Educ 904 NARRATIVE IN RELATION TO IE AND YOUR RESEARCH DESIGN ORIENTATION Flux Tension Mystery wonder Engagement motivation

diagnosis COMPLICATION Pattern Order Detail General schemes Feedback Appreciation Developing expertise TRANSFORMATION Surprise Humour Paradox Inversion creativity

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INTEGRATION Narrative Metaphor Imagery Irony Looking ahead Meta-reflection Self as learner Significance of topic, experience Connections outside school/curriculum

In a narrative you are awakening a students curiosity. The above is what happens during that narrative process. Orientation: These are some qualities that characterize what the encounter with the topic can be like. Orientation is the first phase (flux, conflict tension). The topic cant be something that appears fully worked out a predictable field of human knowledge. Sort of the impression a textbook givesleading you through a systematic orderly way. Thats why textbooks can be limiting because the world is presented as the known so theres no reason for discovery or need to bring something of the student into that understanding. As learning goes on you enter complication. Since you are venturing to unknown terrain, this is an imprecise scope. This is why binary opposites are important in the beginning (it sets off tensions that is worth exploring further). Binary opposites are in a different realm from facts. They characterize a different field of knowledge.

Complication: You take the tension and how it plays itself out in specific ways. How it was uncovered, the taboos, the cultural stories surrounding it. The kinds of images that arise in the kinds of stories that arise. Increasingly you build up a sense of the aspect of the topic as containing order, detail, a predictable pattern without exhausting that the sense there is tension and mystery in there. It simply gives you more to think with than the initial contrasts used to engage the students imaginations. You tweak according to what the kids are interested in.

Transformation: These forms of order can be given a twist in some way that makes them partly the students own. Consider the story of Frankenstein in Marks human anatomy lesson. Thats why surprise, 1

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paradox etc are useful for thinking about how to disrupt the notion that the topic is fully known. This is what youre pushing back that in school knowledge is only about reproducing the work of other people. That entire journey is summed up in the transformation phase. If that has happened, they can then share.(this is the next phase)

Integration: The share part means they become part of the general collective knowledge on the topic. This is the richness of the integration stage. They have played with them, it is part of them. These are the tools that allow you to hold this entire body of knowledge together

Think now of the kinds of data you can collect at each phase of this narrative. ON THE MATTER OF DATA COLLECTION At the start of an AR project, very often you do a survey or a diagnostic test so that you have something to compare to. But suppose you also thought of that in terms of how that process was also a motivational/engagement exercises. So the survey should provoke them to some of the other things (tension/mystery/sense of wonderany of the item in the orientation phase). For example, give them a picture of Rembrants anatomy picture and you simply ask whats going on in this picture. So you gain insight into what the students are bringing to the topic, but it also illuminates what they are puzzled by. In the complication phase when students start to grapple with the conceptual knowledge, what you are trying to figure out how well their understanding is developing. So youll be interested at how interested they are/how engaged/ what is clear, what they dont yet understand (you can think of this in terms of their ZPD). Also think about how data collection may be an educational tool about how they are becoming more self aware of their learning. So think of an assessment rubric showing that they understand some aspect of the topic. For example, have them draw an accurate picture of the human body system. Are proportions/connections/labels/scale important? What is an excellent standard of achievement? At the transformation phase this is where you re-building the students ability to self assess or peer assess. You are providing advice but you dont want to be too direct in the transformation state because then you alter how much of it is representative of their own personal understandings. Now they can reflect on their meaning as a whole. Having them re-evaluate the stuff created in the beginning, particularly something you may not have looked at in detail in the beginning. Its fresh again but they are now seeing it in more educated/expert eyes. You keep emphasizing that this is just a piece of a larger whole that will be ongoing in their lives/careers/implications for choices you make or literature you read. Its saying all this stuff

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has meaning and is waiting for them to engage with it that is not dictated by a teacher or institution but rather as them as members of a society.

TYING INTO THE READINGS The reading in the courseware package for this week was looking at ways of representing the imagination. It points to using different modes of representation rather than those that are either left or right brained representations. There needs to be a piece to introduce things that are ambiguous, and making sense of them is a way of artistic interpretation of what has been learned. Collect data that raises questions as well as answers.

(note to self a suggestion from Melanie about a concept in Socials 11 to useworld view (go back to my cold war concept map)

Pair-Share Class Activity: Mark wanted us to discuss what he just said above and how it fits with our research. (I was with Melanie and Sandra). Big group: Mark asks what emerged from our discussions Sandra asked, how do we do this model in a 3 week research period? o Mark answers that he understands the limitations. He expects us to be selective and strategic about what you focus on. What he wanted to get across that data collection can be an educational exercise, just as assessment can. Theres a lot of good ideas in the course package literature. Bilal: when we collect our data, is it a snapshot? Then we make predictions? o Mark: not so concerned with making predictions but more so about cycle. o This is important: He wants to see us formulating new questions inspired by what youve discovered in this. The looking ahead is what hes looking for. What do I want to understand more deeply in my practice? The absolute minimum is 3 or 4 sessions of data collection with your students. We can also draw on things weve done previously. Can be used in introduction (scene setting sort of). The write-up doesnt have to be a super narrative/linear thing. The best ones are ones where you drop the research and wherever it lands on the page is where you start sort of a vignette so its more a natural place. Doing research is not about knowing one thing but bringing in a teacher and who you are with your history 3

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AR is personal in a way that goes against the traditional ways of research in the natural sciences. Who you are in A/R is just as important as the outcome which is different from traditional forms of research. This is what K is trying to get at ontology and epistemology: o Think about what really matters, counts as relevant information o For a natural scientist, relevant info doesnt include personality, cultural background/motivations for doing research. What is relevant is only a pretty narrow understanding of what the research question is. But in AR what counts as relevant is broader (who you are/what you can relate to your students/cultural background). o Its because of this richness of what is relevant, he encourages us to write our project in narrative form. Include dialogue etc.. to bring the story alive. Think of that as you write your journal sort to like a journalist who has an eye or ear to give insight to my motivations or what is going on here. For instants if you write up on something that is characteristic of your students and cite it later.. it illuminates what is really going on here.

Now Its research design time Self-report Observation Consider getting other eyes in the room Rubrics (what to look for) Role of the teacher students others Use of technology (photos, videos) Performance (ask kids to do or give you something) Oral presentations (including role playing) Written assignments Artistic projects Role of commentary/self assessment/peer assessment

Surveys (questionnaires) Interviews Focus groups Journals (prompts)

Next week you are expected to post on at least 2 of these data collection techniques. Youre then inviting more feedback before you use them in practice. You may be using more than two but this is just a start. Pick areas where you think the feedback will be quite helpful.

RESEARCH DESIGN GROUP WITH KELLY/COLLEEN H Ask them to write down in groups whats happened since September. Where is there a discrepency in the story then unpack. After then step back why am I asking you to tell me the story of your plant.. see

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if they figure it out (hot and cold ) if they cant get to curriculum ask them what wer elearning at a time give them some mediation Story of plant plus socials 11 or curriculum = thats the equation, tell me the answer

If this plant is a metaphor for history/you (triumvariate). Now what??? What does the metaphor tell them how does it inform them

Ask them show you what they know of this triumvirate. Show me your understanding of this plant? They can either share or do individually in an interview with you or in groups so that they can be more safe. The group experience might help them be more succinct then use tutorial time

Assessment: this is going to inform me of what youre capable of and what your deepest thinking is. Classwork tadas equal your mark

At the end tell them about the design process and how it helped me and my teachingnow that youve done this Independent work time Ninas individual research design: Self-report Observation Consider getting other eyes in the room Rubrics (what to look for) Role of the teacher students others Use of technology (photos, videos) Performance (ask kids to do or give you something) Oral presentations (including role playing) Written assignments Artistic projects Role of commentary/self assessment/peer assessment

Surveys (questionnaires) Interviews Focus groups Journals (prompts)

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Interview Questions: (To be administered by my department head) 1. Why do you think Ms. Pagtakhan has introduced this plant-project into this course? What do you think you are supposed to learn? 2. What does it have to do with the curriculum? 3. On the following scale how connected are you to your environment? 4. Do you do anything to connect yourself with the natural environment? If so, what? 5. How much time do you spend outside? 6. When you are outside, what do you spend time doing? 7. Is this time outside structured (ex. On a team playing a sport) or unstructured (on a hike or bike ride)? 6. What stops you from spending time outside? 7. What do you think the purpose of school or schooling is? 8. Do you think education and school mean the same thing? Explain. 9. What does it mean to be an educated person? (What behavior does that include or exclude?) 10. On a scale of 1-10 how would you rate your connectedness to the environment? 11. What do you think sense of place means? 12. What do you think loyalty means? Does loyalty only pertain to certain things or people? Explain?

Focus Groups (February 3rd) held a focus group because class was already so small. Lots of absenteeism due to cold and flu season In small groups trace what has been happening with our plants Some starter sentences: In September Ms. Pagtakhan gave you a plant On that day we were expected to As September progressed. Each time we journalled we were supposed to

Educ 904 Then Christmas break happened and we were supposed to We came back from Christmas break and then Now we were supposed to Homework: A/r plan and 2 data collection methods posted by next weekend.

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Look up a piece of action research on line (print it up and bring it to class. Be able to speak about it as though it was yours). So that we get used to putting yourself in a completely different setting at the end of an AR Plus the actual readings.

Journal Prompts 1. This weeks lessons have been about the clash between communism and democracy. These two ideologies Have you noticed how at the beginning of this course and even now, its a very capitalistic/progressive approach/individual-achievement based. You rarely work in groups. You only strive to improve yourself and your skill sets. I give you the information, you study it and then write a test to show what youve learned. Your mark is what you strive for. See, it has a very individual focus. And you dont seem to mind. But look what Ive done to your plants. Its quite a socialist model. Back as a whole class Mark shows an example of a/r We start at the narrative of the action researcher The literature to support (either 4 solid articles or more) Gives the context (setting of this school etc Shows brief profile of her students Shows the IE lesson used to draw out the skill set (in this case it was about resolving conflicts that emerge in Aboriginal students) Shows the data and the process of data gathering o Quotes on imaginative engagement o Quotes on content o Scales o Tables o Do not imbed the surveys in the document/data materials etc should be included as appendices . You can however show figures. But do not impede the flow of your report 7

Educ 904 o Put in data where date is useful

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As a whole class we discussed what our biggest concerns were but also what things put us at ease today.