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.