Research Topic Proposal

Background or Position Statement:

            In a lot of classrooms, printed materials tend to blend into the surroundings and be forgotten by both teachers and students.  On the other hand, students are often very interested in observing how teachers make these materials and follow closely when things are drawn/written in front of them.  I’ve seen students point to schedules that have been drawn in front of them (when prompted by a question about their day) but I’ve never seen students point to preprinted materials in this way.  Further, students this young often lack confidence in their mark-making/representational skills.  I would like to introduce more opportunities for teacher modeling of mark-making tasks and more opportunities for students to practice mark making.  I would like to link these mark-making opportunities to the planning components of our lesson plans.  These planning components occur regularly in our curriculum as a means of preparing and transitioning students from one activity to another.  The regularity of these planning components would provide brief but frequent exposure to mark-making.  I also hope that the visualization process that goes along with these activities (representing the anticipated activity) will impact our students’ ability to focus and engage with the coming tasks.

Research Questions and sub questions:

            How does increased exposure to mark-making as a component of planning activities effect student engagement with planned tasks?

a)      Does observing a mark-making task as a part of planning increase student engagement with planned tasks?

b)      Does participating in a mark-making task as a part of planning increase student engagement with planned tasks?

c)       Does increased exposure to mark-making activities increase student comfort and/or satisfaction with mark-making activities?

Related Research:

            Key Literature Areas:  Research and documents pertaining to the Tools of the Mind curriculum.  Other related research, as yet to be determined.

            Key Terms to be Defined:   “mark-making task,” “planning activity,” “student engagement”

           

Permissions:

            I will need to receive permission from my national program and local staff to make small alterations to the curriculum that they provide.  I will need permission from school administration and classroom teachers to implement the curricular alterations and gather information about the students.  I will need permission from parents to include examples of student work and observations in my study documents.

Data Sources:

                1) Student work (drawings, transcriptions) – These would provide evidence of student planning and engagement with the proposed curricular adjustments

2) Taped/transcribed informal conversation with students (recall)—These would give further evidence of connections being made between planning strategies and classroom learning experiences

3) Interviews/surveys of teachers/tutors—These would provide a baseline and evaluation of change or lack thereof, in student behavior in the classroom

4) Interviews/surveys of parents—These would provide a baseline and evaluation of change or lack thereof, in student behavior in general. (Further, this might provide data about other possible effects of the treatment—like a general increase in interest in writing/drawing activities)

5) Pictures/video of classroom activity—These could be referred to for observations of student engagement with curricular adjustments and evidence of student learning and behavior changes

Methods and Analysis:

            Data collected will be collected from the sources listed above either in the form of anecdotal observations, numerical rating, or a mixture of the two.  I will attempt to create a broad picture of classroom behavior, rather than choosing individual representative children or describe each child individually (this is partly to avoid problems related to student attrition).  A baseline for behavior will be established in the early part of the study, prior to the application of my curricular modifications and data will be collected over the course of three months after modifications have been implemented with students providing work and teachers and tutors providing feedback from continuous observation.  Parents will also be surveyed at the close of the observation period to provide additional information about possible changes in student behavior.

           

Time Line: 

            Mid-November thru mid-December:  collect initial data to establish baseline

            Mid-December thru mid-January: (break in program curriculum)

            Mid-January thru mid-April: implement curriculum changes and collect data

            Mid-April thru mid-May: organize and interpret data; assemble findings

Possible Findings:

1)  I expect that my students will become more engaged with classroom activities as a result of the mark-making and visual planning strategies.

2)  I expect that my students will be more engaged by visual representations of planning that are produced in front of them than by preprinted versions already placed and used in the environment.

3)  I expect that my students will become more interested in mark-making activities (drawing, coloring, painting, and writing) as a result of increased mark-making activity demonstrations and opportunities for mark-marking included in daily routines.

Dissemination:

I am interested in sharing the findings with my program’s national offices and potentially with a wider audience through a journal article.  I would also consider creating a presentation and sharing my findings at a conference or other professional development gathering.

Budget:

The cost of notebooks to be used as journals in the curricular modification is the only cost anticipated (these have been provided by my program for other purposes in the past).  My program already owns and provides marker boards for other curricular activities and these could be used for the teacher-modeled mark-making activities.  Writing materials are already available in the classroom.

Research Translation of "From Dewey to No Child Left Behind: The Evolution and Devolution of Public Arts Education"

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Research Problem:  The article provides a historical synopsis of art education (and particularly in public schools in the state of Texas) from the early work of John Dewey (early 20^th century) to the present, post-NCLB era of testing and accountability.  The impacts of NCLB policies on the attention and resources devoted to art education are described and the theoretical value of art education is briefly addressed, providing context for the significance of the study’s subject.    The ‘Historical Overview’ section of the article defines social and theoretical developments in art education.   The article goes on to document the impact of these broader influences by charting the evolution of recent state-level legislation in Texas and its intended and actual impacts on arts education in that state.  Further, the paper positions Texas as a sort of bellwether for the United States as a whole by suggesting that Texas “became the educational policy model for the nation with the bipartisan reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act as No Child Left Behind.”

Literature Review:  Articles of recent historical scholarship (secondary) and contemporaneous state curriculum documents and national legislation and position statements (primary) are cited in the ‘Historical Overview’ section.  Interviews, correspondence, legislative documents and position statements are cited in the ‘Case Study’ section of the article.  Sources are relevant, current, and varied.

Research Questions/Hypotheses:  Although the article’s primary purpose is to construct a narrative around the impact of NCLB on arts education, the case study appended to that narrative attempts to demonstrate that “value conflicts” exist in the present state of legislative and curricular goals in Texas.  There is no experimental set of data to prove their hypothesis, but the authors make a convincing argument that such “value conflicts” do exist.

Data Source/Sampling: As noted above, there is no experimental set of data analyzed in this article, but the authors’ more intimate description of the forces at work in the shaping of Texas education policy does serve as an intriguing indicator for conflicts that may exist in the national debates on this topic, particularly since Texas served as a model for NCLB reforms.

Measurement Tools:  N/A

Methodology/Procedures:  Sources are cited extensively throughout the article.  If anything, the authors may betray an overreliance on sources that corroborate their own predetermined version of the narrative (particularly in the details provided by the Texas Coalition for Quality Arts Education lobbying group).  Also, a little more information related to the intrinsic value of art education might be warranted for a well-rounded argument (especially if the article were to be adapted for a publication less specialized than Arts Education Policy Review).

Results/Discussion:  The authors create cogent and convincing narratives supporting their belief that recent policy and legislative changes have had a negative impact on arts education.  Ultimately, they raise more questions than they answer regarding what is to be done in the current political and social climate and the article concludes with a lengthy argument against the prevailing tendency to overemphasize standardized test scores as the standard for measurements in the present educational debate.  It’s a conclusion that I agree with, but I’m left pondering what other versions of the narrative might look like.

Chapters 5 and 6

Chapter 5

Combine Data from Multiple Sources

-What other data might you gather to strengthen data you already have?

1) Student work (drawings, transcriptions) – These would provide evidence of student planning and engagement with the proposed curricular adjustments

2) Taped/transcribed informal conversation with students (recall)—These would give further evidence of connections being made between planning strategies and classroom learning experiences

3) Interviews/surveys of teachers/tutors—These would provide a baseline and evaluation of change or lack thereof, in student behavior in the classroom

4) Interviews/surveys of parents—These would provide a baseline and evaluation of change or lack thereof, in student behavior in general. (Further, this might provide data about other possible effects of the treatment—like a general increase in interest in writing/drawing activities)

5) Pictures/video of classroom activity—These could be referred to for observations of student engagement with curricular adjustments and evidence of student learning and behavior changes

-How might you collect it?

Student work could be photographed or collected directly.  Conversations could be taped directly into mobile phones or other electronic recording devices.  Interviews/group discussion could be conducted in correlation with preprinted surveys (maybe with numerical scales for responses—these might be especially helpful with parents who are often time crunched and less at ease describing student learning/behavior).  Picture/video could also be gathered using mobile phone or other devices.

-What kind of special permissions would you need to use the data?

I would need to obtain permissions from the national program that I work with, the coordinator of the preschool site I work with, the classroom teachers, and the students’ parents.

-If you could invent a data source that you don’t have, what would it be?  What’s the closest available substitute?

Probably the best data source that I don’t have would be an outside observer.  All the data sources that I’ve listed rely on people who would be familiar with me personally and the goals of my research.  The best alternative is probably to have a cross section of data sources that may be reviewed by people not intimately involved with the project.

Chapter 6

Search Archives

-I’m not sure that it has any special relevance for my project, but I acquired a bit of historical material from the preschool that I work at during a cleaning/reorganization event that my organization helped out with.  There were some photos and a notebook that they were going to throw out and I asked if I could have them.  The photos are crumbling but were once large, portrait-style professional photos at least 50 years old but probably older of two African American ladies in fine clothing.  The notebook is missing its covers and probably many pages.  I suspect that it belonged to a former teacher of the school.  On yellowing pages, in consistently meticulous script, it’s former owner catalogues various flower species with notes on their characteristics, poetic/literary references, and illustrations; notes on the history and procedures of the Girl Scouts; instructions and illustrations for craft projects; poetry; taxonomies for careers and musical instruments; and programs for school events/performances.

Quantitative Approaches

Collect data for:

-amount of time spent journaling

-number of journal pages completed

-amount of time spent at one center/task

-amount of time spent on planned task

Linguistic Approaches

-It would be difficult to apply a linguistic analysis to the contributions of my students as they are so young that linguistic quirks/differences would be hard to attribute to anything other than developmental differences (though this could potentially be done by someone with more training/expertise as it’s possible to gauge differences in language use between our ESL students and our native speakers).

-On the other hand, it would be worthwhile to study and try to standardize the instructional language being used with the students as we implement the journaling/visual thinking strategies in the classroom.

Ethnographic Approaches

-I suppose that my position implementing an outside program in another teacher’s classroom lends itself well to this sort of approach, but I’m not sure how it will contribute to my own study.  I can report that the art that is presently up (which reflects the norm in the classroom) is holiday based and asks the students to replicate a norm created by the teachers.  The markers/crayons are kept on a shelf above the children’s reach in the classroom art area.  Art/drawing activities are teacher directed.  I’ve never seen these materials made available during a ‘free play’ time during the normal classroom day.

Cultural Critique

-I won’t go too much into this method because I’m not sure how it could be applied to my study, but there are certainly elements of my program that would be worth examining under some of the lenses represented by cultural critique.  I often feel some discomfort in considering the way my program requires the teachers and administrators of the schools that we serve to surrender some control of their classrooms, curricular goals, and methodologies to the dictates of our national office.  This is done for the benefit of the children served by our schools but there is a subtext that suggests that one set of ideas/methods is better than another and a question of who’s values are being served.

notes for my group: Deconstruction/Reconstruction or Art Ed & Visual Literacy

In her article, "Making a Case for Design-Based Learning," which appeared in Arts Education Policy Review, Meredith Davis makes a case for a design-based art curriculum--a curriculum that analyzes the elements of design and applies them to the production of a visual product--as one strategy for "curbing the marginalization of the arts in schools."  She argues that some of the dominant language in education reform arguments (hands-on problem solving, project-based instruction, and portfolio assessment) is borrowed directly from design education and that design-based learning is a natural fit for a constructivist approach to present outcomes-oriented education goals.  Davis sights the work of Michael Joyce, a professor of English at Vassar, as making an argument that "a technological shift in human consciousness, brought about by hypermedia, that is as consequential as the shift from an oral to print culture" has occured and that the processes of writing have fundamentally changed as a result, making it a visual as well as verbal endeavor.

More recently, Renee Sandell of George Mason University wrote "Using Form+Theme+Context (FTC) for Rebalancing 21st-Century Art Education" for Studies in Art Education.  In this article she suggests that the unique needs of the 21st century require a reconsideration of the art education curriculum to equip students to "encode visual concepts through creating art and to decode meaning by responding to society's images, ideas, and media."  Her approach attempts to maintain the separateness of art from other forms of visual culture (she likens it to poetry) while instituting a systemic approach to decoding all visual data (art or otherwise).  Her system recognizes artwork as a product of unique cultural, historical, and technical pressures and attempts to provide a framework for picking apart these details, but she puts more emphasis on unique creative response and less on formal problem solving than the approach advocated by Meredith Davis.

A brief history of one version of the notion of "visual literacy" can be found here:

http://www.ivla.org/org_hist_1st_pers.htm

Brainstorming

Watch How You Hold That Crayon

This article talks about a rising trend in early education to have occupational therapists improve students' fine motor abilities (particularly in regard to writing skills).  The article provides a variety of testimonials from parents about their motivations for hiring a therapist (preschool admissions criteria; difficulties experienced during progress in elementary school) and suggests a variety of possible reasons that students may be increasingly displaying fine motor deficits (penmanship no longer directly taught in school; overemphasis on academic preparation in tasks that do not engage fine motor skills).  Interestingly, this article appeared in the 'Fashion & Style' section of the New York Times, not the 'Education' section, and the article seems to focus on a very financially privileged segment of the student population, but it's difficult to tell whether this is because these fine motor deficits are unique to these privileged students or whether they are only the population with the means to pay for such specialized remediation.

I've held on to this article (it's nearly a year old) because as I read it, it occurred to me that while students have to wait to acquire the knowledge base for writing letters and numbers before they can begin to practice their fine motor skills on this writing activities, they do not have to wait to have these knowledge sets to practice fine motor skills in an art context.  I think it would be interesting to create a research project that measured the effects of exposure to art materials/activities in early childhood on later writing abilities.  This could be done by implementing an early childhood curriculum that specifically increases exposure to art materials/activities and then comparing their later written work against a group of students who did not have access to the experimental curriculum.

Considering Questions and Methods

Questions:  Why do these kids always sigh and roll their eyes when I ask them to pull out a piece of DRAWING paper? Do they hate drawing or fear it?

The most direct way to determine whether your students’ reservations are the result of hatred or fear would be to conduct a survey.  Ask questions about how they feel before, during, and after the drawing process; whether they ever draw outside of school or unprompted by schoolwork; find out if the subject matter has an effect on student perception of the task.  Some of these questions could be asked before a study is performed to help determine a baseline and further hone variable and then a routine could be established in which students are given drawing tasks and asked to gauge their feelings at different parts of the process.  To measure whether the drawing task itself or related curricular factors are to blame, you would need to find a way to conduct drawing tasks under differing conditions and students would have to be far enough removed from routine expectations (for example, if they expect a larger project to fallow preliminary sketching as a normal part of workflow in your classroom) to determine whether expected outcomes are to be blamed.

Chapter 3 and 4

Chapter 3

Mindwork 1

Possible research question:

Would incorporation of visual planning strategies increase student engagement in all elements of our existing preschool curriculum (Welcome, Reading, Circle, Small Group, Centers)?

What is my history with visual planning strategies?

Although my emphasis in undergrad was creative writing, my creative writing process always begins with the visualization of a scene from which I then choose and record details.  Perhaps closer to what I’m proposing to study, when I plan a paper (creative or otherwise), I usually sketch out a diagram of its organization—what scene or information set will go where—prior to writing the paper.  Further, my second major as an undergrad was in Art History and I enjoyed the aspect of linking information to a visual as a recall strategy.

What do I know about the differences in types and uses of visual planning strategies?

In addition to the writing and recall strategies listed above, I’ve observed several preschool teachers use a whiteboard to outline their planned activities at the start of a school day and I’ve led students through activities using a white board where they observed the marks that I was making and guessed at the end product (this may be loosely related since it involves visualization and anticipation).  Also, preprinted schedules are a staple of the early childhood education and there are a variety of children’s books that attempt to model behavior visually and I’ve seen these incorporated in preschool lessons.

Things I’ve noticed about visual planning strategies…

In most of the classrooms that I’ve observed, the preprinted materials tend to blend into the surroundings and be forgotten by both teachers and students.  On the other hand, students are often very interested in observing how teachers make these materials and follow closely when things are drawn/written in front of them.  I’ve seen students point to schedules that have been drawn in front of them (when prompted by a question about their day) but I’ve never seen students point to preprinted materials this way.  In terms of making their own visual plan, students this young often lack confidence in their mark making/representational skills.

To which aspects of the curriculum might I add some kind of visual planning strategy?

I’d like to add teacher created visual aids (not preprinted, but made on the spot) to Welcome, Reading, Circle and Small Group elements of the curriculum and student created visual aids to the Center element of the curriculum (though children could dictate these to teacher facilitators if they are not comfortable creating the visual on their own).

What sources do I know already that I might consult?

I know that the Tools of the Mind curriculum has developed and incorporated similar tools into their lessons. 

What people might I ask or contact as resources?

Preschool teachers that I’m currently working with or have worked with in the past.  Faculty at the University.

Where would I go to find out more?

Jstor, Eric, etc.

Mindwork 2

How many options do you have for further, more focused search?

-          A textbook with a chapter called “Integrating Verbal and Visual Planning Strategies.”

-          A variety of articles about the Tools of the Mind curriculum.

-          A variety of materials on visual learning ALTHOUGH very little with reference to behavioral impacts

-          A variety of research on use of visual tools as a planning strategy for learners with autism

What do you know now that you didn’t know before?

That visual tools are being used to engage autistic students.  This is interesting in that a lot of tools that are developed to remediate learning for students with specific difficulties can be generalized to the benefit of the entire classroom.

Are there alternative keywords?

I’ve tried a variety of permutations such as “visual teaching,” “visual learning,” “visual planning” and each of these with the word “visual” replaced with “graphic.”  I’ve used these alone and in conjunction with “early childhood,” “preschool,” “behavior management,” and “student engagement.”

Do you need to consult another electronic source?

I’ll try the University’s online academic article search engines next.  I find that it becomes easier to fine tune search language when you move to a purely academic set of articles because common parlance in these types of journals tends to be a little more specific.  Also, once you stumble upon an article that closely addresses your topic, it becomes easy to check that article’s reference list and so on.

Working Bibliography

Britsch, S. (2010).  Photo-Booklets for English Language Learning: Incorporating Visual Communication into Early Childhood Teacher Preparation.   Early Childhood Education Journal, vol. 38 (no. 3), p 171-7.

                 …Teacher training, too, devotes insufficient attention to either visual literacy or visual communication. This article provides a discussion of the role of the visual in English language development as a basis for a sample photography project that can be incorporated into a course for pre-service teachers in methods of teaching ELLs. Pre-service teachers thus experience the project first-hand in terms of image creation and the planning of appropriate content, language, and visual literacy objectives. The resulting visual products then function as teaching resources themselves; however, effective visual learning for ELLs requires that teachers possess such an informed understanding of the techniques that structure and assist language development. (From abstract)

Guerra, N. S. (2009). LIBRE Stick Figure Tool.  Intervention in School and Clinic, vol. 44 (no. 4), p 229-33.

The LIBRE Stick Figure Tool (LSFT) is a graphic organizer for the problem-solving application of the LIBRE Model counseling approach that is designed to facilitate and to provide a reference for an individual's self-regulated problem solving. The LSFT provides teacher-facilitators and students with visual prompts by providing some direction and cues for self-reflection and assessment leading to decision making and action planning. The teacher facilitates the process using open-ended questions, summarization, and restatements to clarify, elaborate, and specify the student's responses to each step of the process but offers no judgments, suggestions, or opinions about the student's problem-solving processing. Ultimately, the process aims to move the dyad from facilitator-directed problem solving to student self-regulated problem solving. An example of an LSFT problem-solving interaction is provided. (From abstract)

Olshansky, B. (2003).  Visual Tools for Visual Learners.  School Arts, vol. 102 (no. 5), p 51-3.

                Picturing Writing: Fostering Literacy through Art (Picturing Writing) and Image-Making within the Writing Process (Image-Making) are dynamic programs designed to support the literacy learning of children with diverse learning styles. These art-based approaches to literacy learning use quality picture books and ongoing art experiences to provide visual and kinesthetic tools to visual and kinesthetic learners. (From abstract)

Doherty, Martin J., Anderson, James R., Howieson, Lynne (2009). The Rapid Development of Explicit Gaze Judgment Ability at 3 Years.  Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, vol. 104 (no. 3), p 296-312.

            Two studies examined development of the ability to judge what another person is looking at. In Study 1, 54 2- to 4-year-olds judged where someone was looking in real-life, photograph, and drawing formats. A minority of 2-year-olds, but a majority of older children, passed all tasks, suggesting that the ability arises at around 3years of age. (From abstract)

Wellhousen, Karyn.  Giles, Rebecca M. (2005).  Building Literacy Opportunities into Children’s Block Play: What Every Teacher Should Know. Childhood Education, vol. 82 (no. 2), p 74-8

            The writers consider how block play can contribute to children's learning in the area of literacy. Noting that the block center can provide an effective arena for developing the skills and knowledge necessary for young children's literacy experience, the writers discuss how block play introduces and reinforces such crucial concepts as visual discrimination, use of abstract symbols, oral language production, and purposeful reading and writing… (From abstract)

Frey, Nancy. Fisher, Douglas. (2010) Reading and the Brain: What Early Childhood Educators Need to Know.  Early Childhood Education Journal, vol. 38 (no. 2), p 103-10.

            …We also discuss the importance that visuals play in learning and then note that children are hardwired to imitate others, which is why teacher modeling is so important. We conclude the article with future research needs and implications for educators. (From abstract)

Phillips, Roger D., Gorton, Rebecca L., Pinciotti, Patricia. Sachdev, Anuradha. (2010) Promising Findings on Preschoolers' Emergent Literacy and School Readiness In Arts-integrated Early Childhood Settings. Early Childhood Education Journal, vol 38 (no 2), p 111-22.

                An approach to early childhood education that integrates visual and performing arts throughout the preschool curriculum—Art as a Way of Learning—was implemented in a program (Promoting and Supporting Early Literacy through the Arts) designed to improve the emergent literacy and school readiness of at-risk young children in community-based preschool settings. A quasi-experimental pre-post treatment-only design was used to explore this program’s potential effects in a real-world setting. Preliminary results revealed improvements in young children’s emergent literacy on a number of targeted and standardized measures after participation in the program. This arts-integrated approach to the teaching of and learning in young children shows considerable promise and warrants a rigorous test of its effects.  (From abstract)

Christensen, Lois McFadyen. Kirkland, Lynn Dotty (2009).  Early Childhood Visual Arts Curriculum.  Childhood Education, vol. 86 (no. 2), p 87-92.

            The writers maintain that early childhood education that focuses on literacy, numeracy, and assessment suppresses crucial experience of creative verbal reflection in children and art education is essential to their optimal self development. The writers stress that introducing art education in early childhood curriculum helps children make connections with history, geography, art and literature, besides countering the passivity of a standards-based curriculum. (Abstract)

Trimis, E., Savva, A. (2009).  Artistic Learning in Relation to Young Children's Chorotopos: An In-Depth Approach to Early Childhood Visual Culture Education. Early Childhood Education Journal, vol. 36 (no. 6), p. 527-39.

               

Soundy, Cathleen S.; Guha, Smita; Qiu, Yun (2007).  Picture Power: Placing Artistry and Literacy on the Same Page.  YC Young Children, vol. 62 (no. 3), p. 82-8.

                A study examined the relationship between children's visual and verbal literacies. Participants were 22 kindergarten students, who drew pictures and wrote descriptions of homes. Findings revealed that picture drawing was an effective way to enhance children's creative self-expression and literacy. Other findings of the study are discussed, and recommendations for future research are provided. (Abstract)

Do you need more current articles or books?

No, all of these are from within the last 10 years.  If anything, I think going further back in the research to find something that more specifically matches my research question may be necessary.

Can you eliminate some sources you initially thought were valuable/relevant?

I suspect that half or less of these will be useful for my project but they caught my interest as being in some way (even if only tangentially) related and in some cases possibly useful for other projects that are of interest to me.  I’ll have to check these articles out in greater depth and rethink my research question to see what sticks and hopefully the ones that do will lead me toward articles of even greater relevance.

Have you included enough different types of materials?

Probably not.  There are a variety of journals represented here, but these are all journal articles.  As noted above, there is at least one book that I’m interested in checking out at this point, but I haven’t physically handled it yet so I’ve not included it here.

Where do you need to go next?  What do you wish you’d found?

I wish I’d found articles that specifically explored a connection between visual materials and planning or student engagement (or executive function—as this seems to be a closely related term).  So far, I haven’t found anything that explicitly addresses my research question.

Is this a time to revise or refine your research question?

I’m not sure.  I’ve tried a variety of related terms but still haven’t found what I’m looking for.  When I broaden to a category (searching for just “visual” in place of “visual planning” for example), I get hints of similar ideas but nothing close enough to substitute some new specific language and without specific language, I’m left adrift in the sea of interesting but not quite right articles.

Chapter 4

Mindwork 1

Emic Stance:

Ironically, as I consider my emic stance, I realize that I am largely an outsider in my classroom.  My racial, socioeconomic, and educational background is different from the majority of students I serve and the regular teaching and administrative staff of the preschool that I work in.  In spite of this, I don’t feel that the cultural gaps that exist are all that large.  My father grew up with very limited resources and we “crossed the tracks” (this is a literal geographical social division in the small town I grew up in—like in a Springsteen song) every time we went to visit his side of the family.  My mother also grew up with limited means, but she was from an even smaller, predominantly agricultural community where everyone was poor and such divisions weren’t as apparent.  Which leads me to another significant difference…  Columbia is a much larger and much more diverse community than the one in which I spent my preschool years.  However, we moved here in my adolescence and in most respects, the small town I grew up in is more foreign to me than the culture here.  Finally, the program that I implement in the classroom is designed as an outreach, where University students attempt to supplement assumed deficiencies in the learning and learning environments of the students that we reach.  There is a distinct difference between the time our program is in charge of the classroom and the time that the classroom teachers are in charge in almost every respect: behavior expectations, discipline procedures, curricular goals, etc.  And while I hate to admit it, I often see the two (our practices and their practices) as being in direct opposition.

Etic Stance:

To get a complete view of our educational environment and the function of my program within it, I think you would need to interview the parents of our students, discover their goals and hopes for their children and their vision for how their children might reach those goals.  I sometimes question the role of a targeted literacy curriculum in early childhood education, but I’d be curious to see how our students’ parents’ beliefs about our practices compare and contrast with what we actually do.  I also wonder how they’d gauge the differences between the regular classroom teachers practices and ours if a comparison of the two were put before them.

Mindwork 2

What surprises (and intrigues) me:

This probably sounds like a cop out, but in all honesty, there’s not much about what I wrote in Chapter 1 that surprises me.  These are all things that I’ve been mulling over for quite some time and have written about in one form or another in the past year and a half.  The surprise for me is that in considering an experimental change to the curriculum, the battle of what’s going right and what’s going wrong in my life as an educator becomes less a question of “the right way to do things” vs. “the wrong way to do things”—it’s not so much that we need more of one thing and less of another, it’s that we need to try something different.  And this is also the aspect that has the greatest intrigue for me.  I’m not at all sure that the minor curriculum changes that I’ve suggested are going to be any less fraught with minutiae-laden difficulties than the ones I currently spend my administrative and instructional time trying to tinker into some kind of a better mousetrap, but I’ve done enough tinkering with the current ones that I’m ready to tinker at a larger level.

What disturbs me:

I’d say the thing that disturbs me most is how judgmental I’ve become about the practices of the regular classroom teachers (and the school, more generally).  I can remember that when I first began working in early childhood education (as an undergraduate) that I struggled with similar feelings toward the families of my students.  I’ve now come to see the family situations of my students as sacred—everyone is entitled to their own private struggles and happiness and I wouldn’t assume to meddle or comment—but I still try to wrap my mind around the motivations and beliefs of the teachers and staff.  Ultimately, I believe that they are good people who follow their beliefs and try their best, but I still feel critical of a lot of what I see and find myself wishing that I could change things even though I have no idea where I would begin or what the best alternatives would be.

Emic/Etic Surprise:

I was surprised by just how much of an outsider I branded myself at the start of my emic writing.  I don’t feel that far removed from my students and I suppose that’s why I spent most of that paragraph explaining my family history.  Our differences might be more pronounced if we were closer in age because I do find it difficult to communicate with their parents at times.

I was intrigued by how attracted to the notion of trying to survey my students’ parents I am.  I feel that my program assumes that it knows what’s best for our students.  I’d be interested to know if our students’ parents agreed with its goals, its methods, or both.

I am disturbed by how intrusive my program seems when it is put down on paper without the high-minded literacy and success language attached to it.

Mindwork 3

Ethics Statement:

I will strive in every respect of my teaching and research to provide all who come into contact with it (and especially my students) with respect and consideration.   Through my research, I will strive to contribute to the good of every student that I serve and the community to which we belong.  I will do my best not to let personal interests and biases impact my research or its reportage and I will strive to share the results of my research with whoever may seek it regardless of outcome.

Chapter 2: Mindwork

Explore Trial Questions

-Teaching Practices

1) Does having the same tutor facilitate Welcome and Reading segments of the curriculum with a set group of children for all sessions lead to more vocabulary exposure and conversation opportunities for each child?

2) Does having a consistent cluster of children grouped together for Welcome and Reading segments of the curriculum for all sessions lead to more vocabulary exposure and conversation opportunities for each child?

3) Could drawing/journals be included as part of the planning process before students move into the Centers element of sessions?

-Student Learning or Outcomes

1) Would progressive photo documentation and/or student drawings of student activity/learning serve a similar function as the recall part of the curriculum?  Would this allow for a longer recall narrative for the students to interact with?  Would students be able to construct such a narrative if provided with the proper materials?

School Policies or Outcomes

1) Would teachers, schools, and our program benefit from including teachers in our training process?

2) Could a classroom evaluation and curricular modification phase be considered prior to the start of the school year to fine tune our sessions to more closely match the pre-existing classroom/teacher culture and curriculum?

-Curriculum

1) Would students be more engaged by non self-directed elements (circle time, small group, welcome, reading) if they were intermingled with self-directed elements, rather than having the non self-directed elements clumped together and followed a long self-directed element?

2) Could opportunities for choice and planning be incorporated into the non self-directed elements and would this improve student engagement?

3) Could a targeted visual vocabulary curriculum be developed and integrated alongside our verbal vocabulary curriculum?

4) Could visual literacy training be included in our training session/materials so that tutors can incorporate visual literacy strategies in their readings and throughout session?

Position Yourself in Relation to the Question

-Who am I in relation to this idea?

Over the past year and a half, I’ve had the opportunity to implement my program’s curriculum in two very different classrooms.  The students in my classroom last year were very accustomed to a consistent classroom schedule and clearly defined expectations/roles.  These students were polite and attentive throughout our long periods of teacher-directed activities, but they were also often distracted even though it only became apparent when they were prompted to answer a question, predict, or recall events.  In this classroom setting, the difficulty in applying the curriculum was the danger of complacency and passivity—hitting the required curricular goals but not extending them to meet the interests/needs of the particular group of children.  This year, my students are more unruly.  Their restlessness displays itself in noncompliance and acting out.  It’s my belief that the same curricular shortcomings underlie the problems that I encountered in both classrooms.

-How does my position affect the way I approach and/or understand it?

As the facilitator of this program in the two classrooms, I am responsible for presenting the non self-directed materials in an engaging way.  Therefore, if students are not engaged by these materials, the fault is either with the materials or with my facilitation of them.  It’s possible that my facilitation skills are to blame for the shortcomings that I’ve noted and that my ideas for improving the curriculum are really just to make up for faults in my teaching skills.  However, from feedback I’ve observed in the weekly meetings that I’ve had with my fellow facilitators over the past year and a half, I’m under the impression that these problems are general to the program.

-What ethical issues might I raise?

There are not any immediately obvious ethical issues.  It is always tricky to compare the outcomes for students from differing backgrounds but my idea is that these changes would improve our curriculum regardless of background.

-Who will be best served by this study?

Students, teachers and facilitators involved with my program.

-Who might be affected or hurt by it, and how?

Again, this is not readily apparent.

-What are my hidden biases and assumptions?

That the shortcomings in my instruction are with the curriculum; that students would find self-directed activities more engaging (especially with an established routine for planning and reflecting on self-directed activities); that a general population of children (from a variety of backgrounds and at differing developmental levels) will experience improvements in their learning from a single set of curricular modifications.

Refine Your Question

Would incorporating visual planning/precorrects increase student engagement in all elements of our existing preschool curriculum (Welcome, Reading, Circle, Small Group, Centers)?

-Potentially unclear terms

+incorporating

+visual planning/precorrects

+student engagement

-Insider/Outsider

My insider is unsure of what I mean by “visual planning/precorrects” and rightly so—I’m not entirely sure what these tools will look like yet.  My outsider is also unsure of that term and asked for further explanation about what student engagement looks like in relation to the different parts of our curriculum.

-Theory

I’m merging at least two theories in this question:

1)      Clear expectations and routines are the foundations of classroom management and early childhood learning.

2)      Visual materials will reinforce the verbal instruction already provided.

And potentially a third (if I can incorporate a tool that gives students the opportunity to create their own visual plan):

3)      Self-directed learners will be more deeply engaged in the learning experience than extrinsically-directed learners.

-What’s bothering you?

I’m having a hard time committing to an exact research course, partly because I don’t expect to be allowed to change the curriculum as extensively as I am inclined to.  Ideally, I would like students to visualize and plan in a hand-on manner before all aspects of our curriculum, but I suspect that the best I can hope for is to include teacher directed visual aids before the teacher-directed elements and have students create their own visual plan before the self-directed Centers part of the curriculum.

-Subquestions

-Does a self-directed motor activity (drawing/writing) increase student engagement?

-Does a visualization process (student imagining their upcoming role) increase student engagement?

-…Still working on these…