At the heart of Cohen’s research project is the question of what pedagogic value is added by employing a digital ethnographic pedagogy as opposed to more traditional modes of teaching.
This project aims to:
- address the issue of non-participation by students in their own learning.
- support educators to develop curricula that link formal and informal learning and so contribute to wider social issues around community cohesion.
- provide educators with a means of developing enquiry-based approaches to learning that support and develop independent learning skills and dispositions.
Working with teachers and students in educational settings in the West Midlands, Cohen will implement a project in order to address the following research questions:
- What pedagogical value is afforded by the use of ethnographic digital mobile outdoor learning as tools for critically reflexive learning?
- How can digital ethnographic pedagogy, in the form of mobile outdoor learning, increase engagement and participation among both learners and teachers?
- What is the potential for ‘low-tech’ lesson implementation outdoors to transgress perceived boundaries between mobile ICT and traditional curriculum areas and modes of learning and teaching in these spaces?
- How can ethnographic digital mobile outdoor learning enable ‘risk-taking’ for learners and how is ‘risk-taking’ socio-culturally framed within pedagogic and research discourses?