The Penelope-project and the philosophy of ‘meanwhile’. Poetic reason and hermeneutic approach to build an action research for learning and thinking between given-sense and sense-giving

Abstract Introduction. This proposal, focusing on reflexive reasearch tools in and starting from the field of a critical, dialectics and problematic pedagogy, wants to let philosophy of education take the role of hermeneutic analysis, interpretation and interconnective inquiry. This approach becomes a form of dialectic, reflexing and narrative method (Connelly & Clandinin, 1986). This work reports findings from an Action Research project carried out in the context of an Education Philosophy undergraduate course. An online narrative learning environment – called Penelope– was designed and developed by the author of this paper and a collegue of her, referring to the idea of the plot of the Greek myth as a method of construction of meaning. Method. Students were allowed to experiment an alternative way of participating to class and sustaining the final examination: they were provided with a web application with a public repository of concepts in the form of a large mosaic of thumbnails. Results. A story/film production became a technique for constructing and eliciting meanings: students could contribute to the entire archive by adding personal ideas and negotiated objects. This method significantly increased reflexivity and critical thinking of the participants, not only about contents but primarily about learning itself, about individual methods of thinking