Computational Literacies Lab

C. Case study

Due Week 14 (December 4).

Digital technologies aren’t going away. How might we create safe, authentic, and democratic schools?

The final assignent for Critical Computaitional Literacies is to write a case study analyzing the role of computational media (defined here as computers, cell phones, social media, and/or AI) in young adults' lives, and imagining a theoretically-grounded future in which schools are safe, authentic, and democratic.

Your analysis will be part of a broader collaboration between high school students, undergraduate students, and graduate students, exploring these questions. Within the collaboration, high school students share and interpret their firsthand experiences with computational media. Undergraduates also share their experiences, as well as analyzing the role of policy has and could have in shaping such experiences. Through these case studies, graudate students in Critical Computaitional Literacies will contribute theoretical perspectives on these experiences. Across all three groups, we will imagine possible futures in which social, policy, and technological infrastructure helps make schools safe, authentic, and democratic.

Your analysis will be structured as a small multiple-case study, where each case is one individual's narrative of a time when computational media played an important role in their life. Stories were contributed by high school students and undergraduate students. See the linked pages for details on how we gathered potential stories and the specific prompts we used for planning and recording stories . Your analysis will be shared with and discussed by the authors of these stories.

Your case study should have two goals:

  1. Apply a theoretical framework (based in readings from this course, but potentially including other theoretical resources) to interpret the stories and develop theoretical insights based on similarities and differences across the stories.
  2. Building on your interpretation of the stories, envision a future in which schools are safe, authentic, and democratic.

Steps

  1. Decide who you want to work with. This assignment may be completed individually or in a group of up to three students.
  2. Review the cases which have been collected and decide which stories you want to work with (you may work with as many or as few stories as you want). Make notes on what you find interesting in these stories; what they have in common; where they differ. You may choose to do this through formal qualitative coding, or you may do this informally, for example by printing out your selected stories and annotating them with a pen and highlighters, or by copying your selected stories into a Google Doc and annotating them with comments.
  3. Review the ideas we have explored in this course and develop a theoretical framework which you will use to interpret the stories. You could select an existing theoretical framework (e.g. Horst, Herr-Stephenson, and Robinson's (2010) genres of participation: hanging out, messing around, and geeking out), you could adapt or modify an existing theoretical framework, or you could assemble a new theoretical framework from pieces of existing theories. You are more than welcome to include theoretical resources from beyond this course, but the core of your theoretical framework should be drawn from course readings.
  4. Interpret your chosen stories using your theoretical framework. It may be that all your stories fit neatly within the framework, but may be more interesting when some stories do not fit neatly into the framework. What patterns emerge? Can you put the stories into categories, or can you identify theoretically-salient themes running through the stories? Identify your theoretical findings. If the stories fit cleanly within your theoretical framework, than you will likely treat the stories as illustrations of the theory, and your findings will be new details or articulations of the theoretical framework. If the stories do not fit cleanly within your framework, then your findings will likely make sense of why, and propose a modification of the framework to account for this.
  5. Prepare your proposal (see below). This is your chance to get feedback from Chris and the authors of the stories, and to ask clarifying/follow-up questions.
  6. Draft your case study.

Deliverables

Proposal (Due Tuesday, December 3)

Write a 500-word abstract summarizing your proposed case study. You will get feedback from Chris on your proposal. Additionally, the other courses in the collaboration will provide feedback on the case study proposals. There's no space or need for ornamentation here; all your readers will be familiar with the context.

The abstract should follow the structure of the final paper (see below). You don't have space to actually do the analysis here; you'll get the best feedback if you jump right to your anticipated conclusions. In the conclusion of the abstract, describe any specific areas where you would like feedback. If you have follow-up questions for any of the story authors, you may also include these.

Final paper (Due Monday, December 16)

Your final case study should be a well-written and consistently-formatted paper 4000-6000 words in length. The paper should be accessible to multiple audiences:

  • High school students, including many whose first language is not English, will read your paper. Although you are expected to deploy the richness and interpretive power of theoretical ideas, prioritize direct and accessible language. Remember that you are working with the liverd experiences of your readers; be humble and gentle.
  • Students, teachers, and policy-makers may read your paper. Do not assume that your readers are familiar with the theories you introduce, and make sure that your theoretical findings are valuable to folks outside of academia.
  • Your paper should also be valuable to a scholarly audience. Be clear and specific in your references, and make sure that you engage productively with theory.

Although this is not a hard requirement, your paper should probably have the following sections:

  • Introduction. Introduce yourselves, the ideas you will be working with, and the stories you have selected. There is no need for boilerplate summary of this collaboration--a quick summary is fine, but you may assume that your readers are familiar with the structure and context of this project.
  • Theoretical framework. Introduce the theoretical framework you will be using. Explain where it comes from and why you have chosen it.
  • Findings. Introduce the stories you will be working with and interpret them using your theoretical framework. This will probably be the most substantial part of the paper, and may be broken up into sub-sections.
  • Discussion. Present a vision of a future where schools are safe, authentic, and democratic, grounded in your theoretical framework and the stories you have analyzed.
  • Conclusion. Explain how this inquiry contributes to a better understanding of the theory you worked with, and how working with theory could help young adults and the adults in their communities (e.g. teachers, parents) better understand their meanings.