In respect to the CF/RIC Innovation project, elementary school teacher Kristen is interested to learn about the perceptions of the TC’s in relation to literacy instruction. An avid reader, Kristen describes that literacy is her passion. She enjoys mathematic but prefers the excitement that literacy instruction can elicit in children. She believes that students should engage with a broad range of genres and text with a focus of promoting students to enjoy reading and be life long readers. With this frame, Kristen wonders how the pre-service teachers are interpreting the literacy instruction they are seeing in action in the CF classrooms. Taking it one step further, Kristen also considers what connections that the TC are making between the practices they have been taught to use to teach literacy and the actual practices that they are observing being used in the CF classrooms. In her own work, Kristen has experienced disconnect between the literacy practices that she has been taught to teach students literacy and the one’s that her district mandates that she uses to teach literacy. The district literacy programs are over standardized, limiting students to a few text verses giving them the experience of a broad range of genres and literature. Children are not given a choice of what to read and many experience challenges such as low motivation and not wanting to read as a result of this program. Understanding that the CF/RIC Innovation Lab is collaboration between CF and RIC, Kristen wonders what literacy practices the TC’s are instructed to use. CF school district serves a population that is similar to the population of student that Kristen also works with. She is aware that there is a variety of voices in this collaboration including the superintendents, principals, RIC faculty, TC’s and students. Each participate brings their own perceptions and philosophies, both personal and professional, that influence the decisions that are made about literacy instruction and how it will be implemented in CF. Kristen is interested in engaging with the data to identify these different perceptions as well. The biggest "aha" that I learned is that you need to be careful not to "fill in the blanks" with your own information. While your ideas and information can be interwoven into the piece, it is important to consider what you have been told by your interviewer. I have known Kristen for a year now and we have had many conversations about literacy. As I was writing, I was definitely influenced by prior conversations and knowledge about her perspectives of literacy.
I had an advantage because Brittany was a new participant. Yet I had still reflected on some content about CF/Innovation Lab that was discussed in class and it may have influenced my perceptions/questions. But I think that is OK as her answers provided clarification to some information already conceived. I also learned about other aspects/persons involved in the project.
I was surprised to find out that Brittany was only 23 years old. As she spoke and reported on her involvement with Innovation Lab, I had to inquire again about her age. She reported early involvement with the CF/ Innovation Lab. She had been an undergraduate student in Julie’s class. I noted her strong personal connection with Julie: first, she said she was close to her, then she stated that Julie had asked her to do research for the project. Brittany was enthusiastic about the program. She had detailed information about a recent grant that resulted in new hires for the program. The goal of the grant would facilitate expansion for a STEM component. She also mentioned the recent birthday celebration at Alger Hall. When following up about the early phases of the program, she described the research that she completed for Julie. Brittany had evaluated equities for the involved participants in order to assure that both voices would be heard. I thought that was an incredible opportunity and that she was valued and trusted in this role. Again, she appeared beyond her 23 years of age. At that point I recalled a conversation Julie had in class about the difficulties obtaining grant money with qualitative research. I mentioned this to Brittany and she basically acknowledge my comment. I asked Brittany what her hopes were for the program. She felt confident about this partnership. She said “URI had tried this type of partnership and failed.” It was at this point, she described this partnership as “unique and one of a kind”. When asking about the future, she simply stated that her wish is that the program remains “sustainable”. She feels this new grant will facilitate expansion and sustainability. Later I asked her to clarify the new hires’ credentials and roles. …The End
The process involved listening and repeating. We talked about this in class. However I would add that I checked my recording and rechecked my notes. There was pause time. There was reflection and confirmation of information. There was a recursive manner to the dialogue. There were extension questions for elaboration on specific topics. I found myself going back to topics that seemed to be more personal, i.e. where enthusiasm was noted and inflection observed in voice. The product was a piece that seemed to reveal beliefs/surprises about Brittany’s character as related to her relations with a professor/coordinator/friend and a mutual cause, the CF/ Innovation Lab.
Nice job Patty! I found your post to be easily read and engaging. It is interesting to see that Brittany has had previous experience and makes me wonder about her voice in this project. Would she consider herself on the "inside" having some knowledge and experience about the onset of the project? I appreciated your reflection of "going back to topics that seemed more personal". It's the human interest story that we are seeking and I think why qualitative research is critical to understanding the whole picture of a situation.
Amy would like to examine the teacher candidate blogs for their perspectives about gender and learning. She wants to know if the mention of gender learning in the blogs is a direct observation or concern that the teacher candidate(s) chose to write about, or if it acts like a side story or an unconscious mention in their blogs. As a mother of two girls, Amy takes ownership of her previous ideas about gender and learning. The historical background of girls having fewer opportunities to succeed in math and science were part of her decision to send her girls to an all-girls high school so they could become confident and competent as learners. Similarly, Amy would like to review the narrative blogs to see if there are themes of the traditional/historical perspectives about gender and learning and what, if anything was happening in the classrooms for both boys and girls to become confident and competent as learners. In this process, Julie asked us to stop and freeze and name what we were doing. This was helpful to begin to understand narrative inquiry. We had just begun to make meaning of our interviews, but had to ask clarifying questions of one another because we both felt we had gaps in our understanding. In this way, I can see how narrative inquiry becomes co-constructed by both the narrative inquirer and the participant. Clandinin (2006) wrote “These negotiations occur moment by moment, within each encounter, sometimes in ways that we are not awake to. These negotiations also occur in intentional wide awake ways as we work with our participants throughout the inquiry (p.47). As I wrote this I remembered how Julie asked us to stop and freeze to write down and name what we were doing. I realize that Amy and I asking quick clarifying questions of one another would have been one of the negotiations we were not “awake to” had we not been asked to stop and name what we were doing in the narrative inquiry process.
Yes, I agree with your choice of quotes Kristen. The negotiations are moment by moment. When Julie asked us to "freeze" and name what we were doing, it was an awkward pause because our moment was stopped. It allowed us to identify how important role that the back and forth conversation plays in the data gathering. Additionally, we did require clarification from each other which created the opportunity for co-construction.
Seongth believes that Rhode Island College and Central Falls High School are trying to build a relationship to improve education, a challenging goal that will take a long time. Together they are hoping to effect change for the students of Central Falls, whom she believes the program is intended to most benefit. In her view, Central Falls has more to gain from this relationship as they initiated the program and wonders what will happen there once the program ends.
Narratives are stories that allow us to make sense of our experiences. Narrative inquirers tell the stories of others but may also live among the participants and become part of the story. In the process, narrative inquirers shape the story and are shaped by the story. As a methodology, narrative inquiry has three dimensions-the personal and the social (interaction), the past, present and future (continuity) and place (situation). The interaction between Vera, Josh and Kristi demonstrated the relational nature of this type of inquiry. Their narrative was built around the idea of curriculum as a ‘course of life’. Kristi viewed Josh’s work as a failure to understand the concept of community, as outlined in the provincial view of the curriculum. Vera did not simply document and record Kristi’s response, rather she challenged this provincial view of curriculum by seeing the value in Josh’s work. In doing so, she had a positive impact on Josh by validating his experiences and recognizing that he had captured his view of community in his photos of his family. Rebecca Akin demonstrates the value of narratives in understanding our role as teachers. Teaching is often overwhelming, especially for new teachers. In the process of writing narratives we can reflect on the day, restore order and work out preventatives or solutions to our daily challenges. I am certain that the process also made her more observant in the class as she anticipated writing about this at a later time. I find that in the classroom, I have my own objectives, and that in focusing on these I may miss an opportunity to address or engage a student. This practice of careful observation leading to reflection through narration would make me more effective in the classroom. The power of personal narrative was evident in the critical analysis article. Soutu-Manning described how everyday narratives inform and influence institutional narratives. But personal narratives are coopted by politicians for political gain when politicians use personal narratives to convey their agenda. This is an effective political strategy because it is harder “to challenge ideology disguised in narrative forms” (Soutu-Manning, 2012, 165) as was evident in the example of Elena in Brazil, who is response to hearing about the lower than promised minimum wage increase repeated verbatim the words put forth by the government. The use of narrative in this instance led her to passively accept the situation. Situations such as these call for a critical examination of who stands to gain from such use of narratives.
I started to ask what Paula knows about the CF/RIC innovation lab program. Her understanding as an insider, a math teacher at CF high school, was that this program was initiated by the superintendent of CF to look for bringing new perspectives to education in CF, and inviting some people to solve the problems that CF schools faced. Also teacher candidates of RIC would benefit from experiences in real school settings that gives them perspectives on where and what they would like to teach in the future etc. As a follow-up from our conversation, I revisited and tried to confirm what I understood. “Did you mean that teacher candidates learned for themselves to contribute their knowledge to education at CF school?” Paula responded that it wasn’t necessarily direct impact but bringing out what they learned as experience, and observing literacy practice will be beneficial to them just by knowing what it has been done or not done in classroom. So I asked, “What CF schools can get out of this program?” She told me having resource such as expertise from a good college is a kind of investing in schools, and improving the way of practice is another resource for school. When I asked what we can envision of the program in the future, she said it can benefit both school itself (CF) and teacher candidates (RIC) and great emphasis will still place on the literacy practice from her understanding. After the contact is done, she is expecting the initiatives of new literacy strategy and implementation in classroom. I found there were some evidences of the three dimensions of the metaphoric narrative inquiry space (interaction, continuity, and place) in our conversation but I would like to attend to the interaction of teacher candidates and teachers more (through data) so that I begin to understand how this program could be seen as a part of lives of people (Clandinin, 2006).
In respect to the CF/RIC Innovation project, elementary school teacher Kristen is interested to learn about the perceptions of the TC’s in relation to literacy instruction. An avid reader, Kristen describes that literacy is her passion. She enjoys mathematic but prefers the excitement that literacy instruction can elicit in children. She believes that students should engage with a broad range of genres and text with a focus of promoting students to enjoy reading and be life long readers.
ReplyDeleteWith this frame, Kristen wonders how the pre-service teachers are interpreting the literacy instruction they are seeing in action in the CF classrooms. Taking it one step further, Kristen also considers what connections that the TC are making between the practices they have been taught to use to teach literacy and the actual practices that they are observing being used in the CF classrooms.
In her own work, Kristen has experienced disconnect between the literacy practices that she has been taught to teach students literacy and the one’s that her district mandates that she uses to teach literacy. The district literacy programs are over standardized, limiting students to a few text verses giving them the experience of a broad range of genres and literature. Children are not given a choice of what to read and many experience challenges such as low motivation and not wanting to read as a result of this program.
Understanding that the CF/RIC Innovation Lab is collaboration between CF and RIC, Kristen wonders what literacy practices the TC’s are instructed to use. CF school district serves a population that is similar to the population of student that Kristen also works with. She is aware that there is a variety of voices in this collaboration including the superintendents, principals, RIC faculty, TC’s and students. Each participate brings their own perceptions and philosophies, both personal and professional, that influence the decisions that are made about literacy instruction and how it will be implemented in CF. Kristen is interested in engaging with the data to identify these different perceptions as well.
The biggest "aha" that I learned is that you need to be careful not to "fill in the blanks" with your own information. While your ideas and information can be interwoven into the piece, it is important to consider what you have been told by your interviewer. I have known Kristen for a year now and we have had many conversations about literacy. As I was writing, I was definitely influenced by prior conversations and knowledge about her perspectives of literacy.
I had an advantage because Brittany was a new participant. Yet I had still reflected on some content about CF/Innovation Lab that was discussed in class and it may have influenced my perceptions/questions. But I think that is OK as her answers provided clarification to some information already conceived. I also learned about other aspects/persons involved in the project.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI was surprised to find out that Brittany was only 23 years old. As she spoke and reported on her involvement with Innovation Lab, I had to inquire again about her age. She reported early involvement with the CF/ Innovation Lab. She had been an undergraduate student in Julie’s class. I noted her strong personal connection with Julie: first, she said she was close to her, then she stated that Julie had asked her to do research for the project. Brittany was enthusiastic about the program. She had detailed information about a recent grant that resulted in new hires for the program. The goal of the grant would facilitate expansion for a STEM component. She also mentioned the recent birthday celebration at Alger Hall. When following up about the early phases of the program, she described the research that she completed for Julie. Brittany had evaluated equities for the involved participants in order to assure that both voices would be heard. I thought that was an incredible opportunity and that she was valued and trusted in this role. Again, she appeared beyond her 23 years of age. At that point I recalled a conversation Julie had in class about the difficulties obtaining grant money with qualitative research. I mentioned this to Brittany and she basically acknowledge my comment. I asked Brittany what her hopes were for the program. She felt confident about this partnership. She said “URI had tried this type of partnership and failed.” It was at this point, she described this partnership as “unique and one of a kind”. When asking about the future, she simply stated that her wish is that the program remains “sustainable”. She feels this new grant will facilitate expansion and sustainability. Later I asked her to clarify the new hires’ credentials and roles. …The End
ReplyDeleteThe process involved listening and repeating. We talked about this in class. However I would add that I checked my recording and rechecked my notes. There was pause time. There was reflection and confirmation of information. There was a recursive manner to the dialogue. There were extension questions for elaboration on specific topics. I found myself going back to topics that seemed to be more personal, i.e. where enthusiasm was noted and inflection observed in voice. The product was a piece that seemed to reveal beliefs/surprises about Brittany’s character as related to her relations with a professor/coordinator/friend and a mutual cause, the CF/ Innovation Lab.
Nice job Patty! I found your post to be easily read and engaging. It is interesting to see that Brittany has had previous experience and makes me wonder about her voice in this project. Would she consider herself on the "inside" having some knowledge and experience about the onset of the project?
DeleteI appreciated your reflection of "going back to topics that seemed more personal". It's the human interest story that we are seeking and I think why qualitative research is critical to understanding the whole picture of a situation.
Amy would like to examine the teacher candidate blogs for their perspectives about gender and learning. She wants to know if the mention of gender learning in the blogs is a direct observation or concern that the teacher candidate(s) chose to write about, or if it acts like a side story or an unconscious mention in their blogs. As a mother of two girls, Amy takes ownership of her previous ideas about gender and learning. The historical background of girls having fewer opportunities to succeed in math and science were part of her decision to send her girls to an all-girls high school so they could become confident and competent as learners. Similarly, Amy would like to review the narrative blogs to see if there are themes of the traditional/historical perspectives about gender and learning and what, if anything was happening in the classrooms for both boys and girls to become confident and competent as learners.
ReplyDeleteIn this process, Julie asked us to stop and freeze and name what we were doing. This was helpful to begin to understand narrative inquiry. We had just begun to make meaning of our interviews, but had to ask clarifying questions of one another because we both felt we had gaps in our understanding. In this way, I can see how narrative inquiry becomes co-constructed by both the narrative inquirer and the participant. Clandinin (2006) wrote “These negotiations occur moment by moment, within each encounter, sometimes in ways that we are not awake to. These negotiations also occur in intentional wide awake ways as we work with our participants throughout the inquiry (p.47). As I wrote this I remembered how Julie asked us to stop and freeze to write down and name what we were doing. I realize that Amy and I asking quick clarifying questions of one another would have been one of the negotiations we were not “awake to” had we not been asked to stop and name what we were doing in the narrative inquiry process.
Yes, I agree with your choice of quotes Kristen. The negotiations are moment by moment. When Julie asked us to "freeze" and name what we were doing, it was an awkward pause because our moment was stopped. It allowed us to identify how important role that the back and forth conversation plays in the data gathering. Additionally, we did require clarification from each other which created the opportunity for co-construction.
ReplyDeleteSeongth believes that Rhode Island College and Central Falls High School are trying to build a relationship to improve education, a challenging goal that will take a long time. Together they are hoping to effect change for the students of Central Falls, whom she believes the program is intended to most benefit. In her view, Central Falls has more to gain from this relationship as they initiated the program and wonders what will happen there once the program ends.
ReplyDeleteNarratives are stories that allow us to make sense of our experiences. Narrative inquirers tell the stories of others but may also live among the participants and become part of the story. In the process, narrative inquirers shape the story and are shaped by the story.
ReplyDeleteAs a methodology, narrative inquiry has three dimensions-the personal and the social (interaction), the past, present and future (continuity) and place (situation). The interaction between Vera, Josh and Kristi demonstrated the relational nature of this type of inquiry. Their narrative was built around the idea of curriculum as a ‘course of life’. Kristi viewed Josh’s work as a failure to understand the concept of community, as outlined in the provincial view of the curriculum. Vera did not simply document and record Kristi’s response, rather she challenged this provincial view of curriculum by seeing the value in Josh’s work. In doing so, she had a positive impact on Josh by validating his experiences and recognizing that he had captured his view of community in his photos of his family.
Rebecca Akin demonstrates the value of narratives in understanding our role as teachers. Teaching is often overwhelming, especially for new teachers. In the process of writing narratives we can reflect on the day, restore order and work out preventatives or solutions to our daily challenges. I am certain that the process also made her more observant in the class as she anticipated writing about this at a later time. I find that in the classroom, I have my own objectives, and that in focusing on these I may miss an opportunity to address or engage a student. This practice of careful observation leading to reflection through narration would make me more effective in the classroom.
The power of personal narrative was evident in the critical analysis article. Soutu-Manning described how everyday narratives inform and influence institutional narratives. But personal narratives are coopted by politicians for political gain when politicians use personal narratives to convey their agenda. This is an effective political strategy because it is harder “to challenge ideology disguised in narrative forms” (Soutu-Manning, 2012, 165) as was evident in the example of Elena in Brazil, who is response to hearing about the lower than promised minimum wage increase repeated verbatim the words put forth by the government. The use of narrative in this instance led her to passively accept the situation. Situations such as these call for a critical examination of who stands to gain from such use of narratives.
I started to ask what Paula knows about the CF/RIC innovation lab program. Her understanding as an insider, a math teacher at CF high school, was that this program was initiated by the superintendent of CF to look for bringing new perspectives to education in CF, and inviting some people to solve the problems that CF schools faced. Also teacher candidates of RIC would benefit from experiences in real school settings that gives them perspectives on where and what they would like to teach in the future etc.
ReplyDeleteAs a follow-up from our conversation, I revisited and tried to confirm what I understood. “Did you mean that teacher candidates learned for themselves to contribute their knowledge to education at CF school?” Paula responded that it wasn’t necessarily direct impact but bringing out what they learned as experience, and observing literacy practice will be beneficial to them just by knowing what it has been done or not done in classroom. So I asked, “What CF schools can get out of this program?” She told me having resource such as expertise from a good college is a kind of investing in schools, and improving the way of practice is another resource for school. When I asked what we can envision of the program in the future, she said it can benefit both school itself (CF) and teacher candidates (RIC) and great emphasis will still place on the literacy practice from her understanding. After the contact is done, she is expecting the initiatives of new literacy strategy and implementation in classroom.
I found there were some evidences of the three dimensions of the metaphoric narrative inquiry space (interaction, continuity, and place) in our conversation but I would like to attend to the interaction of teacher candidates and teachers more (through data) so that I begin to understand how this program could be seen as a part of lives of people (Clandinin, 2006).