Week 9: The Effects of Making Sense

When scientists find something totally new–like something alien–they start doing stuff to it to see what happens. Systematically, they are testing its causal properties. Eventually, this effect-to-cause reasoning gets at a pretty good explanation of[…]

Week 8: Into the Limelight

On April 25, I presented this “Making Sense” project as an interactive poster at an on campus poster exhibit. If I must be honest, my poster stole the show. Amidst walls of tiny text and[…]

Week 7: Color Gives Meaning

“This is so much fun! This is way more fun than sitting at my computer and writing.”–Color coding self The ball was just begging for some color. But in research, color is never for entertainment.[…]

Week 5: The Surface is Complete!

Woohoo! I’ve covered the entire surface of the ball with labels that I brainstormed from the literature, the dictionary, and readers. It’s now what I pictured it would become: a multifaceted concept-object! Let’s all pause and[…]

Week 4: An Interview

In a first-ever interview, accomplished flutist Emily Roberts asks how sense making relates to real life. We discuss how I came to wonder about sense making through my learning curve with interdisciplinary research, and then how Emily[…]

Week 3: Sense Making is…

Wow, lots of good thoughts from readers over the past week. I’m trying to digest them. Making a list is usually a good start when I’m confused, so here’s my list of candidate explanations so far.[…]

Week 2: What is meaning?

Thank you for commenting on my project and learning along with me! Your notes inspired new insights and those made it onto the ball this week, along with the insights from my ‘lexical analysis’ in[…]

Week 1.5: Using the Dictionary

Appreciative inquiry believes, “All the answers are in the room,” and I love appreciative inquiry. “Sense making” is a common, street-level idea, and it’s in the Dictionary on my computer! The Dictionary and Thesaurus entries on[…]

Week 1: The First Slice

Well, after work session 1, the ball looks exactly like I thought it would, leaving me wondering, “How will this be helpful?” It’s too early to throw in the towel, though. I did learn a[…]