The epistemography of urban and regional planning 912: appropriation in the face of resistance

Preparing citizens to address the complex problems inherent in cities requires our changing society to embrace a new kind of education. One way to train people to think about complex problems is to identify and study how professionals who think in those ways develop their epistemic frame. In this paper, we examine one of the ways urban planners master and appropriate relevant expertise through an ethnographic study of an urban planning practicum. Specifically, we use a new method called epistemic network analysis to look at presentation feedback sessions during two weeks of the practicum to explore emergent relationships between the teacher’s planning expertise and the students’ expertise. The results of this study indicate that epistemic network analysis offers a technique for analyzing the kinds of situated understanding that result from sociocultural learning and for observing the translation of pedagogy into practice in various types of learning environments. Major issue(s) addressed Measuring learning in a practicum environment can be challenging, and a growing body of research suggests that a new method called epistemic network analysis (Shaffer et al., 2009) can inform our understanding of how professionals-in-training learn in a practicum environment. According to Donald Schön (1983; 1987), a practicum environment is explicitly designed to forge the links between knowing and doing that are central to the reflective practice of a profession. In a practicum, novices are initiated into a professional community of practice and extend their knowledge through tackling complex problems. John Friedmann (1973) argues that our changing society requires a new kind of education where knowledge is extended and people are trained to think about and address the complex problems inherent in cities. One group of professionals tasked with addressing several of these challenges is urban planners, and studying how professional urban planners learn in a practicum environment can help us better understand how to train people to address complex problems. In this paper, we examine one of the ways urban planners develop expertise through an ethnographic study of Urban and Regional Planning (URPL) 912, a graduate level practicum at a large Midwestern university. The main goal of the study was to explore the learning processes experienced by the 20 graduate students in the practicum. The students were guided in the production of a site plan for a developing area by a planner with 34 years of planning experience. In the study, we used epistemic network analysis to examine the presentation feedback sessions during weeks four and five and to explore emergent relationships between the teacher’s planning expertise and the students’ expertise. Potential significance of the work The results of this study have the potential to influence the future design of professional practicum environments as well as the broader landscape of education.