3 Things I Learned in Grad School This Week - Sept 3 2016

This is just a Gorilla made by one of my favorite design groups (Peppermint Narwhal - click the photo to go to their site) to grab your attention.

An interdisciplinary study requires engaging in sometimes contrasting studies. For example, statistics and qualitative research. Also, who knew that grad school would bring some enlightenment on my own life. Bring it on.

1. A "Life in Balance" versus "Moderation" in life
In our philosophy class this week the professor said she values the idea of balance in life. I immediately shrugged away and made a face like I sucked on a lemon. She caught that and during one of our breaks she and another student asked me why I responded the way I did to a life in balance. My response was that it sounds horrible and that every meaningful and life affirming thing I’ve done has been at the expense of something else in my life (attention to health, friends, family, rest, finances, etc). For example, one of the most life-affirming things I’ve done was create and build the company I had. To do this, I had no significant relationship, I was fairly unhealthy, and spent almost all of my time on my company and things related to my company. The satisfaction I received in life was related to that effort. With a little reflection, most other things in my life run that way: giving up that company to travel and explore, relationships, and then moving from everything familiar to get over to South Carolina for graduate school. But then I also search out activities that are more intense than a moderate life too: fighting, backcountry explorations, and even studying and reading. Maybe that’s just how I’m wired (needing higher ‘doses’ of a weird cocktail of serotonin/dopamine/adrenaline/epinephrine to stay motivated).
 
But then the professor drew some line on the whiteboard and said that I am talking about a disgust of ‘moderation’ not a ‘life in balance.’ Moderation is the even keel, the steady line. Life in Balance is equaling out the intensity with the downtime. Here is my interpretation of her graphic:

She went on to explain that Life Balance can be either line (the wavy or the zig zag) but Moderation can only be the wavy one. I like this dichotomy. I like how it distinguishes between two motivations. My only addition to it would be that everyone’s need for a peak or a trough, people’s respective need for rest or excitement, is subjective and independent to each person’s neurochemical needs. My serotonin baseline is obviously way higher than someone who can live a life in moderation contently.
 
 
2. Qualitative Research and specifically Pragmatism
I have an Independent Research course and right now we are focusing on Qualitative Research and what it is. The moment I was sold on it was when my advisor said “I think you’ll like this; I think you will be a Pragmatist Researcher.” After looking into the different types of Qualitative research methods and frameworks, she is 100% correct. Pragmatism research is defined as doing whatever necessary to answer the question. If you have to use Qualitative Research, use that. If you have to use interpretative and subjective reflections, use that. That’s what I’m interested in: I don’t care what method I’m using as long as I can effectively answer my questions of how and why humans and non-human wildlife and habitats should exist appropriately. If I need to learn a Marxist-Feminist approach because that answers the question/s best, bring it on.
 
A quick summary of what I understand to be Qualitative vs Quantitative research and simple definitions of various Quantitative methods:
Quantitative Research:
Quantitative Research: emphasize objective measurements and the statistical, mathematical, or numerical analysis of data collected through polls, questionnaires, and surveys, or by manipulating pre-existing statistical data using computational techniques.
 Qualitative Research: (textbook definition) a situated activity that locates the observer in the world. … They turn the world into a series of representations, including field notes, interviews, conversations, photographs, recordings, and memos to the self… Qualitative researchers study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them.
PostPositivism: A single reality exists beyond ourselves, “out there”
Interpretitivism/Constructivism: Multiple realities are constructed through our lived experiences and interactions with others
Critical Theory: Reality is based on power and identity struggles
Deconstruction: Changing ways of thinking and bringing to the surface concealed hierarchies as well as dominations, oppositions, inconsistencies, and contradictions.
 
Pragmatism isn’t necessarily a type of research but rather more of a type of approach – use any of the above research type and more to help answer your question. Yes, I’m definitely a Pragmatist.
 
3. Critical Periphery – Top-Secret Design Strategies for Increasing Effectiveness of Presentations (How to give a good Powerpoint presentation)

Over 12 years, I’ve given about 50 public presentations. Like, proper presentations with audiences of 4 to 150 people, a projector, a whole slideshow, and the nice(ish) clothes that go with it. As an informal science and arts educator at museums, nature centers, and out in the wetlands I’ve lead, taught, or facilitated at least 700 talks. I have gone through trainings, orientations, and lectures about how to educate but most of what I have learned about proper presentations has come from failing miserably and from my ex-business partner. His art form is Microsoft Powerpoint and he is good at it. Yesterday, I got my first actual lesson in how to develop a proper and professional slideshow talk.
 
Dr. Bixler went through a highly entertaining “meta-presentation” (a presentation about how to give a presentation). Emphasizing an “emotional affectation test” Bixler highlighted that an audience is going to automatically and unconsciously rank and value the information you propose as “is this worth putting into my long-term memory?” Basically, if you haven’t got into people’s heads with your talk than you have failed. How do you get into people’s heads then?
 
You don’t get into people’s heads by telling them how smart you are and how great your information is. You don’t get into people’s heads by giving them a lecture about all the stuff you know and they would be better for if they knew it too.
 
You get in there through narrative devices: building anticipation, speaking to Universals (things we all share in common -birth, death, life, food, family, etc), circling back to constant themes in the talk (emphasizing the points regularly), and surprises of humor and/or wordplay. You get in their heads through non-verbal communication of physically moving on stage, giving pauses at appropriate times, and acting out what you’re saying. You get into people’s heads by treating the presentation as theater and like good theater you have the ability improve someone’s life during the activity and into their lived existence afterwards.
 
Bixler ended with something so poignant from a responsibility standpoint, something I hadn’t really considered in my own talks. He mentioned that there were 57 people in the class and he spoke for one hour. That means that he just used 57 productive hours of time in sharing his message. Imagine what can be accomplished in 57 hours. I had always thought about the size of my audience in regards to how many people I was getting my message across to. But now, speaking to the Pragmatist in me, this responsibility of utilizing our potentially productive hours well I will think of my audience and my message differently.