What is your revised research question? Talk about
your process in developing it, and whether you would name it as constructivist,
critical, or participatory.
Tuesday 5/20 As I listened to the conversation between Julie and Janet I was interested when Julie said she was “really interested in what happened for the teacher candidates.” I began to think what happened for the teacher candidates thoughts about literacy instruction in the content areas. When we left Tuesday night I had written down in my notebook “what did the teacher candidates notices about literacy practices in the content area classrooms? Observe? Taught? Practices? Thoughts?”
Thursday 5/22
We spent some time writing in our notebooks before sharing our teams. My notes consisted of the following “messiness”
How we the undergraduates observing literacy practices in the content areas? What aligned? What conflicted? In what ways they feel they were prepared to make observations? Did they have a specific lens for their observations of literacy instruction? Now what? What came out of these observations? Discussions? Did they speak up? Did they see things that felt like “Wow that was awesome!” or “Um that wasn’t quite right.” How did their observations continue to shape their learnings/understandings about literacy instruction? Did they develop new practices as a result of their observations? (** Later Julie said we would have needed lesson plan data to know this)
Conversation with Julie and Patty
As I shared my notes (as above) Julie mentioned that I am seeing this through a personal lens as I remembering my own experiences as a teacher candidate. I need to name that is coming from this lens as a more like a colleague almost to these students. I have a personal interest about the voice the teacher candidates developed as a result of their observations of literacy practices because that is how I ended up in this PhD program I developed a voice as a result of the literacy instructional practices I was observing.
Taking the Question to the Drawing Board with Julie and Patty
I wrote “How did the teacher candidate observations in the classroom align with rhier understandings of practice with literacy instruction? Julie “ I don’t think that is really what you are interested in…try it again.” I wrote “What was going on when they walked in? Reactions?” Julie – “But don’t let the literacy piece go.” We discussed this for a while before arriving at a new question…
How did teacher candidates make meaning of literacy practices in the content classrooms?
Julie “Is this constructivist or critical? Kristin “Constructivist” Julie “How can you make it critical? After thinking for a while and not wanting to go immediately to the article by Guba and Lincoln (2008) to look at chart 8.3 I spent some time thinking about what was the critical piece and went back to the idea of teacher candidates developing a critical voice about literacy practices.
What is the voice of teacher candidates around literacy practices?
First of all, I applaud you on your note taking abilities. Secondly, I think making sense of your question based on your personal view is good practice. You seem to have stayed on course with your inquiry adding a critical voice. Finally, I am glad you are pursuing your personal interest with such conviction.
Having a framework makes me understand the content much easier but creating right research questions based on the framework is always challenging. Because I often found that author’s stance is different than what the research data represent in the research papers.
My research question is: In what ways did the teacher candidates describe gender issues with the students?
My process for this question was considering my personal experience as mother of two daughters who attended an all girls school. In their school, there was a strong focus on building both the confidence and academic skills of girls so that they could have careers in a field that was both personally satisfying and could make a difference in the lives of people. High school is a critical time in the social emotional development of our young adults and therefore, the culture should promote experiences for both young men and young woman to learn the skills and confidence needed to engage in their communities as adults. Understanding this concept is important for new teacher candidates who will be interacting with young adults in the schools. Reflecting on the idea that teacher candidates would be educated with in the school culture, made me consider their awareness of the gender issues within the school. This question is reflective of critical theory because the data will be used to create a historical reality, one in which I, the researcher, was not part of but rather an outside observer. Control of the information is with the researcher. The data will be looked at to discover the similarities of the teacher candidates perspectives in hopes of shedding light on the issues of gender that may be present in the CF ELA classrooms.
I can relate with you as a special educator and as a parent. Because of the nature of special education, we are constantly adapting, accommodating and modifying. Similarly, my research focus has changed/adapted with new projects. I came into this program thinking I wanted to research social skills and then modified my thinking when I became concerned with my sons' transition to college. There are trends in how we examine research that is personally connected. I hope that you are able to shed light on these issues.
I agree with Pat regarding the importance of personal connection in research. Cook(2009) in her article articulated situating research in participatory engagement as an action research approach that knowledge built without the active participation of researchers can only be partial knowledge (Somekh, 2002, p.90). She stated, “If we accept that we are agents who act in the world on the basis of our own sense making, and that human community involves mutual sense-making” (Cook, 2009, p.28). After three years of wandering over the many topics, I would not be surprised that I have settled on the topic that means personally a lot to me.
Since reading assignments and completing a revised paradigm visual, I have revised my research question. The process involved reflection and self-questioning. The reflection involved visiting values, experience, and background. I also reflected on theoretical frameworks that I perhaps overlooked and not considered. In this revision, I am espousing critical theory. I am interested in historical influences and political agendas that shape behaviors. In the case of Central Falls, there is activity that is potentially empowering. I am curious about two groups, teacher candidates and faculty, and the voices enacted. In my last question, I was too broad and was working under different paradigms. I want to understand events but more importantly I believe historical insight and revision will inform and stimulate action. Research question: How has this field experience, given recent historical and political attention, shaped teacher candidates and faculty practices? This question addresses practices possibly shaped by historical and political influences. I feel that the question posed has a critical perspective as history is revisited and corresponded to practice. The goal is to give voice resulting in change and action.
The historical and political agendas are certainly an interesting topic to explore in the CF HS. I wonder how aware the students in the fieldwork are about the historical influences. Also what they learn from the faculty practices about the historical and political influences. I am interested to hear more about your topic!
I'm wondering if we have the data to show if teacher candidate practices were shaped? possibly their views or their beliefs? But as we said earlier, we didn't collect lesson plans. Perhaps there is data on the lessons taught by the T.C. to see if T.C. practices were shaped? They aren't quite "practicing" teachers. I remember you were interested in the Pre/Mid/Post surveys of the faculty? Maybe you could look more in-depth at their reflective practices.
My approach to the question at first was inquiring what I (as a researcher) would like to know about data. So I misled the research questions to the procedural questions: What did teacher candidates observe in the classroom? Did they see the environment, students’ behavior, teachers’ instructional style, teaching contents, classroom management, interactions between teachers and students, among students, or among teachers? Then, I started to question, “How did the teacher candidates make meanings out of what they see?”, and wondered whether there was any progressive process (shift or evolution) of mind of teacher candidates. Finally, my research question was as follows: What are the changes of teacher candidates’ perception through the process? The teacher candidates might recognize and express variety of school climates such as political, physical, social, and academic dimensions. Finding out how they perceive and evolve their perception of those climates would be the process of co-constructing realities through a constructive perspective.
I like how you explained that this would be the process of constructing realities through a constructive perspective. Are you still planning to comb through the data before deciding which teacher perception(s) you might focus on? For example, mine is strictly how they perceived literacy instruction in the classroom. I think the lens of their changing perceptions might be too big, especially given our time constraints with the nature of the course.
You describe that the TC's may recognize and express a variety of school climates. I am wondering if the phrase " TC's perception of school climates" should be included in your question. I think this helps to narrow the perceptions to category of climate which can then be broken into the smaller categories that you mention. I like the ideas of understanding how the TC's perception changed related to the categories/topic areas you mention.
If candidates perceive a political agenda on behalf of the administration, how do they describe it?
I am thinking now that my question may be of greater interest to me, a first year teacher at Central Falls, rather than the teacher candidates. This shows how grounded our questions can be in our own experience as researchers rather than that of the participants. After all, the teacher candidates were there to observe literacy practices in the classroom. In hindsight, I ask myself how relevant is my question to their reason for being at the high school? In trying to name it as constructivist, critical or participatory I would have to have to go with critical theory. Why? I conceive of my question as one that seeks information on a situation that has little impact on the experience of the candidates themselves. This may prove to be untrue. My question also does not require them to consider constructed realities that may oppress them in any way, the aim of both constructivism and participatory research.
One of the things I came away with from our discussion on our research questions is that we can phrase them in such a way so as to yield responses of greater depth. (Unfortunately, I did not take down the question that led me to this realization).
Paula, I too am interested in the political/historical effects and took another spin with my question. I am viewing with a critical perspective lens. I am not sure of background and influences that might exist whereas you are part of that community. I wonder what data might inform.
Paula, I wondering if your question lies in the constructivist realm because you will have the "voice" of the students through their journals and conversations. The nature of the knowledge is looking at the collective ideas from the teacher candidates. The information is accumulated through a "vicarious experience" using the journals and conversation notes. While you are not directly with the teacher candidates, I am wondering if you still can have a "shared control" by the representation of the data.
The Process of Developing My Research Question
ReplyDeleteTuesday 5/20
As I listened to the conversation between Julie and Janet I was interested when Julie said she was “really interested in what happened for the teacher candidates.” I began to think what happened for the teacher candidates thoughts about literacy instruction in the content areas. When we left Tuesday night I had written down in my notebook “what did the teacher candidates notices about literacy practices in the content area classrooms? Observe? Taught? Practices? Thoughts?”
Thursday 5/22
We spent some time writing in our notebooks before sharing our teams. My notes consisted of the following “messiness”
How we the undergraduates observing literacy practices in the content areas?
What aligned?
What conflicted?
In what ways they feel they were prepared to make observations?
Did they have a specific lens for their observations of literacy instruction?
Now what? What came out of these observations? Discussions? Did they speak up? Did they see things that felt like “Wow that was awesome!” or “Um that wasn’t quite right.”
How did their observations continue to shape their learnings/understandings about literacy instruction?
Did they develop new practices as a result of their observations? (** Later Julie said we would have needed lesson plan data to know this)
Conversation with Julie and Patty
As I shared my notes (as above) Julie mentioned that I am seeing this through a personal lens as I remembering my own experiences as a teacher candidate. I need to name that is coming from this lens as a more like a colleague almost to these students. I have a personal interest about the voice the teacher candidates developed as a result of their observations of literacy practices because that is how I ended up in this PhD program I developed a voice as a result of the literacy instructional practices I was observing.
Taking the Question to the Drawing Board with Julie and Patty
I wrote “How did the teacher candidate observations in the classroom align with rhier understandings of practice with literacy instruction?
Julie “ I don’t think that is really what you are interested in…try it again.”
I wrote “What was going on when they walked in? Reactions?”
Julie – “But don’t let the literacy piece go.”
We discussed this for a while before arriving at a new question…
How did teacher candidates make meaning of literacy practices in the content classrooms?
Julie “Is this constructivist or critical?
Kristin “Constructivist”
Julie “How can you make it critical?
After thinking for a while and not wanting to go immediately to the article by Guba and Lincoln (2008) to look at chart 8.3 I spent some time thinking about what was the critical piece and went back to the idea of teacher candidates developing a critical voice about literacy practices.
What is the voice of teacher candidates around literacy practices?
First of all, I applaud you on your note taking abilities. Secondly, I think making sense of your question based on your personal view is good practice. You seem to have stayed on course with your inquiry adding a critical voice. Finally, I am glad you are pursuing your personal interest with such conviction.
DeleteFrom the conversation recounted in Kristin's piece, I learned that asking the right question has the potential to yield far more meaningful responses.
DeleteHaving a framework makes me understand the content much easier but creating right research questions based on the framework is always challenging. Because I often found that author’s stance is different than what the research data represent in the research papers.
DeleteMy research question is: In what ways did the teacher candidates describe gender issues with the students?
ReplyDeleteMy process for this question was considering my personal experience as mother of two daughters who attended an all girls school. In their school, there was a strong focus on building both the confidence and academic skills of girls so that they could have careers in a field that was both personally satisfying and could make a difference in the lives of people.
High school is a critical time in the social emotional development of our young adults and therefore, the culture should promote experiences for both young men and young woman to learn the skills and confidence needed to engage in their communities as adults. Understanding this concept is important for new teacher candidates who will be interacting with young adults in the schools. Reflecting on the idea that teacher candidates would be educated with in the school culture, made me consider their awareness of the gender issues within the school.
This question is reflective of critical theory because the data will be used to create a historical reality, one in which I, the researcher, was not part of but rather an outside observer. Control of the information is with the researcher. The data will be looked at to discover the similarities of the teacher candidates perspectives in hopes of shedding light on the issues of gender that may be present in the CF ELA classrooms.
I can relate with you as a special educator and as a parent. Because of the nature of special education, we are constantly adapting, accommodating and modifying. Similarly, my research focus has changed/adapted with new projects. I came into this program thinking I wanted to research social skills and then modified my thinking when I became concerned with my sons' transition to college. There are trends in how we examine research that is personally connected. I hope that you are able to shed light on these issues.
DeleteI agree with Pat regarding the importance of personal connection in research. Cook(2009) in her article articulated situating research in participatory engagement as an action research approach that knowledge built without the active participation of researchers can only be partial knowledge (Somekh, 2002, p.90). She stated, “If we accept that we are agents who act in the world on the basis of our own sense making, and that human community involves mutual sense-making” (Cook, 2009, p.28).
DeleteAfter three years of wandering over the many topics, I would not be surprised that I have settled on the topic that means personally a lot to me.
Since reading assignments and completing a revised paradigm visual, I have revised my research question. The process involved reflection and self-questioning. The reflection involved visiting values, experience, and background. I also reflected on theoretical frameworks that I perhaps overlooked and not considered. In this revision, I am espousing critical theory.
ReplyDeleteI am interested in historical influences and political agendas that shape behaviors. In the case of Central Falls, there is activity that is potentially empowering. I am curious about two groups, teacher candidates and faculty, and the voices enacted. In my last question, I was too broad and was working under different paradigms. I want to understand events but more importantly I believe historical insight and revision will inform and stimulate action.
Research question:
How has this field experience, given recent historical and political attention, shaped teacher candidates and faculty practices?
This question addresses practices possibly shaped by historical and political influences. I feel that the question posed has a critical perspective as history is revisited and corresponded to practice. The goal is to give voice resulting in change and action.
The historical and political agendas are certainly an interesting topic to explore in the CF HS. I wonder how aware the students in the fieldwork are about the historical influences. Also what they learn from the faculty practices about the historical and political influences. I am interested to hear more about your topic!
DeleteI'm wondering if we have the data to show if teacher candidate practices were shaped? possibly their views or their beliefs? But as we said earlier, we didn't collect lesson plans. Perhaps there is data on the lessons taught by the T.C. to see if T.C. practices were shaped? They aren't quite "practicing" teachers.
DeleteI remember you were interested in the Pre/Mid/Post surveys of the faculty? Maybe you could look more in-depth at their reflective practices.
My approach to the question at first was inquiring what I (as a researcher) would like to know about data. So I misled the research questions to the procedural questions: What did teacher candidates observe in the classroom? Did they see the environment, students’ behavior, teachers’ instructional style, teaching contents, classroom management, interactions between teachers and students, among students, or among teachers?
ReplyDeleteThen, I started to question, “How did the teacher candidates make meanings out of what they see?”, and wondered whether there was any progressive process (shift or evolution) of mind of teacher candidates.
Finally, my research question was as follows: What are the changes of teacher candidates’ perception through the process?
The teacher candidates might recognize and express variety of school climates such as political, physical, social, and academic dimensions. Finding out how they perceive and evolve their perception of those climates would be the process of co-constructing realities through a constructive perspective.
I like how you explained that this would be the process of constructing realities through a constructive perspective. Are you still planning to comb through the data before deciding which teacher perception(s) you might focus on? For example, mine is strictly how they perceived literacy instruction in the classroom. I think the lens of their changing perceptions might be too big, especially given our time constraints with the nature of the course.
DeleteYou describe that the TC's may recognize and express a variety of school climates. I am wondering if the phrase " TC's perception of school climates" should be included in your question. I think this helps to narrow the perceptions to category of climate which can then be broken into the smaller categories that you mention. I like the ideas of understanding how the TC's perception changed related to the categories/topic areas you mention.
DeleteIf candidates perceive a political agenda on behalf of the administration, how do they describe it?
ReplyDeleteI am thinking now that my question may be of greater interest to me, a first year teacher at Central Falls, rather than the teacher candidates. This shows how grounded our questions can be in our own experience as researchers rather than that of the participants. After all, the teacher candidates were there to observe literacy practices in the classroom. In hindsight, I ask myself how relevant is my question to their reason for being at the high school? In trying to name it as constructivist, critical or participatory I would have to have to go with critical theory. Why? I conceive of my question as one that seeks information on a situation that has little impact on the experience of the candidates themselves. This may prove to be untrue. My question also does not require them to consider constructed realities that may oppress them in any way, the aim of both constructivism and participatory research.
One of the things I came away with from our discussion on our research questions is that we can phrase them in such a way so as to yield responses of greater depth. (Unfortunately, I did not take down the question that led me to this realization).
Paula, I too am interested in the political/historical effects and took another spin with my question. I am viewing with a critical perspective lens. I am not sure of background and influences that might exist whereas you are part of that community. I wonder what data might inform.
DeletePaula, I wondering if your question lies in the constructivist realm because you will have the "voice" of the students through their journals and conversations. The nature of the knowledge is looking at the collective ideas from the teacher candidates. The information is accumulated through a "vicarious experience" using the journals and conversation notes. While you are not directly with the teacher candidates, I am wondering if you still can have a "shared control" by the representation of the data.
ReplyDelete