Methods for Dialoguing with the Algorithm: Autoethnography

This is the first section, Autoethnography, of the Methods Chapter for: Dialoguing with the Algorithm: An Autoethnographic Study of Midlife Voice, Uncertainty, and Teacher Identity in a ChatGPT Exchange.

by: Maria Lisak EdD (How to cite)

Autoethnography

Overview of Approach

This study adopts a layered autoethnographic methodology, drawing on a single stream of reflective material—AI dialogues, pedagogical notes, analytic journaling, and field-level observation—developed through sustained engagement over time. Each of the three inquiries in this research program (Lisak, 2025a, 2025b, and the current study) re-examines the same base material through a different conceptual lens, allowing key themes to surface, settle, and evolve across repeated analytic passes.

The first inquiry, Designing with AI: Reflective Inquiry (Lisak, 2025a), framed the dataset within practitioner research, focusing on the pedagogical design implications of AI use in EFL contexts. The second, Designing with AI in Precarious Times (Lisak, 2025b), re-read the same material through the lens of labor, precarity, and emotional endurance, reframing uncertainty as a methodological resource. This third study continues the recursive process, centering identity, relational labor, and pedagogical ethics in later life. I treat these three projects not as discrete studies but as linked phases in an evolving inquiry, in which AI functions as a discursive partner, and where identity, pedagogy, and ethics remain in continuous negotiation.

This approach is situated in dialogic autoethnography and reflective practitioner research, but with an emphasis on epistemic accountability: meaning-making is tracked over time and across engagements, revealing shifts in stance and voice through the ongoing relationship between researcher, technology, and context.

Table of Recursive Analysis across three studies:

Study

Analytical Lens

Key Focus

Primary Insights

Designing with AI (2025a)

Practitioner inquiry

Ethical AI integration

How to experiment with AI without abandoning care, context, reflection

Designing with AI in Precarious Times (2025b)

Theoretical/affective

Emotional labor, precarity

Temporal fatigue, institutional invisibility, "precarity-as-method"

Current study

Identity-focused

Professional becoming

Five moments of identity negotiation, "conscious cultural mediation"


Autoethnographic Orientation

Autoethnography positions the self as a site of layered meaning-making in relation to broader cultural and technological systems (Adams, Holman Jones, & Ellis, 2015; Ellis, Adams, & Bochner, 2011). Rather than memoir, it is the systematic analysis of personal experience to illuminate cultural processes. This project draws on poststructural and critical autoethnography (Boylorn & Orbe, 2020; Gannon, 2006), where uncertainty, fragmentation, and multiplicity are recognized as legitimate analytic modes.

Autoethnography is particularly suited to AI-mediated encounters, where identity is dialogically constituted. Following Bakhtin’s (2010) concept of heteroglossia, I treat my exchanges with ChatGPT as multi-voiced interactions in which professional, personal, and algorithmic voices intermingle. These conversations are not neutral—they reflect, refract, and sometimes distort my prompts, creating a dynamic site for identity negotiation.

This orientation enables the central analytic task of this study: identifying critical incidents (Tripp, 1993) where my professional identity was unsettled, affirmed, or reconstituted. Such incidents are read not merely as pedagogical tensions, but as moments of ontological transformation, where the teacher-self emerges through intra-action with the algorithm (Barad, 2007).

Ethical Considerations

Ethical practice in this work involved sustained reflexivity, transparency in representing both human and AI contributions, and acknowledgment of the recursive authorship that arises when outputs are shaped through human-AI collaboration.

For this paper, click here. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Portfolio for Maria Lisak, EdD

Welcome Maria H. Lisak, EdD's Portfolio -  Rooted in teaching, shaped by design, and guided by culture, my work bridges disciplines and invites deep connection. I design for transformation through authenticity, risk-taking, and reflection. I build frameworks that thrive in uncertainty and evolve with context. I create space for quiet thinkers, bold collaborators, and reluctant risk-takers to grow together. I cultivate learner ownership through guided freedom, shared goals, and mutual accountability. I bring structure and soul to suboptimal environments, using design as advocacy. I nurture learning as a meditative, collaborative, and cathartic adventure. I honor lived knowledge, emergent insight, and systems thinking as cornerstones of meaningful education. In my early years teaching English for Specific Purposes in South Korea, I walked into a classroom with no Wi-Fi, outdated textbooks, and learners who had been told they weren’t “language people.” Rather than accept the constrain...
Read more

Week 1: Thresholds + Intuition

Image
Week 1: Thresholds + Intuition Introduction This first week begins at the doorway — the space between what has been and what is coming. We enter not by force or intention, but by noticing. Thresholds are tender crossings: a pause, a flicker of light, the tremor before movement. You are invited to begin by lighting a candle and softening your gaze. Let your senses lead you — the scent of wax, the warmth of flame, the rhythm of your own breath. This week, we honor the wisdom that lives beneath words. Intuition is not a message to decode but a quiet current to lean toward. Each practice — candle gazing, body scanning, scent journaling — returns you to your inner compass. The affirmation, “I honor where I’ve been. I open to where I’m going,” anchors your awareness in both gratitude and possibility. Let this be a week of listening below the surface, of trusting what stirs gently in the half-light. Week 1 Practices  Candle Meditation Candle Video   Candle Gazing Worksheet Body scan...
Read more

Gaps and Opportunities in the South Korean Digital Content Creation Landscape

Gaps and Opportunities in the South Korean Digital Content Creation Landscape As the digital content creation industry in South Korea continues to expand—with the market projected to reach $2.69 billion by 2030 and growing at 15.9% annually—both the saturation of popular niches and the surging global demand for Korean cultural content create unprecedented opportunities for educators, students, and content creators alike. While many established South Korean content creators focus on language learning, travel, beauty, and lifestyle, significant gaps remain that present valuable opportunities for educational innovation and cultural bridge-building. This analysis explores seven notable gaps in the current South Korean digital content landscape, identifying areas where educators can develop innovative curricula, students can pursue meaningful research projects, and content creators can contribute to cross-cultural understanding. From interactive language learning that integrates cultural co...
Read more