A Learner’s Journey; or How I Became a Novice All Over Again

I was going to share the story of how my SoTL work has evolved over time, emphasizing the idea that each round feeds into another, and the same basic problem involves multiple research questions and methods of different kinds, and keeps becoming more complex but also keeps providing concrete strategies for improving my students’ learning.  But then I stumbled, and it occurs to me that sharing the story and some of my insights about my crisis of confidence might be useful – to you as well as to me.

Planning 5850:
DL course for grad certificate in WC Studies
Painful process – slow, frustrating, challenging
Made even more so by difficulties in my fall course, which used WebCT but in which I encountered many problems

Why was this so difficult?
Some of it was about technology – which slowed me down but also required me to explain everything in great detail and think very concretely about structure and sequencing
Focus on “module building” – from my own earlier research on incremental assignments, Bransford (modular design/challenge cycle), cognitive apprenticeship, and need to break things into pieces ( I’m trying to apply new ideas that I’m learning, not just from my own research but also from readings and discussions I’ve had with people who know a lot more than I do about cognitive processes and learning theory
The novice in the laboratory (or maybe the intermediate) – applying complex ideas and models to a new situation – I don’t know these models well enough to use them easily, so the process is slow and involves a lot of error (imagine a sophomore chemistry student designing an experiment)
A novice with expert friends – CNDLS staff as partners, coaches, prodders, questioners – that’s both helpful and difficult
Oh, and then there’s the research issue – doing all of this work in the context of my own continuing SoTL and a specific project – VKP – where they keep wanting me to report in, even though I still feel like I’m struggling to define my research questions
 
 What to make of all this?  
1)  SoTL is not a linear process: 
I've noticed that I move around a sort of cycle, which includes teaching experiences, looking at evidence of student learning, generalizing from my experience and students' work, thinking about the learning goals for a new course, considering implementation options, and asking myself something like "what do I want to learn from all this? What's my research question?" This isn't a clear sequence; I jump around to different places in that cycle (maybe not a cycle then?), but both my teaching and my research about students' learning keep being reshaped as I view the process from those different 
perspectives.  I guess what I'm saying is that I think you'll face a tension much like the one I'm facing in designing a module to teach my students how to do cultural studies research: the process isn't neat or linear, but we have to guide people through a neat sequence in order to clarify the various elements of the process, and that can leave the incorrect impression that the process IS neat and linear.  
As we learn this new field, we start to know both too much and too little:
I say that I know too much because I feel like every time I plan a course now, I am overwhelmed by the complexity – I have so many more concepts to wrestle with and so much more self-consciousness.  I know too little in that I’m don’t yet have facility with these ideas.  I keep thinking that someday I’ll feel like an expert again.
Making our own work the subject of our research is painful:
I am so much more self-critical, self-doubtful, much less inclined to believe my students’ positive reactions.  That I also don’t believe their complaints doesn’t help.  Nor can I just accept that things sometimes don’t work; I feel compelled to analyze the problem – not even to solve it, but to analyze it!  
But at the same time, the expectations have increased:
“Here’s Sherry, award-winning teacher, falling flat on her face . . .”