Inquiry for Equity: Or calling a spade a spade

Equity n. Fairness or impartiality.

Okay, clearly there is a new definition of “equity” in the context of this reading. Webster and I hold an equal view on the definition, fairness or impartiality. But this chapter makes it very clear that Malarkey’s view of equity is far different than my own.

Clarifying the word itself is important. For the record, my personal approach to equity means that students will experience equal growth.

The expectation is that a student entering 6th grade reading at the 6th grade level should leave reading at the 7th grade level, thus experiencing one year of growth. By this token the 6th grader coming in at the 8th grade level, should experience the same one-year growth, leaving at the 9th grade level.

Sometimes I feel that this step is overlooked. In the fervor to raise the lower-achieving students to grade level we may forget that our high-achieving students must experience equal growth, or equity does not exist, at least in my mind. Please know that I understand the need to scaffold our low-achieving students up to the proper level, but I also believe that this shouldn’t be done at the expense of other students.

But, let’s call a spade a spade. Malarkey’s not talking about a fair or impartial approach to education. Clearly, with the repeated references to addressing the needs of lower-achieving students the concept of equity is not about impartiality. Just so we’re all on the same page – no judgment intended.

In reference to looking at how inquiry can best support an equity focus Malarkey cautions us that we need to look carefully about how and why issues of equity are (or might be) overlooked in our investigations. A point not to be taken lightly. My concern is what kinds of specific questions need to be asked to assure the equity issue is properly addressed? If we are to insure that our inquiry is indeed equitible I at least need guidance in this area. Cindy, this seems to be your ballywick. Asking ourselves the right questions is of particular interest in areas where the focus is not directly on the lower-achieving student (such as writing circles, giving proper feedback in a writing group, or self-assessment of online writing).

A second issue dealt with in this chapter is the idea of inquiry. In this arena I agree wholeheartedly with Malarkey. Inquiry requires self-reflection. We need to look openly at how we approach students in our classroom; recognize what we don’t know; and see how we are meeting our own role as educators. “Inquiry helps us hold ourselves accountable.” Perhaps the most germane statement in the whole essay. I agree that inquiry, self-exploration, that reflective componment that defines a good teacher from a not-so-good teacher "can have a transformative effect on a teacher's practice even though the inquiry itself does (sic) not immediately lead to measurably improved results for students." Inquiry feeds our teacher souls.

Finally a note about the process of teacher research. On page 15 Malarkey states that “In order for inquiry to be sustained, it must be based on some real passion or curiosity of the teacher researcher." Pay attention Steph – this is exactly the confirmation you need to pursue the line of inquiry you’re proposing on your blog. As far as how this affects the rest of us I’ve already seen the pattern of inquiry at work. It seems that as we further reflect upon ourselves and our personal practices in the classroom. our research focus has shifted to better suit the passion or curiosity that made us sign-on for the summer institute in the first place.

Although I found much to disagree with here one thing is certain, there is a necessary fluidity to research that cannot be denied. We ride the wave wherever it takes us, not always in the same direction, but certainly with great excitement.

The Odyssey

This would be the opening post for the next chapter, "An East Oakland Odyssey..." I am going to try and follow Cindy's outline for posting protocal - wish me luck! What struck me when I started to read about Elena was the broad scope of her question. It seemed too vast to cope with for a t-r inquiry. She discussed reading needing to be social and teaching students to love reading, again - seemed pretty big to me. The other part of this article's content that stayed with me was her situation and how she decided to handle her LARGE question. She knew she would have the same students for 3 years and she decided to concentrate her research on just 4. At first I was not sure what I thought about this for a couple of reasons, one being that I know I always feel I am finally getting to know my students on a deeper level once they are leaving - so her situation seemed unattainable. Another was that is seemed to be unfair. Now all of this was what struck me on the surface level of reading about her venture.

As I found myself highlighting and jotting down notes in the margins I realized I was seeing this on a much more positive and constructive level. First of all she made her questions manageable by controlling the number of students in her study. I bet this would make the data easier to understand. I also agree that changes for one student would most likely help more than one student. Her ideas about teaching students to love reading, having reading be social, and finding a touchstone book seemed to bring her ideas to a more personal level. I have a feeling this made the classroom a more comfortable place for her and her students. I liked the way she reminded herself that her goal was to change attitudes and not scores - if you can change an attitude than a score will most likely change next anyway - right?

The one irony I did see in Elena's journey was that in the beginning she was searching for equity for her studnets. In the end she commented on the possible inequity she created with her methods. I would be interested to hear other comments about that.

How did this connect with my research? Well it was very helpful and I wonder if it was a purposeful decision to have me post on this one. My research revolves around 'writing circles' which would be my form of writing workshop and connect closely to literature circles. Her article gave me more ideas to add to my writing activities. She also made me think of some interesting questions like: Can writing be social? Is there a 'touchstone' writing assignment? When confidence is such a key factor, would I be better off inflating grades to encourage students (I know a teacher who does this and it works wonders for him)?

Over and out CSUWPAI - can't wait to read the posts!!!

Tracking the Conversation

In the comments to the previous post, Natalie asked a question about how to keep track of comments to a blog post. I thought I should let y'all know about three options that you might want to check out and add to your tool collections.
The first is one for Blogger. You can, and I think you most certainly should, set up your Blogger account so that it sends you an e-mail whenever you get a comment on your blog. You can find the place to do that in your Settings Menu under Comments. Just enter your e-mail and you're good to go.
That's all well and good for comments that are coming to your space, but following up with comments and conversations on others' blogs is a little more difficult. That's where a tool called coComment comes in. If you create an account with coComment, and download their tool and stick it in your browser, coComment will keep track of all the blog comments that you make and will create a webpage that threads and displays all comments made to conversations that you're involved in. I really like that feature because it helps me keep track of where I am commenting and if new comments are being left. Even better, you can get an RSS feed of the comments that you're involved in. That means the tools can be working for you.
The third option for you to be thinking about is tracking who is linking to your blog. That might not be important right now for many of you -- but the quality of your writing is solid -- I expect that eventually, others will begin to pay attention to what you have to say. When they discuss their work, they'll, if they are responsible bloggers, link to your work when they discuss it. (You'll notice that I linked to Natalie's blog above when I mentioned her comment.)
I use a blogging search engine called Technorati to take periodic looks at who is linking to my blog. (Here's a link to a Technorati search of Natalie's blog URL just as an example.) You can even set up an RSS feed of the search for your aggregator, thereby letting the tools do some more of your work for you. (Have I mentioned how much I like RSS and think you all should be using an aggregator?)

More on Blogging

I feel like part of my job with the AI is to help y'all continue to think about how you/we can use blogging as a vehicle for reflection and inquiry, and specifically t-r. I'm pretty impressed with the depth of the writing so far on folks' inquiry questions. You're all blowing me away with your thinking and honesty and sharing and documenting and expanding knowledge. This is so cool.
Thanks to Stephen Downes, who publishes a daily digest of what's going on in the world of e-learning, I came across this post that's a reflection on a blogger's blogging habits and some of the obstacles he faces. I thought you might find it useful. Here's a short excerpt:

I think any blogger would agree: it’s not exactly a cake walk to blog for the long term. I’ve been at this for under a year, and several times thought about throwing in the towel. While we all have different criteria for success, surely an inactive blog means the writer found something better to do.

I thought I would recount the various reasons why I nearly quitting blogging, so perhaps others can learn from my experiences and rationalizations behind continuing.

The rest of the post looks at some specific obstacles and his responses to them. While it might get a little geeky in places, I think his reflection is useful to a beginning blogger. I hope you agree.
Keep up the amazing work, y'all. I already feel like this AI is successful -- and we're still in the pre-institute work phase. Well done. (Now, that said, don't stop.)
PS -- Not that you don't have enough to read, write and think about, but you might consider adding Stephen's OLDaily to your aggregators. It's consistently interesting and relevant to folks who are thinking about being online with students' and our own thinking.