Developing Analytic Thinking Skills in an Engineering Course

using an Ethnographic Approach

Rein Vesilo
Macquarie University
[email protected]

ABSTRACT
CONTEXT
Graduating engineers will be expected to make meaningful contributions in their professional
employment. With engineering becoming increasingly multidisciplinary and skill diverse, students
face significant challenges in developing the required knowledge base. A common difficulty for
students is understanding complex and advanced technical engineering topics, a task that is not
inherently easy. Despite a wealth of pedagogical techniques for addressing these problems, an
underutilised resource is the learning and teaching practices used outside of engineering.
PURPOSE OR GOAL
This paper examines how ethnographic principles can be successfully adapted to improve learning
in technical engineering subjects. An ethnographic approach focuses on subject domain detail and,
using a constructivist approach, assists in building mental models that form a crucial ingredient of
expert understanding. The longer-term aim is to improve awareness of innate capacities,
engagement with subject domains and lifelong learning skills development. The research question
was to determine how such an approach can be used in practice and evaluate its effectiveness.
APPROACH OR METHODOLOGY/METHODS
The method of implementation of the ethnographic approach was to adopt analytical thinking and
writing methods from the book Writing Analytically (Rossenwasser & Stephen, 2019). The
conceptual leap made was to extend verbal text representation to include multimodal texts
including any symbolic representation of information such as mathematics, computer code and
diagrams. A series of tasks and exercises were applied using scaffolding and constructivist
principles. The approach was called analytic thinking, a concept that students could easily relate
to. Cognitive perspectives were used to analyse difficulties of understanding, and Bloom’s
taxonomy was used to frame the approach in the broader learning context.
ACTUAL OR ANTICIPATED OUTCOMES
The approach was tested in a third-year undergraduate unit on random processes using class
exercises and formal assignments. Qualitative evaluation of final examination results showed
improvement and adaptability in solving complex problems compared to previous offerings. A
student survey showed the techniques scored highly, just under the worthwhileness of class
exercises and worked problems.
CONCLUSIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS/SUMMARY
By utilising analytical exercises that complement subject content delivery, it was demonstrated that
understanding a subject’s internal logic and complex and advanced material could be improved.
The approach has strong student engagement and interaction. It provides a means of including
more advanced material into the curriculum. It increases students’ self-capacities, self-awareness,
metacognition, and life-long learning skills.
REFERENCES (OPTIONAL)
Rossenwasser, D. & Stephen, J. (2019). Writing Analytically, 8th Edition. Boston USA: Cengage.
KEYWORDS
Engineering pedagogy, ethnography, analytic thinking, cognitive
Introduction
Graduating engineers will be expected and required to make productive and meaningful
contributions in their future professional employment in which “they have to work with novel
technologies, with a diversity of people around the world, as part of highly interdisciplinary teams,
and on projects that are complex both in scale and expertise” (Johri, Olds, & O’Connor, 2014).
With the pressure of such demands, students face significant challenges in developing the
knowledge base and capabilities demanded. These challenges, in the context of a unit of study in a
program, may be manifest as barriers (“walls”) to understanding as ideas become more complex
and problem difficulty increases. In addition, problems may occur in subsequent courses, such as
‘delayed learning’ with students only coming to understand a concept in a later unit what was
expected to be learnt in an earlier unit (Entwistle, 2009) (p. 95). The learning experiences of such
problems for both students and instructors will be frustration and dissatisfaction with a consequent
diminishing of lifelong learning skills.
A source of difficulty for learning is that subject areas often have long histories that have produced
concepts and arguments with many subtleties. Newcomers to a subject domain often have trouble
determining what is relevant and what is extraneous. Consequently, the subject content is not
inherently easy, especially in middle and later year technical units where students need effective
strategies to manage and understand significant amounts of detail. Some well-known pedagogical
techniques for addressing learning problems include Bloom’s taxonomy, Kolb’s experiential
learning (Kolb, 2014) and the threshold concept approach (Cousin, 2006). However, an
underutilised resource is the learning and teaching practices utilised in areas outside of
engineering. In particular, this paper examines how ethnographic principles can be adapted
successfully to overcome difficulties in understanding and improve the learning of complex and
advanced material in a technical engineering course. Ethnography involves the study of social
systems and practices where immersion in an environment and attention to detail is the primary
means of discovery. (Hammersley, 2019). Ethnographic research methods (see, e.g., (Blommaert
& Jie, 2020)) are widely used in anthropology, organisational research and many other social
research areas. In engineering education, ethnographic methods have been used to study the
practices of professional engineers’ and students’ daily life (Godfrey, Johri, & Olds, 2014), (Case &
Light, 2014). The distinctive feature of the current paper is the application of ethnographic
principles to teaching technical content. Practical implementation of the approach is achieved by
adopting the book Writing Analytically (Rosenwasser & Stephen, 2019), which has a strong
ethnographic orientation. Following the book’s title, we call our approach analytic thinking skills, a
familiar concept for students.
The primary research question is: How can an ethnographic approach be used in practice to
improve the understanding of complex texts in teaching technical units in engineering? The paper
critically evaluates the proposed solution and examines how it fits into broader educational aims. In
the remainder of the paper, Section 2 discusses the difficulties of understanding complex and
advanced texts, particularly from a cognitive perspective. Bloom’s taxonomy is used to frame the
approach in the broader learning context. Section 3 presents the basic principles of the
ethnographic approach. Section 4 describes the specific tasks and exercises used. Section 5
provides an example of the approach applied to a technical third-year undergraduate unit, including
results. Section 6 presents a discussion of the results. Section 7 is the conclusion.

Difficulties of understanding subject matter

Direct expression of the difficulties of understanding complex material observed in the classroom
includes: students explicitly articulating troubles in understanding, which, despite various attempts
at clarification, remain unresolved; students asking questions later in the course about fundamental
concepts that the instructor thought had been understood, only to be surprised that this was not the
case; and, students revealing a lack of understanding of one concept when talking about another
concept. A common cause of such learning deficiencies is the reliance on surface learning
(Entwistle, 2009) (p. 95). This is manifested through learning by memorising, waiting for the
instructor to provide solutions or only trying to obtain the gist of a topic. Such practices are often

Proceedings of AAEE 2022 Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia, Copyright © Rein Vesilo, 2022
characteristic of the so-called ‘banking model of learning’ in which students deposit learning from
the instructor into an account during the progress of a unit that is later withdrawn at the end, during
the final assessment (Boerckel & Barnes, 1991).
Difficulties of understanding subject content from a cognitive science perspective are similar to the
challenges faced in understanding expository texts (Britton, Glynn, & Smith, 2017). These
challenges include calling upon large bodies of specialised knowledge, the need to recruit a range
of reading processes such as determining the meaning of words, parsing and integrating text and
limited availability of short-term memory that makes management of memory resources necessary.
The unfamiliarity and unpredictability of a new text can produce fragmented and disorganised
understanding. This can lead to the deployment of bottom-up reading strategies. Task difficulty is
multifaceted; the paper by (Gilbert, Bird, Frith, & Burgess, 2012) lists seven indexes of task
difficulty: (1) inability to even perform a task in the first place because of the early stage of
development, (2) involvement of significant trade-offs between speed and accuracy, (3) dual-task
interference caused by concurrent involvement in a second task, (4) vulnerability due to adverse
factors such as age and fatigue, (5) requirement of high levels of executive control (e.g. to optimise
goal-directed behaviour in novel situations, as opposed to routine procedures), (6) needing more
subjective effort and motivation and (7) presence of higher levels of transformation of internal
representations. Attention control is also essential to efficiently obtain relevant information
(targets). Three general areas of attention control are activation, selection and control. Activation
involves preparation for target detection through warning cues or vigilance to detect rarely
occurring targets. Selection consists in locating the target in the sensory space using features or
peripheral cues. Control involves determining whether and how to respond to a target.
Reducing difficulties of understanding
All of the above factors contribute to processing load. General methods for reducing processing
load include increasing predictability, priming (which reduces memory fetching time), reusing
recently retrieved items in working memory (locality), replacing the least used items first in working
memory, signalling changes in text direction, and avoiding thrashing (repeated changing of tasks)
(Graesser & Goodman, 2017). More broadly, highly structured knowledge structures such as
schemas, mental models, themes and frames are activated when reading a passage.
Comprehension can be viewed as the interaction between incoming passage information and
schemas. Expert practice relies heavily on such structures to conduct the reasoning and problem-
solving required for analysis, design, interpretation, diagnosis, and prediction (Newstetter &
Svinicki, 2014). A constructivist approach (such as ethnography) provides mechanisms for building
such mental models under the control of the learner. To proceed to more advanced levels of
understanding, students need to see beyond the immediate content. Subject matter is usually
mediated and recontextualised (Bernstein, 2000), and course designers need to know not just the
content of a subject but also the theory of the content and how it is selected, framed and
transformed (Deng, 2012). Reverse engineering this mediation is assisted by constructing bridges
between different difficulty levels. A significant transformation that needs to be mastered is from
textbooks written by experts for novices to specialised research papers. The former are often
written to be appealing and action-oriented, while the latter are written to emphasise interpretation
and understanding the significance of events (Biber & Conrad, 2019) (p. 132).

Ethnographic approach
In ethnographic research, the actions of people and the accounts they give are studied within the
context of the everyday life they lead. The data obtained is analysed to provide interpretations of
the meanings, functions, and consequences of the actions and practices that are observed
(Hammersley, 2019)(Chapter 1). Critical aspects of the ethnographic approach are paying close
attention to detail, being as impartial an observer as possible by taking into consideration the
observer effect, being aware of the natural environment of a phenomenon, being sensitive to
patterns and constructing interpretations. Such a mindset is not exclusive to the social and human
sciences. The ethnographic approach builds theories and finds answers (Madden, 2017). In the
process of analysis it is found that ethnography produces a characteristic ‘funnel’ structure where

Proceedings of AAEE 2022 Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia, Copyright © Rein Vesilo, 2022
over time there is increasing focus during which concepts emerge and these are further developed
into typologies and models that facilitate the construction of schemas and other mental structures.
The book Writing Analytically was chosen as a source because it had strong constructivist and
discourse connections and because it contained numerous activities and exercises that could be
easily adjusted to an engineering context even though it was written mainly to develop reading and
writing skills in the humanities and social sciences. The text analysed in the book is primarily
verbal, although the book includes analysis of images and pictures appearing, for example, in
advertisements. The conceptual leap made in this paper is to expand the analytical framework
focused on text to include multimodal text formats such as any symbolic representation and
language, including mathematical expressions, computer code, engineering and scientific
diagrams, figures, and drawings, movement patterns associated with machines, physical objects in
general and combinations of the above.
Key elements in the analytic thinking approach are leveraging students’ innate observational and
pattern recognition skills, emphasising the importance of the details of the objects of study, and
developing conscious awareness of judgment making and evaluation processes. Attention-to-detail
tasks model the empirical approach used in ethnographic fieldwork and are designed to facilitate
engagement with the raw substance of subject domain concepts, techniques and practices in their
natural milieu while avoiding prejudgment and resisting vague generalisations. Such direct
experiencing of the thingness of things (their composition, texture, shape etc.) allows meaning to
emerge from acting upon concrete situations. (See, for example, (Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 2011)
and (Blommaert & Jie, 2020) for book references on ethnographic fieldwork techniques.) This
establishes a constructivist and interpretivist paradigm whereby students can engage in a
conversation with the topic in which the “learner is actively involved in creating the structure
through deep engagement with content”, enabling the “inner logic of the subject and its pedagogy”
to be revealed (Entwistle, 2009) (p. 97).
The approach developed is highly task-based, supporting engagement and the development of
self-capacities. Scaffolding techniques, whereby supports are gradually removed, are used to
reduce initial cognitive load and make interaction with subject material more manageable. Initially,
tasks are designed to be easy to execute. These then progress to greater levels of sophistication
and difficulty. Specific techniques incorporated in the exercises used in our approach for achieving
these aims include:
• Having students write lists that are then ranked, with explanations given for ranking.
• Selecting extracts to analyse (sentences, paragraphs and passages) based on what
students consider representative and significant.
• Iterative application of methods to build on what has already been discovered, with initial
ideas modified and merged and new ideas created.
• Placing a strong emphasis on exploring assumptions, implications and interpretations.
• Analysing how choices, particularly by text authors, are made.
• Establishing a conversation with the content.
Bloom’s taxonomy
Bloom’s taxonomy is used as a reference frame to relate the ethnographic approach to
understanding in the broader learning context. Bloom’s taxonomy is a familiar device that specifies
different levels at which learning occurs, and is widely used to develop course objectives, structure
course material, devise assessment tasks and evaluate learning. The original taxonomy,
developed in 1956 (Bloom, 1956), has six levels described by nouns: (1) knowledge, (2)
comprehension, (3) application, (4) analysis, (5) synthesis, (6) evaluation. The revised taxonomy
(Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001) has nouns replaced by verbs to emphasise the process aspects of
learning; some levels have been renamed, and the top two levels are reversed: (1) remembering,
(2) understanding, (3) applying, (4) analysing, (5) evaluating, (6) creating. (Cannon & Feinstein,
2005). Although learning occurs across all levels in Bloom’s taxonomy, the
comprehension/understanding level plays a pivotal role. “Students who demonstrate mastery of

Proceedings of AAEE 2022 Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia, Copyright © Rein Vesilo, 2022
content at the comprehension level are more likely to be successful with learning at the application
and analysis levels” (Verenna, Noble, Pearson, & Miller, 2018) with “comprehension form[ing] the
center of the hierarchical representation with application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation
radiating from that center” (Stoker and Kropp, 1971). An important component of comprehension is
interpretation where “learning occurs not by recording of information but by interpreting it”
(Resnick, 2018). The ethnographic approach of moving from ‘data’ to interpretation facilitates this
process. Exposure to higher level of learning occurs by requiring students to make evaluations and
judgements when ranking items in a list and selecting passages for study.

Tasks and Exercises

This section describes the various tasks used in our approach. The tasks are based on of those
given in (Rosenwasser & Stephen, 2019) (more details of tasks can be found in this reference).
The order of description is approximately in the order of presentation to students.
Patterns: Detecting and explaining patterns and relationships is essential to understanding and is
an easy but effective means to begin an exploration of a new text. The particular types of patterns
considered are repetitions, strands and binaries. Repetitions are “words” and features that repeat
exactly. Strands refer to sets of related words and phrases. Binaries are opposites in the text. Also
included are anomalies that violate patterns or are unexpected. The task begins by reading a
passage of text and making lists of repetitions, strands and binaries found. For strands, the
connecting logic and semantics are recorded. The next step is to rank the items found. This can be
conducted per pattern type or for the aggregated list (typically, the top three items are ranked). The
final step is to explain why the items were ranked in the order chosen.
Notice and focus: The first step (notice) is to list observed details of the environment (the ‘text’)
using an immersive approach. The emphasis is on neutral observation rather than making
interpretations or asking questions such as “what do you like?” or “what do you think?”. Typically,
lists can be long, e.g., ten or more items. The next step is to focus on specific targets and record
what attracts attention and what is interesting, revealing, significant, strange or odd. The tasks
conclude by ranking items and providing the reasons for the rankings.
Paraphrase x3: Paraphrasing aims to unlock deeper meaning and bridge the gap to interpretation.
This exercise requires students to take a short piece of text, usually no more than one or two
sentences, that is considered representative or of significance in a text. Three paraphrases are
produced with the emphasis on word-for-word paraphrasing. The focus on what the text is actually
saying rather than describing overall impressions or the ‘gist’ of the text. Devising paraphrases in
this way involves the manipulation of internal representations of relationships in the text. The task
concludes by exploring what the three paraphrases may suggest or imply.
So what?: The “So what?” exercise continues the process of interpretation by taking a piece of
text and asking “So what?” to discover its implications. The question asks, “If one thing is true, then
what else is true?”. Alternative ways of asking questions include: “And so?”, “What do the
observations mean?”, “Why do they matter?”, “Where do they get us?”, “What do we gain and what
do we lose?” Additional implications are found by “So what?” iteratively.
Reading with a lens: This exercise assists with “knowing where to look” (Blommaert & Jie, 2020).
This allows texts to be studied from different perspectives, theoretical frameworks and contexts.
Context can be regarded either as a macro-context, which defines broad contexts that are stable
and predictable or as a micro-context, which is specific to a particular situation (Blommaert & Jie,
2020). Preparatory work may be included to become familiar with different lenses.
Reformulating binaries: In this exercise, the binaries obtained from the earlier analysis are re-
examined to refine object categories and lines of argument. The activity uses questions such as:
Has the binary been named adequately? Is another formulation more accurate? Is one side of the
binary weighed more than the other side? Are both sides of a binary separate or parts of a single
complex phenomenon? This is assisted by analysing critical terms in the binary, rephrasing and
asking, “to what extent?”.

Proceedings of AAEE 2022 Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia, Copyright © Rein Vesilo, 2022
The pitch, the complaint, the moment: As text length increases, argumentation strategies and
awareness of genres become more critical. The segmentation of texts and moves between
segments can be analysed by examining the pitch, the complaint and the moment. The pitch refers
to what the piece wants you to believe/think: What set of circumstances is the text addressing?
What caused the writer to say this? The complaint is what the pitch is reacting against. What was
unacceptable? The moment where is the writer coming from: Why was this written at the time it
was? What was the state of the world at that time? The emphasis in the exercise is on
understanding the author’s intentions rather than what the reader thinks they are.
Summarising: This task integrates different skills, attention-to-detail and interpretation. In
essence, summarising is recounting someone else’s ideas in reduced form in your own words,
laying out its significant parts and contextualising accurately. Key questions to ask are: Which are
ideas most significant? Why? How do ideas fit together? What do key passages actually mean?
Students are asked to describe with care and choose words that convey precise meaning.
Ineffectual summaries often are just lists with little connecting logic. This can be avoided by looking
for underlying structure, avoiding general coverage by selecting information on an underlying
principle, reducing the scope and asking what the writer is aiming to get the reader to think.

Application of the approach to an engineering unit

The analytic thinking exercises described in the previous sections were tested in an undergraduate
third-year unit on random processes in a telecommunications engineering program. This unit
covered fundamental probability models, random variables vectors and processes, statistical
concepts, and spectral density. The multimodal text included significant amounts of mathematical
notation and derivations (sometimes framed as formal theorems) with verbal explanations and
diagrams (e.g., function graphs, Venn diagrams, etc.). The analytic thinking exercises
complemented other forms of learning that included short lectures, interactive classes, problem-
solving practicals, online quizzes and assignments. When a new analytic thinking exercise was
introduced, it was by means of a short slide presentation that was reinforced immediately with
brief, interactive activities in either small groups (3-4 students per group) and/or the entire class.
Students then carried out tasks independently as part of a formal assignment.
Class-based exercises: Engagement during group-based exercises was positive, with students
being animated and enjoying the experience. Listening to student talk (not recorded), the instructor
noted the range of responses was broad and showed unexpectedness, originality and insight. The
greatest benefits were obtained when students made an honest attempt rather than waiting for
instructor responses.
Assignment questions on the analytic thinking approach were included in the first three of four
assignments for the unit. The text extracts were selected to engage students with deeper and more
advanced topics. Table 1 shows example assignment questions for those three assignments. The
analytic thinking exercise question was worth 10% of the assignment mark in each case.
Assignments were assessed not for the correctness of answers but on the proportion of
completion. Sample answers and explanations were provided following the assignment return.
The extract used and the sample response for the Assignment 1 questions on detecting patterns is
shown in Appendix A (however, due to space limitations, student responses are not shown). This
assignment was the first independent attempt students had to use the analytic thinking techniques.
The text extract was from a graduate textbook on formal theories for defining families of probability
events (using π-systems), which is part of the fundamental conceptual underpinnings of probability.
This theory is the product of communities of researchers, and by examining low-level details,
students obtained insight into the struggles faced in developing these theories. A range of
responses was provided with varying levels of sophistication and depth. The widest variety of
responses was in the ranking of items and the reasons for the ranking. Assignment 2 used
paraphrase x3 to improve understanding of the significant concept that uncorrelated random
variables need not be independent. This concept is often not studied in detail in undergraduate
courses. Students were required to follow the line of argument, calling upon their knowledge of

Proceedings of AAEE 2022 Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia, Copyright © Rein Vesilo, 2022
 Assignment 1: Following is an extract from a book on how to define events occurring in probability. Apply
the analytic thinking method to do the following.
• Determine what repetitions, strands and binaries are in the extract.
• After combining all the repetitions, strands and binaries, how would you rank them?
• Explain why you ranked these items in the order you chose.
• Briefly explain what this example is aiming to show.
Assignment 2: Following is an extract from a book on an example of random variables that are
uncorrelated but are not independent. Apply the analytic thinking method to do the following.
• Determine what repetitions, strands and binaries are in the extract.
• Rank the list obtained and explain why you ranked these items in the order you chose.
• Find a representative sentence in the extract that captures the essence of the example. Use the
paraphrase x3 method to obtain three paraphrases of the representative example. Following this,
provide an interpretation of the relevant sentence.
• Briefly explain how this example proves that two random variables are uncorrelated but not
independent.
Assignment 3: Following is an extract from a book on tracking, estimation and linear least squares.
a) Write a summary of the main results in the extract.
b) Identify in the extract important parts of the theory that have been covered in the unit.
c) Provide the missing steps to obtain the solution of equations (7.1) and (7.2).
d) Verify the equations for the first example on the last page.
Table 1: Assignment questions using the analytic thinking method
various probability and mathematical concepts such as densities, independence, correlation, and
calculus. Part of the difficulty was that the explanation in the extract was brief, and argument
connections were not always apparent (which is typical of such descriptions). The paraphrase x3
technique assisted with finding conceptual relations to facilitate understanding of the more intuitive
mathematical ideas involved. Student responses showed that those selecting richer passages for
analysis produced a deeper understanding. Assignment 3 was on the use of least-squares
estimation for tracking (four-page extract). It began by requiring a summary of a text to be written
using the analytic thinking approach. This was followed by an analysis of how the text was linked to
broader theory and a detailed study of two critical equations in the text.
The final examination consisted of a take-home set of questions. Analysis of the results of this
examination provided a means of assessing the benefit of using the analytic approach. Qualitative
evaluation of answers, based on accumulated instructor experience over multiple offerings of the
unit, showed improved learning outcomes compared to previous offerings of the unit when the
approach was not used. Answers were more detailed and precise with students demonstrating
better ability at solving complex problems and thinking their way around obstacles in novel
situations to come up with alternative solutions.
Survey: Evaluation of the approach’s effectiveness from a student’s perspective was obtained from
an online class survey conducted in the fifth week of the semester. The purpose of the survey was
to obtain feedback on various teaching methods being used and make adjustments if necessary.
The survey ratings showed that the analytic thinking exercises scored well (4.2/5) compared to
other high rating activities such as class exercises (4.5/5) and example problems (4.5/5). Although
the sample size was small (the class size was 13, and the number of survey responses was 6),
and the results were not statistically significant, the survey results and the level of engagement
suggest that the approach was considered worthwhile by students.

Discussion
The analytic thinking approach was deployed as a sequence of tasks that increasingly shifted
students from observation to interpretation. Thinking became more individual, refined and
sophisticated as students progressed and engaged in a dialogue with the topic. Using a staged
approach had the benefit of being relatively easy and manageable for students to do. For example,
in the detecting patterns and notice and focus exercises, the initial list building is conducted without
too many distracting tasks. The ranking and explanation steps are then done immediately following

Proceedings of AAEE 2022 Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia, Copyright © Rein Vesilo, 2022
when the list information is still fresh. The paraphrase x3 and “So what?” exercises allow further
inclusion of theoretical knowledge into schemas and mental models through interpretation and
consideration of assumptions and implications. It was found that the method works best for short
texts because of the amount of detail that needs to be considered. For a middle level
undergraduate technical unit one to four pages of text was an acceptable length, depending on the
task. The ethnographic approach enables a broad range of cognitive comprehension capacities to
be developed, including focussed attention, retrieval of semantic knowledge, making evaluations
and judgements, adding precision in thinking, following lines of argument, discovering
relationships, building mental models, inductive and abductive thinking and theorising. The
approach allows more advanced material to be included in the curriculum that broadens the
intellectual base of knowledge taught and makes students more aware of the social constructivist
aspect of knowledge creation. The interactive exercises improve engagement by adding an extra
dimension and variety to classes. Lifelong learning is supported by the development of new
mindsets, increased awareness of self-capacities, improved metacognition and having available
practical yet general content analysis strategies via the task exercises. The creative aspect of
learning is developed when students are required to express ideas in their own words. The
techniques developed augment the arsenal of active learning approaches that are available to
instructors. Paying attention to detail also aligns with the development of rigor in the 4Rs post-
modernist curriculum development theory of (Doll Jr, 1993). Although one of the goals of the work
was to enhance the self-learning capacities of students, how many of the techniques used in this
unit students will use in future units could not be assessed. However, it is hoped that positive
dispositions such as paying attention to detail and engaging in a conversation with content will
continue. For instructors, the use of the approach promotes “bridg[ing] the gap between what we
know about learning and how we design and teach courses” (Ambrose, Bridges, DiPietro, Lovett, &
Norman, 2010). By observing student responses, staff learn “about how learning works”.

Conclusion
The paper showed how generalising the notation of text representation enabled the use of
ethnographic principles to promote the understanding of complex texts and learning the “inner
logic” of subjects. The results suggest that the approach can be a valuable complement to other
forms of teaching. Through a series of simple exercises that can be used across general subject
domains, understanding complex and advanced material can be improved. The focus of this paper
has been on analysis for understanding. However, ethnographic principles can also be used to
develop skills for writing and the creation of new ideas and knowledge. These activities invoke
more of the upper levels of Bloom’s taxonomy. Many of the tasks described above can assist with
the creative aspects of learning. Additional tasks described in (Rosenwasser & Stephen, 2019) can
be used and adapted to promote such ‘writing’ (in the general sense, e.g., mathematical creativity).
We refer readers to (Rosenwasser & Stephen, 2019), due to space limitations.

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Appendix
Extract:

Sample response:
Repetitions: π-system, family, subset, Ω, Dynkin system, , Ω\A, ∩, ∪, ∈, subset, interval, set, An, property, ↑
Strands: set operation (∩, ∪,), intersection; set of subsets, family; map measure
Binaries: union/intersection; set/member of set; Ω (sample space)/subset; n (current member) (n=1) next member
Rank: 1. An ↑ A 2. I is closed under intersections 3. Interval [a,b)
Reason for ranking
1. It is most important since it shows that limits of sets are in the sigma algebra.
2. The closure is important in that the operation preserves the property.
3. Intervals are a good example of families of a subset.
Explanation The example shows that events on the real line can be constructed from simple sets such as intervals.

Proceedings of AAEE 2022 Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia, Copyright © Rein Vesilo, 2022