Thesis Idea, Scene 1, Take Two!

So, apparently my idea was too big, which isn't really a problem in the grand scheme of things, but it makes me have less of an inclination to post because I'm pretty much back at post one (what is my research question)?

I need to do more research to make sure that these are really the correct terms I want to use, but I'm interesting in seeing how a classroom functions when infused with elements of critical pedagogy, specifically through allowing many opportunities for peer teaching (students teaching me and each other).

I think that my data is fairly similar as my previous question, with more focus on the student experience through interviews and weekly blog entries. Also, I'm considering introducing a wiki as well so that students can collaborate throughout the semester on their own definition of "Media Literacy Education".

Where I'm at a loss now is how I evaluate the data--I like the idea of a priori schemes of organizing data, and since this new approach focuses less on my own lesson plan creation and more on the student experience, I'm not as worried about manipulating my research to fit my predetermined tools of analysis. I just don't know what those tools of analysis are at this point; perhaps they will emerge during the intensive crash course on critical pedagogy that I plan on designing for myself after our theory midterm is over.

Chris Andrews at Salem Hills High

I shared my thesis question and the basic details of my project with Chris Andrews.

Andrews graduated from TEE (the program I am going through to get my teaching certificate) with a minor in Media Arts Studies from the TMA department. He is a first year teacher at Salem Hills High School. Andrews teaches News Broadcasting, Digital Photography, Beginning Media, and Video Production (the class in which Andrews recommends I enact my thesis project).

Andrews is on board. He’s excited about the project being in his classroom and is willing to participate. We are in the process of coordinating our schedules for Fall 2010.

One concern is that Andrews is on a one year contract. He has been verbally pledged a position for next year, but he won’t know for sure until the middle of April. Once that is confirmed:

I (with Andrews) will teach a unit of storytelling and each student will write a story.

The students will then make a video telling their story.

The emphasis will be on returning to source material and using the equipment to tell and enhance their story.

If Andrew and I’s schedule isn’t a factor, when would you recommend enacting this project?

The later in the year it is done, the more exposure the students will have had to the equipment and technology. How much of a factor to my thesis do you see that as?

How short should the stories be?

Will having each student make a video be too big? What is a possible alternative?

My Research Has Proven...

...that complete lack of inspiration and total frustration are a direct result of lack of sleep and too many things on one's plate at a time.

I think I'm at least a bit better now. I hope.

So, obviously, Thursday wasn't quite a productive experience for me. It was just frustrating, and I know that 99.9% of that was due to my fatigue. I have NO idea what exactly my next step it, because I'm not 100% sure where I stand, but here's my chosen (this is really what I do want to do research on) research question:

How do students’ perceptions of South Africans change as new media is infused into a World Literature Curriculum unit centered on African Literature?

What I'm thinking for data now includes some of what was discussed in class on Thursday--some sort of "pre-assessment" of students' perceptions and where those perceptions come from. (Movies, TV, etc.) Most of the other data to be collected I think will be the same as I posted last week.

Now, as for data analysis...I think that there's some "cooking" of data as well as organization of "stuff" that can go on as I go along in my unit, and as I assess my students for typical "grade" types of things. However, I think that the majority of major analysis should probably come after the fact, because of the "before" and "after" comparison.

The other thing that I've been wondering is whether or not I should choose to track specific students rather than the entire class? I could choose students of varying initial perceptions, or even students of various "participation levels" (aka-those who are and aren't typically engaged) to get a varied sample? I don't know--this is mostly a new idea, and I'm thinking out loud.

So...what do you guys think? I could definitely use the feedback this week. Thanks for your help!

Keep it simple...well...you know.

In all of our discussions of action research, I think I have failed to mention that it is possible to make changes in your teaching that are, perhaps, a bit more subtle and study those. For example, Amy and I went to a conference last year where a group of professors added a podcast component to their literacy methods course and studied how students talked about literacy methods as part of the podcasts (this might be the worst study summary ever). The point is, their action research didn't involve changing everything about their course or the way that they taught it.

Just something to consider. You all are doing some good, hard thinking. Keep it up!

I'll begin by echoing everyone else in saying that talking these issues out with everyone else has been extremely helpful to me. I still don't like the phrasing of my research question and I think I can do a better job of explaining the connection between the two ideas in my question, but I feel much, much better about my actual project. I feel like I have a much better grasp of where to start with my literature review, which is a huge relief for me because that's seemed like a fairly daunting task because I could see so many different ways to go with both the project and the research and now I feel like it's a more manageable project.

Problem:
I feel that my students lack critical thinking skills, specifically that they take texts at face value when they are presented to them and that they fail to understand or differentiate value between different historical records and texts. I want to see if having student's go through the process of creating a historical record of their own will change the way they approach other texts. It's interesting, while looking up an article for my paper for Sharon's class I came across an editorial in the New York Times about the Texas State Board of Education revising their Social Studies Core Curriculum. The editorial argues that student's "... deserve to have a curriculum chosen for its educational value, not politics or ideology." I agree with the sentiment of the article but I think the fact that it exists highlights the fact that other teachers also recognize that student's do not critically engage with the texts they encounter in the classroom. The editorial makes the assumption that student's will accept what is presented in their textbooks as history rather than as a version of history.

Research statement:
The purpose of this study is to document high school student’s abilities to critically analyze historical texts while participating in the creation of an oral history project.

Data Collection:
* Student projects
* lesson plans/student handouts
* roundtable interview and observations from student's--I think I'd like to do a pre and post interview and ask student's how they view texts etc, before the project and then ask them the same questions again at the end and see if they perceive any difference in how they interact with historical texts.

Thesis Statement

I think it’s a little late for me.


The purpose of this study is to document the experience of students in a secondary education classroom fulfilling the national standards of a multimedia Career and Technology Education course infused with a focus away from the technology tools and on the meanings and themes created with technology tools. This study will take place during a six week unit on Keynote and Powerpoint in which students will be taught storytelling principles, be assigned to tell a story using a presentation program, and be assessed on their abilities to tell a story using that tool.


Note: I’m using Keynote and Powerpoint as an example. It could be any number of programs or tools (e.i. editing software, photo manipulation software, a camera)

One aspect that I’m interested in is how little time can be spent on the technical aspect of the tool. If the purpose and some possibilities of the tool is explained and demonstrated, and I get them started, will they be able to move forward easily from there? Will they be motivated to learn the specifics of the tool either on their own, through tutorials, in lab, from peers, or from family members?

If the students are being evaluated on their ability to tell the story then they must be proficient enough with the program to manipulate it into generating the themes and the intended meanings they want.

A lot of this is dependent on the students being intrinsically motivated by their story to not half-heartedly fulfill the assignment. If they love the story and want to tell it, then they will make the technology work for them instead of fitting the story into the very basics of the tool.


I spoke with Brother Shumway (a Technology and Engineering Education professor and a member of my thesis committee) and he recommended I look at the standards for courses in the theatre department because they may have standards for storytelling and it may give more validity to my project to use standards that already exist as tried and trusted.

He also recommended that I observe Chris Andrews to see how he teaches his technology classes and to see to what extent what I’m suggesting is already happening.

My triadic research question (I'd rate it as B major...)

I, like Timbre, am grateful for our discussion on Thursday. What I wanted to say then but didn't is that I'm not really worried about looking stupid in front of you all as we hash out our research questions, I'm worried that I'm just actually stupid, and that some day someone will realize this. At any rate, I have a sneaking suspicion that none of us are actually stupid, and that this can become a great forum to get some feedback, so that's cool.

So, without further ado, the research topic:

The purpose of my study is to describe how a media literacy education classroom functions when it includes a focus on theory instruction, pedagogy instruction and practice, and creat

ive production. I am particularly interested in seeing if this can function as a viable framework for implementing situated practice, overt instruction, critical framing, and transformation of knowledge as mentioned in Multiliteracies (Cope and Kalantzis).

I tacked on that last bit, which is maybe fraught with all sorts of loaded language, but I want to include that somehow in the research question because I plan on using those four pedagogies as evaluative tools for my study. How can this triadic (a term I've decided to adopt in place of "triangulated", because it doesn't seem to have any specific research related definitions, but it

does have a musical definition relating to chords and such, which seems appropriate (parts adding up to a whole...)) focus function as each of these important pedagogies?

Data to collect:

• My own field notes (written out directly after teaching each time) describing my own impressions of what's happening in the classroom.
• Student interviews (due to time restrictions, these will most likely be written reflections, but I'm not opposed to making time for some group interviews).
• Student work (documentaries, blog posts, presentations, lesson plans, etc.)
• Video recordings of class time.
• My own lesson plans

And, because Timbre did, here's a comic I like:

Oh the Data, the Data

First of all, let me just say a HUGE "Thank You" to everyone for last night's discussion. I left and I felt lighter than I have in quite a while...I really was having such a hard time with my research question and was terrified of the overwhelming task of implementing research into all of my classes over the course of an entire semester. Yeah, I really thought that, and so learning that data collection will take place in one of my classes over the course of one unit? RELIEF. (Don't get me wrong, I'm still very well aware of the fact that this is not going to be easy, but I can just breathe a little easier now.)

Also, I really don't think I would have been able to solidify my research question into something so "workable" without listening to our discussion and then adding your input. I can actually begin to see how this will be able to work itself into my classroom without having to revamp my entire life--which I was planning on doing.

So--THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

Now, as for a response to last night's discussion of data, I kind of feel like we did this at the end of class, so I'll just recap here. Let me know if I need to include anything else. :-)

RESEARCH QUESTION:
"What is the nature of student perceptions of (insert culture here based on unit chosen) as new media is infused into a World Literature Curriculum unit centered on (insert country/continent here based on unit chosen) literature?

PURPOSE STATEMENT:
"The purpose of this study is to examine the nature of student perceptions of (insert culture here based on unit chosen) as new media is infused into a World Literature Curriculum unit centered on (insert country/continent here based on unit chosen) literature."

PEOPLE INVOLVED:
* Teacher-Ms. Newby
* Students-Particular Class (A1, B1, etc.)
* The "Other" as introduced by the new media

PLACES TO COLLECT DATA:
* Classroom
* Computer Lab
* Home
* Internet/"Blogosphere"

POSSIBLE DATA TO COLLECT:
* Observations and Notes
* Lesson Plans
* Interviews
* Audio Recordings/Conversation or Instant Message transcripts
* Surveys
* Student work

Storytelling

No matter what level or even subject I teach, I always want to teach the principles of storytelling. Storytelling has been a big part of my education and I have some opportunities to conduct an action research project in this area.

Jeff Parkin is the chair of my committee. I have been his TA for Screenwriting 241 for four semesters. I have a great opportunity to work within the classroom to enact an AR project.

Brother Parkin has often mentioned the difficulties students have with structure. This is the subject I am most interested in and accomplishing an AR project in this field will increase my
ability to teach storytelling.

A possible project would be to analyze previous scripts that come out of the class to see what aspects of structure students don't seem to understand, and I can interview former students to see what was most and least helpful. I will then create new assignments and restructure the syllabus and schedule for the class to put an emphasis on the structure of the story. I will only teach a handful of the lessons, but I will grade and give notes on every assignment, as well as meet with the students to help them one on one.

I also thought it may be interesting to go through the process of creating my own class that will prepare a storytelling troop for Timpanogos Storytelling Festival.

Oh Brother, What is my Project?

So, I'm a teacher. Action research is perfect, right? However, while I'm SO glad that we're currently in the "visioning" stage of this thing, I think I may need glasses.

Here's what I know:
* I want this process to inform and improve my practice.
* I want the research to have a positive impact on my students (or at least not DETRACT from my normal standard of teaching.)
* I want my students to become more globally connected/open-minded/knowledgeable, hopefully opening the doors for an appreciation of literature created within other cultures.
* I will have 5 sections of World Literature in which to do this project--2 Honors classes and 3 Regular.

So...here are the "working" research questions I have developed. One has absolutely nothing to do with the other:

1-"How does the use of new media affect student connection to cultures outside of the U.S.?"

2-"How can our knowledge of traditional literacies help shape our comprehension and development of media literacy?"

I think that the second is interesting, though probably being researched all over the place, and the first one is obviously more tied to the list above. I also think that the first may be a bit more "action research-y" because I develop my own curriculum around the question whereas the second seems to be a bit more difficult to "implement" within the classroom.

So, with regards to the first, I think that I'll need some way to assess "global connection" before and after the project. There's a "test" out there that could possibly be helpful for this (the Miville-Guzman Universality-Diversity Scale, but we'll have to see.

I've also thought about how to involve an analysis of how various cultures are treated within academic circles as well as in popular media as opposed to within outer new media forms, but this may make things a bit more complicated. And then there's the big question, "How do I get the kids to care about the new media element in order to even 'test' for personal connection?" It all sounds a bit nebulous to me. Any thoughts?

Planning Action Research

So, I've been revamping some of my backup plans. Here they are.

Action research is about my personal practice in my own classroom. I'm interested in changing up the production side of the class to incorporate more (smaller) documentary projects that make an attempt to tie into the critical studies portion a bit better. For example, when talking about media literacy principles relating to access, analysis, evaluation, and creation, I want them to make a media-biography that explores their own personal relationship with media. I'm interested in them exploring principles of identity in a doc project, and sense of place, and all those wonderful things that we talk about on Mondays that don't always seem to manifest themselves in their actual documentary projects. I'm interested in evaluating success in the project based on the SOTC principles we've been talking about from Multiliteracies.

If possible (obviously I will do this anyway, but I don't know if it would be possible for my thesis), I would then track how (if?) implementing these changes in TMA 458 affects Hands on a Camera instruction at all, because it's in Hands on a Camera that I find an even bigger disconnect between lessons about media literacy principles and lessons about documentary (though clearly the very process of creating a documentary is a media literacy experience, I think that the two could be even more significantly connected).

I also want to experiment with incorporating more peer to peer learning experiences, and seeing if that changes the experience as well, but it might be too many changes to implement in one semester.

Here's where I'm running into some challenges: I think that all these changes are good, and will provide me a lot to think about, but what is my concrete research question? I started with, "What is the experience of a TMA 458 student when media literacy principles and documentary storytelling are more integrated in this course?", but is that too vague?