A Data-rich Observation

I've been sitting at the back of the portfolio lab at HBU for a week. At the start of a semester, it's no surprise that nothing interesting has cropped up. This morning, my time paid off! Two HBU students came into the lab to work on their portfolios. They sat directly in front of me. (Serendipity!) I couldn't hear everything they were saying, but I could tell a lot about what was happening just from watching.

I saw evidence of nearly every aspect of the CHAT models. They (subjects) were working to create their portfolios (objects). They used a variety of tools (computers, software, handwritten notes, the Internet) to pursue this. Clearly, they were adhering to some rules (what should be included) and norms (their layouts looked remarkably similar to others I have seen). The division of labor was not completely clear to me, but I'm sure my interviews will give me data on that.

I watched these two interact for two hours and took about 12 pages of handwritten notes. I've seen these two in the lab a couple of times - and I know about when they are usually there. I expect I will see them again.

Each evening, I come home and transcribe my notes for the day. I need to keep up with this habit, because I found I had some errors in the notes. I had been referring to them by computer number since I didn't know their names. That worked until they kept switching places!! At any rate, I was able to fix the errors because I transcribed the notes within a few hours.

The "teacher" in me wanted desperately to help them as they struggled for 20 minutes or so, trying to solve a problem I knew exactly how to fix.