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.