Falk and Blumenreich ch. 5

The Research Design

Research design

1. Statement and explanation of your research question
1. The research question and sub questions
2. Overview of what you plan to do in your study
3. Context and background for your study
2. Methodology
1. A description of the study participants and setting
2. Data sources
3. Data collection plan
4. Data analysis plans
3. Time line for your study
4. References

The above comes from pages 60 and 61 of Chapter 5 in Falk and Blumenreich.  I added the list above so I can easily reference it in the future without having to dive back into the text.  I found this list very helpful in conceptualizing the entire project and the pieces that I need to focus on.  This list made me feel more confident in my ability to complete this project.  A twenty page paper seems daunting from the outset, but seeing the information that I will include, I think twenty pages might not be enough.

There is so much useful information in this chapter I don't even know where to start.  I'm hoping that this will be the set up of our research papers because I have already started taking this information in consideration while I refine my questions and narrow down my scope.  For example, I have narrowed down four sources of data to collect: interviews with the students, interviews with administration, field notes, and discipline reports.  The chart on page 67 will help me to align my data with my sub-questions.  The idea of creating a timeline on page 76 is crucial as well because I think we are all concerned about having enough time to both complete our research and complete our paper.  Those two are not mutually exclusive because we need to complete our research with enough time to write the meat of the paper, and sometimes I forget that fact.  When it comes down to it, our research is going to cover about a month to a month and a half depending on when we really get moving with the research.  I am also eager to begin the literature review so I can get an idea of how exactly to tackle my research.

ICE Panel Discussion

These two organizations, AMOR and SEAFN are working to eliminate issues that affect their communities, which are communities that represent many of our students.  Some of these issues such as family separation and deportation can affect many of our students and their families.  The interesting thing about these organizations is that they are very grassroots, growing out of a need that arose from these communities, and created by community members.  The cases that they are currently working on are "rapid response" cases directly related to the current political climate, and trying to help those in their communities in danger of deportation and family separation.

I am unsure of the legal status of the students in my class because it is not something that we monitor, and my district does not have a policy dealing with legal status.  However, I know that there are some students, or their families, that are at risk of deportation.  To me, as a teacher, it is my job to teach the students in front of me as best as I can.  That means supporting their content, language, and social/emotional needs.   Legal status is not a factor that I worry about when it comes to teaching these students because it is our job as teachers to provide the best education that we can and be as supportive as possible to all of our students.  However, I think as teachers we should reach out more to students and families to make sure that our classrooms and buildings are safe for all students regardless of legal status.  There is a stigma of discussing legal status for students and families because there is a fear of being reported and deported, but we need to find a way to address these issues without having to openly discuss immigration status.  Luckily as a Social Studies teacher, there are many areas that I can adapt my curriculum to discuss issues involving oppression and injustice, which can fold into discussion about current events.  This is more difficult for other subjects but not impossible.

Jones, ch. 3 and 4 with Research Questions

Jones Ch. 3

Allowing Our Wounds to Breathe

"With Brooke, I had resigned myself to the misguided possibility that she was just 'one of those students I wouldn't be able to reach.' But in reality, teachers reach all their students, just maybe not in the ways we plan or hope to expect." (Jones, p. 38)

This chapter focused on the emotional, empathetic, and human aspect of teaching, which tend to get lost in the minutia of the day to day operations and clerical work that we go through.  The quote above set the tone for the chapter, that this emotional and empathetic piece is just as important as any education that we are providing to our students.  I think all teachers, even I, have had those students that we just admit to not being able to reach.  When we get this thought into our minds we give up on these students and therefore forgive ourselves for any failure to reach or attempt to reach the student.  In my opinion, we cannot positively effect every student every year, but that does not excuse the inability to try.  I have been guilty of this myself, but this is also why the subject for my research will be the students that I otherwise would be giving up on.

It is hard to admit that there have been students almost every year that I have been a teacher that I have made the decision to give up on.  Brooke's story that the author tells is never finished, and I believe the reason for that is because what happened to Brooke doesn't matter in the scope of what the author was trying to make us understand.  When we make the choice to be there for our students, we can have that positive effect on our students, but when we make the choice to give up, we negatively effect our students.  I can only wonder how my actions have impacted the students that I have given up on and can only hope that I do not make these decisions again.

Jones Ch. 4

Las Fronteras: Crossing Borders to Transform Ourselves and Our Teaching

The transformation of Daphne Hall into the informed, empathetic, and active participant in the life of her student is one that many of us in the TESOL program have taken (at least part of the way).  Personally I have not experienced anything like the story that she described about her student Luzveya.  I have had many students who have come to this country for better lives and that have come here in difficult ways, but none that I know of have had the problems with Immigration that her student had.  It was interesting to see that she learned Spanish to better communicate with her students, but the major difference for me and many that I have spoken to in the TESOL program is that we deal with students who speak many different languages.  In my experience, I have had students who speak Spanish, French, Portuguese, Portuguese Creole, and Tagalog.  Learning all of these languages would be extremely difficult, but I do find ways to connect other than language in order to help my students.

Research Question

Question: How can classroom community affect student with behavioral disorders?

Sub-questions: 

1. What role do students and teachers have in fostering classroom community?
2. How can classroom community affect engagement and performance?
3. How does trauma play a role in the student experience?

Falk & Blumenreich, ch. 3; Jones ch. 2

Wonderings to Be Done

Falk & Blumenreich, ch. 3

"It is about learning about something that you really care about; about finding out the "how," "what," or "why" of something." (Falk and Blumenreich, p. 21)  This is the sentence that resonated with me the most in this chapter.  Teacher research is not simply about developing a hypothesis and trying to prove that hypothesis right or wrong as most research is conducted.  However, this also lends itself to many more questions.  For example, what is it exactly that I want to know about my students or my teaching practice?  I know that I want it to focus on behavior because I am having issues with behavior in the classroom.  But what is my exact goal?  Until I have that goal and I can figure out the why, it will be nearly impossible to come up with the research question.

There was mention in the reading of reading examples of teacher research and journaling about possible questions.   Journaling is easy to do and it is not overly time consuming, but I feel that I do better when I have concrete examples in front of me.  The examples on pages 29-33 were helpful, but I find that it is more productive for me when I have someone to discuss examples with and discuss the process.  I am hoping that we will have time in class to break down some examples of questions and then discuss possible research questions for ourselves.  I also appreciated the examples of sub-questions as there is no way that one question will be sufficient to complete our research, and I feel that it will give a focus for journaling as we can fit our observations, interviews, etc., on these sub-questions and categories that we have found to be crucial in answering our overall question.  A key piece to this project will be organization, and these sub-questions will be an important piece to help us stay organized throughout.

"You Just Got to Keep on Tryin'"

Jones ch. 2

While reading this chapter, I felt that Jennifer McCreight was fighting a very uphill battle with her student Mack.  There were clearly issues with Mack that were unidentified, and this is typical of a kindergarten classroom I'm sure.  Having students come in at a young age with very little to no school experience, it is impossible to have the workup on a student in the same way that we do in the secondary schools.  When we do get students with issues that are unidentified, we normally question how that was possible from the elementary schools.  So this chapter gave me a lot of respect for what elementary teachers have to struggle with on a daily and yearly basis.

However, what I found really interesting was the introspective nature of Jennifer's work with Mack.  she knew what she was trying to target, which was the small moments when Mack was able to display his own culture and knowledge in the classroom, and other small interactions between herself and and Mack.  When she was able to make identify these small interactions and debrief with herself about the results of these interactions, she was able to make small changes which boosted his confidence as a student and an individual.  This is the hope that I have for my own research.  I hope to make small changes in the way that I approach students and handle interactions in order to make a more positive and productive learning environment.  

Stock, ch. 3 and Rex & Schiller, ch. 1-5

Teacher Research as Storytelling

Stock discussed the importance of teacher research but recognized that the reason that it is not taken seriously is because of the nature of the research itself.  "One of the reasons that teachers' research has not been taken as seriously as I would argue it should be is that teachers customarily conduct and report research in anecdotal forms..." (Stock p. 98).  This quote stuck with me because as educators we recognize that each student is an individual and not every class or every student's experience can be applied to others.  Due to this, we tell stories that occurred in our practice, and these stories from our past experience can help us or our colleagues in future experiences.  These stories and anecdotes that we tell help us not only explain a situation that other teachers could experience, but also describe the context and circumstances surrounding the situation in order to give a full picture and not expect the same results.

When Stock discusses the practice of education, he states that, "the practice of education must begin and end in ordinary language and experience." (Stock, p. 101)  He elaborates on this by explaining that the exchanges and interactions between students need to be taken into account in order to influence teaching practice.  It is because of this that teacher research is conducted differently than other forms of research.  The discussions, conversations, and interactions that teachers have with students and vice versa are more crucial than any objective research that can be conducted.  This helped me understand the purpose of teacher research and frame it in a way that makes more sense.   Not having to ignore the human factor of teaching is crucial to completing this class.  One of my biggest concerns was that I would have to be strictly analytical and I was struggling with how to do that, but this is no longer a concern. 

Schiller Ch. 1-5

I found while reading the first chapter that the conversation with middle school colleagues was very reminiscent of conversations that I have overheard in my experience, and sometimes participated in.  The idea that professional development should come second and dealing with negative behaviors and discipline first is not uncommon.  No matter how tempting it is to be involved in this mindset, as Shiller explains, "by shifting the lens from student behaviors to teacher actions, more solutions appeared." (Schiller, p. 5).  This is why I want to focus on behavior issues in my classroom.  I realize that I am not always addressing behavior in a positive or productive way, and hopefully the research project will bring these issues to light and result in real change.

Falk & Blumenreich, ch. 1-2; and Jones ch. 1

While reading through Writing and Teaching to Change the World, I believe that an issue that I will encounter in this class can be found on page 5.  "For example, each of the authors positions herself to perceive unfairness, injustice, and openings for change, but the authors don't assume they know what they will find or what kind of change should take place in response." (Jones, 2014, p. 5)  My main difficulty will be to try to identify issues without determining what kinds of changes will be needed before the research is completed, or even started.  When dealing with issues in our classrooms, or issues that we or our loved ones deal with in everyday life, I feel that most people what to jump to a solution to try to fix the perceived injustices that we encounter.  However, forcing myself to take a step back and analyze the entire situation before jumping to conclusions will be important in actually fostering change for students.

Chapter 1 of The Power of Questions brought some familiar names in Piaget and Vygotsky which every undergrad education student has become well acquainted with, and Falk and Blumenreich covered the theoretical basis for classroom research.  The more engaging aspect of the chapter came on page 3 when they discussed that systematic investigation can be used to identify issues such as figuring out what to do with students "who disrupt your class," or "how to engage the parents of your students who just never seem to participate in anything", etc. (Falk & Blumenreich, 2005, p. 3)  This started to make me uneasy as deciding what I will focus my research on seems to be a nearly impossible task at this point.  It is very premature to begin thinking about that, but I know that within a few weeks we will be developing research questions.

I felt that the discussion in chapter 2 about research approaches and different paradigms helped to ease some of my worries about research and bias.  "Rather than attempting to control one's biases, a researcher who works within a hermeneutic paradigm instead tries to be upfront about his or her biases." (Falk & Blumenreich, 2005, p. 12)  I feel that this is the approach that I am eventually going to take because working with interpretation and analysis feels much more comfortable to me.  Of course this is going to be dependent on the subject of my research, but after reading that section, I felt much more comfortable that I would have a path forward that would not involve completely shedding the context of my current placement.  While reading these chapters helped me to understand what to expect for this class, they opened up many questions for me as well.