trying to tell the story of a new era in education; a time when social learning is prioritized; where empathy and social consciousness is explicitly addressed. I am trying to tell educators that these new priorities won't subvert or interrupt other education goals; that empathy can be developed in a conversation about genre, plot, and theme as would occur with any text.
In order to do this I need: the specific sci-fi texts, to be certain about which axes of investigation I'm including, and discrete categories for the CBT/DBT elements. Later I will need to write discussion questions to then integrate into the text on the site visually perhaps in the form of a hover-over text box.
The milestones would be
1) Selecting the texts and defining criteria
2) Completing the XML markup
3) Writing discussion questions based on the XML
4) Organizing discussion plans
5) Making the site (this is where the details gets truly fuzzy)
My intent is to have the criteria defined by 2/6. I would also like to have the first two texts selected by then. In the time it takes to markup the first two texts I believe I'll be able to decide how many more texts I could realistically do and decide which ones to use. I would like to discuss a more concrete timetable at our next meeting.
This project will produce a website that educators could use to develop an understanding of my proposed empathy-development methodology by generating discussion plans for science fiction texts. As my larger BPhil research is specifically geared towards high school English classes, that is the demographic of educator I have in mind, however, it could plausibly be used by any level educator. I also see it more as a tool to help educators understand than the methodology than to give them viable discussion plans, as these texts are fairly niche. If this site were to be expanded further, it could contain a feature where the educator could select the grade level to tailor the discussion plan, but I do not anticipate that being part of this first iteration.
The goal is that at the end of the semester, 11 weeks from now, the website will contain a few sample texts and discussion plans as proof of concept and the custom discussion plan function illustrated in my wireframe, where the user could select multiple texts and criteria to generate a more complex discussion outline.
In its simplest form, the discussion plan requires three things: identifying ways to apply empathy development tools, highlighting evidence in the text, and writing discussion questions. After that I will need to write discussion outlines unique to each story and then discussion plans for the intersection of different traits to demonstrate the possibility of the custom discussion plan tool which I do not believe will be entirely functional by the end of the semester.
The intended user would be an educator, likely a college professor (science fiction comes up very rarely in grade school) or a high school teacher at a teacher training, with moderate to high technology usage. This product would most appeal to educators who prioritize student-centered learning and social reconstructionism.
I will be working with public domain science fiction short stories. The data pulled will relate to: science fiction tropes, axes of analyses (race, class, gender, ability, orientation), and examples of and opportunities for the application of empathy development tools, currently limited to the application of specific cognitive behavioral and dialectical behavioral therapy elements. I want to extract this data in order to identify places in the text where educators could pose questions and what evidence they could base those questions on or what evidence they could expect their students to provide in their responses. The best way to visualize the data would be in an outline format that would be print friendly.
I am trying to tell the story of a new era in education; a time when social learning is prioritized; where empathy and social consciousness is explicitly addressed. I am trying to tell educators that these new priorities won't subvert or interrupt other education goals; that empathy can be developed in a conversation about genre, plot, and theme as would occur with any text.
In order to do this I need: the specific sci-fi texts, to be certain about which axes of investigation I'm including, and discrete categories for the CBT/DBT elements. Later I will need to write discussion questions to then integrate into the text on the site visually perhaps in the form of a hover-over text box.
The milestones would be 1) Selecting the texts and defining criteria 2) Completing the XML markup 3) Writing discussion questions based on the XML 4) Organizing discussion plans 5) Making the site (this is where the details gets truly fuzzy)
My intent is to have the criteria defined by 2/6. I would also like to have the first two texts selected by then. In the time it takes to markup the first two texts I believe I'll be able to decide how many more texts I could realistically do and decide which ones to use. I would like to discuss a more concrete timetable at our next meeting.