User:FLEM/thesisoutline

What do I want to write about?

Last year I started to question my notebook practice and tried to build a new paper device that would satisfy better the needs of my brain. To get there I started questioning what were the problems in the device I was using and how changing something small could already improve my use of the notebook. I then asked myself: "How is it possible that we are all using a device with the same structure? And what impact on our learning processes does this issue have?". I believe this is really a personal matter and that every individual should or could find their personal answers to this. How can I, through research and explorative sessions, discover more about the topic and create a generative structure that can be interpreted by every person in their own way?

The thesis will analyse the use of notebooks in contemporary society and why writing is important for humans. It will research, from a sociological point of view, learning processes and types and the connection between writing and learning; how the act of making can help this discovery.

Then, it will focus on the arrival of the industrial revolution and how it changed humans' approach to making, how capitalism and consumerism changed our vision on notebooks use and how going back to making could save us from the consequences of these historical changes; what is standardisation and their impact on humans' existence.

The final chapter will talk about making as an act of subversion: how we can create our own narrative and our personal perception of the world through the act of making our own tool and making the creation experience as part of the learning process.

Table of content

1. History on the use of notebooks

1.1 Glossary of note taking methods

1.2 Why humans write?

2. Making as pedagocic practice

2.1 What is a learning space?

2.2 How writing is connected to learning?

2.3 Learning types in sociological studies

2.4 How making and learning are interconnected?

2.5 The self-learning process

2.6 Social learning and practice

3. Industrial revolution and consumerism

3.1 The Arts and Crafts Movement

3.2 Consumeristic habits and psychology: why do we all wear the same shoes?

3.3 Personalisation vs standardisation in society

3.4 Why do we create standards and customised objects? How do they interfere with humans' existance?

4. Building our own tool: how making becomes a process of self-discovery

4.1 Making as an act of subversion

4.2 The CES (Collaborative Explorative Sessions): an overview based on observation

4.3 The process for others (analysis of texts that my case studies will write to analyse their personal process towards a notebook that works for them)

→ keep it separate

4.4 Instructional piece: How to create your notebook. → the outcome of the thesis and the grad proj together

Why?

One of the main urgency I have to talk about this topic is that both from my personal experience and experiences of others during growth, standardised learning types are a big problem in education. Students are all the same, needs the same time to read a text, understand it and to talk about it properly. Obviously, it is not exactly like this. We are supposed to satisfy standards and generalisations through our entire lives, someone stronger to stay on their track, some others more fragile, especially if we talk about young humans that are still building up on their personality and still discovering about their abilities and strategies.

I don't like that we are all the same, that expressing who we are is not part of daily life but it's an ashaming process that has a lot of impact in the growth.

I would like this research to be a sort of manifesto for a general context but using the notebook as a  "metaphor": who are you? how does your brain work? how do your ideas come along? what are your needs from a tool?

It is not only about making a notebook, is how making a notebook will put us in the position of questioning who we are and the objects we use, why we use them and how something made for us could look like.

How?

The thesis will follow the graduation project alongside: it will be structured in two parts, one where I will research on theoretical studies to create a context and answer my questions, analyse the results and documentation that will follow the workshops that are part of my graduation project and one will be an instructional piece on how to create your own notebook, not practically but focused on the process of learning about ourselves and our needs. The source that will feed the second part will come from my observations on the sessions, texts that my case studies will write to analyse their personal process towards a notebook that works for them, as well as my personal process.

As this process is really personal, I will not be able to produce charts or standardised results; instead, I will be working on observational essays that will try to create a more general overview on the outcomes of the processes of the workshops

3 key issues/research questions?

Can the structure of the interface we use for note taking and thinking processes change our learning results?

What is the impact of making and writing in learning?

Are learning and thinking devices standardised?

What does happen to the user when they are the creator of their own tool?

How the act of making their own tool can help users to better understand what they need from the tool?

How the materiality of the objects help learning about ourselves?

Bibliography

Why We Make Things and Why it Matters by Peter Korn (2015)

The use of personalized notebook among first semester students of UITM (2016)

The bookbinding workshop: making as collaborative pedagogic practice by Elizabeth Kealy-Morris (2015)

Crafting communities of practice: the relationship between making and learning by Miriam Gibson (2018).

Note Taking as an Art of Transmission by Ann Blair (2004)

All the problems will be solved by the masses By Simon Yuill (2008)