teacher of the year
"Don't Accept Mediocrity"
Arts-Based Methods, Representation and Evaluation
Anderson, Herr & Nihlen – “Researching Your Own School”
Key Quotes:
“[In democratic Validity/Trustworthiness]…the research becomes participatory when the research ‘subjects’ or ‘informants,’ that is, the students themselves, are brought into the research as coresearchers. Making students coresearchers not only is more democratic; it also benefits both students and the study in other ways.”
“The most powerful action research studies are those in which the practitioners recount a spiraling change in their own and their participants’ understandings.”
“The assumption is that practitioner action researchers have experiences and beliefs t hat come into play as they think about the issues or problems under study. The key is that these experiences and beliefs need to be critically examined rather than ignored.”
“Dialogic validity requires that researchers be able to demonstrate how they came to the conclusion they are drawing and how they have been and are open to alternative explantations that might fit better.”
“Each inquirer must search for, and defend, the criteria that best apply to his or her work.”
Main Ideas:
Outcome Validity asks if a problem is resolved (and for whom) or if the solution to the problem is made clearer through the research; Process Validity asks if the research procedures adequately develop an understanding of the research setting; Democratic Validity examines if all stakeholders have been included in the process and in what way; Catalytic Validity asks if the research participants now have deepened knowing of reality in order to transform or change it; Dialogic Validity asks if the findings make sense to another person in the same setting; practitioner action researchers must use the criteria that best applies to his work.
Thoughts:
I wondered if I would be able to change my methods or my participants partway throughout the inquiry. This answered that question. I wonder if I will narrow down my research participants as my study continues. I also recognize the importance of keeping my notes, thoughts and reflections thoroughly, so that I do not miss any important findings.
Methods & Analysis
What data are you collecting? How might you begin to analyze your data in ways that will inform your research question?
As I collect information from students’ Twitter feeds, I can take screen captures of notable updates. By saving these images in the Evernote App, I can then code them by “tagging” them with the appropriate code. The same can be done with my reflective writings in my digital journal. My digital journal will track how often tags are used and I can see what main topics are developing from my writing.
What forms might you use to represent your learnings at the end of the program? Why? Consider the affordances and constraints for writer and audience.
INFOGRAPHICS - sums up information/statistics in an easy to follow way. By creating an infographic, I will be forced to find ways that my data connects to other pieces, to create a big picture, incorporate findings & quotes from my theoretical research as well. It is also a creative, design-related product, which I would enjoy creating. I like creating visual representations, and this provides that opportunity to learn a new format for representing knowledge.
VIDEO – video is my new literacy. It is becoming my preferred method of communication because it can say so much, and I find it to be fun to create. I have spent hundreds of hours in editing video over the last couple of years. It is a medium that I am becoming fluent in and can produce quality products. It also allows me to record my students and allow their voices to be heard. However, video can be perceived as manipulative, because it is multi-sensory, providing images, text & audio (words/music) to create feelings and emotions in the viewer.
Preparing for an Interview
My Interview Experience:
As an interviewer: We wondered, at which point do you continue the friendly banter? Also, when do you cut off an interviewee’s answer and stop their tangents? The main concern boiled down to how to tactfully keep the interview on track without losing some good info or insights. If you are interviewing kids, you must keep in mind that there is a power dynamic in play, they may want to give the “right” answer, or be simply trying to please their teacher. I wonder how you can structure an interview to get the most honest responses?
As an interviewee: I felt like I was putting on a show at some point, almost as if I was performing for the recording. We found that it’s easy to get the giggles, so it is important for the interviewer to keep a straight face. We thought that we may want to warm up to those interviews that you think will be more intense or elaborate by doing the “easy” interviews first. As I was responding to the questions, I was also thinking about how much info I should give, how long-winded my answers should be. At the same time, I wanted to keep my answers brief so as to get it over with and get back to what I was doing, but I also thought that I may be judged by my answers, so I wanted to make them good.
Potential Interview Questions for my Research Project:
1. Tell me about how you used Twitter this term. What was your favourite part about it?
2. What did you learn from using Twitter? Who did you follow? What discussions did you participate in?
3. What were some of the challenges you encountered using Twitter? How might you be able to use the tool differently to have a better or more enriching experience?
4. Do you think you will continue to use Twitter after this project? Why or why not?
Dialogic Methods
"Meaning and knowledge are not locked into language, but emerge at the intersection between gesture, bodily experience, and linguistic practice."
Margaret Himley – “The Value/s of Oral Inquiry, or ‘You just had to be there!’”
Key Quotes:
“Oral inquiry is a methodology… [that] provides access to a variety of perspectives for problem posing and solving.”
“Dialogue is the lived experience of reciprocating voices that occurs through time, in history, and in a particular place, establishing a contingent ‘we,’ ‘a common world,’ and ‘a shared operation of which [no one] is the creator.’”
“The sense of commonality that is produced through dialogue must be vigilantly watched so that points of discord and difference can also be acknowledged.”
“These micro-moments, when described and discussed over time, made readable and talk-able the many macro-dynamics of teaching….”
“Time is the key word here… There are no shortcuts to really paying attention, to really taking notice, to really staying vigilant. Time is inevitably related to meaning.”
“Sometimes we do just have to get together with others and do this kind of collective work…. We need new ideas and new words and new images and new visions to sustain us in our daily teaching lives… we need comrades.”
Questions:
Did I really need to read that flowery nonsense on page 201? That is an example of how caught up an academic can get in their prose and neglect transmitting the meaning of what they are trying to say. Wow. Just, wow.
Also, I wondered if I could relate this to my inquiry project? Doesn’t social media engage my students in meaningful dialogue with each other, with their teacher, and with the world? How might this become a powerful learning opportunity for them?
Why Teachers “Friending” Students May Not Be Such A Bad Thing After All (Autobiography)
In 2003, I was one of the millions of users of a popular online instant-messaging service known as MSN Messenger. I was still a full-time student and worked part-time at a local youth drop-in centre for at-risk teens. Like many others, I used MSN Messenger to connect with family, friends and co-workers on a daily basis. Some of the kids from the youth centre requested me as a contact on Messsenger and I added them to my long list of acquaintances whom I would casually chat with while on the computer writing term papers.
One boy in particular, named “Corey,” always seemed to be online, and would often strike up conversations with me. He was a regular visitor of the drop-in center and had developed a good rapport with me. One day, I noticed Corey’s Messenger status read something to the effect of, “Nobody would care if I was dead.” Obviously alarmed, I struck up a conversation asking if everything was okay. He simply brushed it off as a joke and quickly changed his status to something else. Knowing Corey, I was not fully convinced, so I reported my concerns to my supervisor at work. While also alarmed at Corey’s status, she was equally upset that I had been communicating with him privately on Messenger and advised me to remove him and the other teens from my contacts. I did as I was told and the youth centre reached out to Corey, who attended a program for a few weeks, but he soon fell out of touch. About three months later, I got a phone call from another worker at the youth centre. Corey had committed suicide. It had been the day before his fourteenth birthday.
I will always remember meeting Corey’s mother for the first time at the youth centre later that day. She threw her arms around me and while crying, thanked me for being so kind to her boy. I learned that he had often spoken very highly about me at home, and his mother asked me to speak at his funeral service because, in her words, he looked up to me so much. That experience has been one of the most difficult and profound moments of my life.
This sad experience’s connection with social media runs even deeper than just the instant messaging chat service, however. As the details surrounding Corey’s suicide became available, I learned that it had actually been part of a pact with a friend he had made online. I also discovered, chillingly, that he had hung himself in front of his computer, with his webcam on, broadcasting his suicide to this friend (who did not follow through with her own suicide, or call the police). When I reactivated Corey’s contact information on MSN after his death, I found a link to an online blog journal he had been keeping. I was horrified to find out that in the days leading up to his birthday, he actually wrote about how he had been planning his suicide, practicing knots, and counting down the days. All the while he was being encouraged by comments made by his online friend. While I understand that there is no way to possibly know, I have always wondered if things would have turned out differently if I had been able to stay in touch with Corey on MSN Messenger. I wonder if I was the only positive influence, the only one looking out for him, as he fell into depression and got lost in the negative online world that had obviously been consuming him. A positive thing I have taken from this experience, however, is that I can give most of the credit to my becoming a teacher and dedicating my life to enriching the lives of young people, to Corey.
It has been several years since Corey’s passing and MSN Messenger is no longer as popular as it once was, but social media is bigger than ever. Statistics show that social media has now overtaken pornography as the most popular online activity amongst Internet users. Furthermore, current research suggests that online interactions are now becoming an important part of adolescents’ development. I often think about Corey when I listen to arguments for and against teachers using social media with their students. In August 2011, the state of Missouri enacted a law that bans teachers from having “a nonwork-related website that allows exclusive access with a current or former student.” While I do believe that it is inappropriate for teachers to initiate personal relationships through online connections with students, I do not believe that we should ignore our students if they invite us into these spaces. Furthermore, I believe that schools should play an active role in teaching and modelling how to use these modern tools in a safe and appropriate manner. I was Corey’s only close adult connection, and was restricted by a workplace policy from authentically interacting with him in a space where he needed that connection the most.
How I Have Used Social Media as a Learning Tool
My own experience with social media, particularly Twitter, highlights how I discovered the educational benefits of being part of a social network. In early 2009, I joined Twitter as part of a social media experiment engineered by Nissan Canada. The Hypercube contest, in which 50 brand-new Nissan Cubes were given away across the country, was one of the first major advertising campaigns that relied entirely on the use of social media. The idea was to have contestants use their social networks to promote the launch of the 2009 Nissan Cube. As a participant, I used Twitter to post updates about my online activities and to promote what I was doing to win the car. I would wait for updates from the official contest feed and hope that I would be re-tweeted or mentioned in a post. I would also tweet back-and-forth with other contestants across the country and collaborated on a few video projects through the service. Looking back, I realize that it was simply a large-scale popularity contest, however, my efforts paid off and I was awarded one of 50 brand-new vehicles! My original need for the Twitter account soon ceased, however, and my account lay dormant after the contest ended.
Several months later, I discovered that many of the hockey-related blogs I read daily out of interest, also had Twitter accounts. I started following these accounts and soon found that I could receive up-to-the-minute news updates and links to online articles that I found interesting. I could also participate in real-time discussions with others all over the country during hockey games that I was watching by myself at home. Liking these benefits, I decided to look for Twitter feeds of people interested in my other passion areas: digital art, photography and education. I was happy to discover that there were other teachers on Twitter tweeting links to resources and articles that I found valuable. I could read their posts if I wanted, or ignore them and wait for something more interesting. I followed online discussions using hashtags (#bced, #edchat) and soon started participating to have my voice heard and to connect and engage with teachers all over the world. I have had discussions about issues in Education with people as far away as Australia. It has grown into my most powerful source of professional development because, through Twitter, I have access to an unlimited source of thinkers, reformers, gurus and leaders in the education world. Like many people unfamiliar with Twitter, I used to think that it was used to simply update others on the inane details of what one was doing during the day. I have since discovered that it can actually be a powerful source of news, collaboration and learning.
About Mr. Haire
Middle School Teacher; Puckhead; Tech Lover (and Hater).
If you don't want to be the best at what you do, then why are you here?
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