CSU Writing Project Advanced Institute Blog

Demo Workshop

2007-11-10T10:16:00.000-08:00

We are all here… again… at Mugs.
AI is in session. (though E.Jason is missing due to a forensics emergency – someone must be dead)

We begin with Natalie asking questions for the first session of the morning.

Question #1 – actually Renee’s question… but secretly hidden under Natalie’s protection… “How can we regulate the amount of people in each session at the CSUWP conference?” Natalie actually doesn’t care about the answer… but it is an important discussion…

- We will be inviting pre-service English teachers (at ½ price) to help fill it up. We are aiming for 50 people but we don’t know what that will look like.

- We also will be inviting CSUWP fellows (for free) to help “fill” the sessions for their benefit as much as ours.

Question #2 – Can outside teachers assist in presentations?

- No… we want all presenters to be Fellows.

Question #3 – What will the conference format look like?

- opening session with Administrators and Participants with Cindy et al.
- 2 sessions (5 presentations per at 75 minutes each)
- each fellow will only present once (except E.Jason who will present a beginning and advanced session on blogging)
- 3 Elementary teachers (fellows) are being invited to present

After the first session of questions, we broke up into our inquiry groups to work on demos in general (agendas, format, activities, etc.) and Deadline Drafts. The rest of the meeting was individually focused.

No other formal meeting of AI will be scheduled but it is highly recommended that Inquiry Groups meet sometime during the next two months to help each other get ready for the conference… godspeed.

Deadlines: Please plan on completing your work and sending it by…

Dec. 1st: Abstracts of demo due to Cindy (cindyoa@mail.colostate.edu)

Jan. 7th: Deadline for Final Drafts – Your final draft must be e-mailed to Cindy (cindyoa@mail.colostate.edu) and Natalie (Natalie.barnes@comcast.net)

Text of Abstracts/Drafts must be in the body of the e-mail… NO attachments!

Jan. 26th: the Conference… you should plan on being there

Good Luck Out There...

Example for description & outline

2007-09-15T14:04:00.000-07:00

An example of the presentation description and outline as requested by Cindy.

Content Writing: utilizing a structured activity

Presentation description:
Explore an easy-to-grade pre-writing strategy that can help students focus on details and organize their thoughts. Participate in a hands-on activity that will help you understand how the pre-writing process can enhance your own curriculum. Brainstorm ideas for utilizing a structured activity in your classroom.

Outline:
(5) Introductions
(5) Why write outside the English classroom?
- helps students put ideas in a different context
- practice for CSAP
- connections to pre-writing and other pre-activity cognitive activities
(5) What does the teacher need to know?
- Pick your battles! Don’t try to do everything
- This strategy will help focus on the details and;
- focus on organization of ideas
(7) Outline of the research project.
(20) Do the hands-on critical analysis activity
- focus on the details (10)
- focus on the organization (10)
(7) Review the concepts of detail & organization – debrief on activity
(10) Brainstorm how this might work in other classrooms – determine the specific skills on which you want to work, i.e. I worked on capturing details and organizing ideas into an essay format
(*) If time allows – design an activity that will work for you

Conference Talk...

2007-09-15T12:53:00.000-07:00

After reading an excerpt from the book “Teaching on Equity” by Carol Tateishi over lunch, we spent the early afternoon on discussing the implications for our site and the upcoming Jan. conference. Tateishi discusses her Teacher Research Program developed out of the Bay Area Writing Project. It presents a model of where Cindy would like us to eventually be as a writing project when it comes to teacher research (this seems to one our weaknesses as a site).

As the discussion of how possible it will be and the AI’s position within the establishment of the TR Groups, we eventually got into the guts of the AI goals… the Jan. Conference.

We then stepped into the argument phase, often created by Rebecca starting something and sitting quietly pretending she had nothing to do with it.

Topic: Deadline Drafts (1500-2000 words)
Title = Specific Question being answered
1. How I became interested in my topic
2. What my research looked like
3. What I found out through my research
4. How this continues to be important in my classroom
5. Suggested Resources (Annotated Bibliography)
6. Contact and Blog Information
7. Personal Information

Topic: Next Meeting - Demo Workshop (Nov. 10th, 8-12 at Mugs)
What you need…
1. Draft of Working Paper (for Booklet)
2. Session Description (50 words)
3. Demo Agenda (with times included)

See Natalie’s blog for examples of agenda and description.

An all=in-one document will be given to conference participants including AI information, specific session paper and CSUWP information.

We are done for now... thanks for reading or listening or thinking with us.

Inquiry Groups

2007-09-15T12:11:00.001-07:00

The morning of the AI mtg focused on our Inquiry Groups.

After the Inquiry Groups met… we reported out on how we are doing with our research and how

Natalie… now knows how to organize her data for her research. Cindy and Rebecca took care of it. She obviously had a lot to say (it is Natalie), but she isn’t sharing with the big group right now. Her session description is on her blog… she is better than the rest of us.

Stacey… was struggling with what to concentrate her research on, although she is really interested in research on team teaching, is going to stay focused on how to create writing groups. Her ideas of norm creation, “speed dating”, and different types of writing groups (autonomous, semi-autonomous, and disfunction junction). Cool ideas, sounds like a great demo.

E. Jason… is still working on how to properly use blogs in the classroom. He’s looking at expanding his blog work (on Lord of the Flies) to include the new reality show “Kid Nation”. As we talked, we basically created E. Jason’s demo… if he pulls it off, it will be awesome… teachers

Cindy… is continuing her book club research and trying to bring them into having controversial conversations as they participate in their clubs. The inquiry group helped her return to why she does what she does… “Teaching students to read, process, and compose texts in discerning ways.”

Rebecca… is feeling guilty about slacking. I’m not. As for her demo (about book clubs), she’s putting together her ideas including a mini-book club. As always, she is on top of things.

Jason… is still focusing on his blog stuff and will be joining forces with the other Jason to present different ways of utilizing blogs in the classroom.

Steph… realizes that she does NOT have to be the egomaniac sage on the stage. Her perspective on how her demo will go changed a lot through the inquiry group discussion. She has amazing ideas as a teacher, but is now starting to realize that many others will want to her what she has to say. Her demo, focusing on the teaching of poetry, is coming together though she feels much of her data will not be available for the conference. We say… who cares?

AI Morning Pages at Mugs

2007-09-15T08:55:00.000-07:00

Saturday Morning, cool breeze outside, coffee in hand, and we begin the AI again.
Its been a couple of months but we seem to be ready to dive in...
so don't bother testing the water... pinch your nose and jump...

It seems that it would be easiest for me to be the daily scribe…
So I will…
And I am.

This morning begins surprisingly on time… all present (except for our sickly Renee) who is probably reading this at some point. A circle of laptops and a search for plugs… Morning Pages has begun….

We look at bit dorky in a coffee shop… we either are sharing ideas with the world or we are battling to the death on an online videogame battlefield… maybe Halo or another shoot-em-up game. I imagine if that were the case that somehow Rebecca would win. She seems the most shrewd and tactical. Also I also think that she would secretly enjoy it.

The Morning Pages prompts…

“Where are you in terms of project, blogging?”
“What do you need to move forward (books, resources, friendly feedback)?
“What’s one thing your Inquiry Group could help you with today?”

Follow the links to the personal blogs (on the right hand bar of this page) to see morning pages from the AI fellows answering these questions.

As we move on past morning pages, we are jumping into inquiry groups… to focus on help each other focus on our issues and questions we have come up with. Based on reading the posts from everyone, it seems that everyone is moving forward but, not surprisingly, a little slow at the beginning of the years. All of us seem to be hoping for the same thing… for this meeting to jumpstart our work this year.

"Ideation" and the pursuit of writing...

2007-09-09T10:14:00.000-07:00

Last Friday my pre-service Art Education students started their practicum at the Lab School. One observation I made as I walked from room to room was the number of students who included a pre-writing or writing activity in their initial lesson plan. I talked with Dr. Patrick Fahey (he teaches another methods class that students take at the same time as the one I teach) to see if he had noticed this as well. I was pleasantly surprized to discover his observation had been the same as mine - we both observe our students in their practicum, they write the lesson plan for his class. He has long talked about the concept of "ideation" where students engage in brainstorming activities prior to the art-making process. Many times "ideation" is a writing or pre-writing activity which makes sense because we're talking about narratives in both applications, it just happens that one is literary and one is visual. His feeling was that the inclusion of the "ideation" process was a result of my reinforcing the writing in my class, which reinforces the same concept in his class. Interesting....

Also, I've posted the 50 word session description as well as the presentation outline on my blog.

Ya gotta love sticky note data!

2007-09-02T09:47:00.000-07:00

Hellooooooo - hmmm, I hear a big echo out there. Not sure anyone is listening but I've always managed to do a pretty good job talking to myself, so here I go again.

Well I'm onto stage three in my project. Completing the pre-writing critical analysis hands-on activity was exciting. My students were fully engaged and seemed to do a good job. I haven't had time to sort through the data, but in completing the process I realize that this is a valuable art activity with easy accountability and opportunity for good group interaction. So far it appears to be a success - and one student got excited just because she loved the idea of using sticky notes!

Between one research geek and another

2007-08-23T15:52:00.000-07:00

How exciting is this - actual students creating my research! Okay I admit it, I'm a research geek. This insight is based on the extraordinary rush I felt watching students complete my pre-assessment (more on this on my own blog). How goofy is that! Hopefully this excitement will carry over as I begin the arduous process of plowing through my data.

Preliminary sifting of data has unearthed little gems of information that pique my interest. Some of my favorite, and perhaps most inane bits of data that SURELY I'll be able to use SOMEWHERE include: how many minutes each student spent on the pre-assessment writing activity, the length of each writing sample (which doesn't necessarily reflect time), how many students I observed engaging in some type of pre-writing activity, and whether or not they completed a spell-check on their own. Can't wait to correlate this data with the student's self-evaluation of their writing skill, the number of college classes they listed that included a strong writing component and how well they 'perform' on the pre-assessment scoring rubric. Not to even mention the writing samples themselves.

So much data for just the pre-assessment, and the project itself doesn't start until next week! EEK! And I was concerned that I wouldn't have enough data!

Food for thought

2007-08-18T06:34:00.000-07:00

Okay, I avoided blogging on Monday in the hope that any visitors to the blog would comment on the earlier blog to help me out in getting ready for school to start - but alas, that was not the case. Anyway in preparation for my fall class I've been reviewing back issues of Art Education to see which articles I need to assign students. I came across an article that needed a reread because it seemed so relevant. "Living the Questions: Technology-Infused Action Research in Art Education." How appropriate is this! At any rate it brought back vivid memories of the AI with several specific quotes - these made me think perhaps I'm not as far out of the loop as I've been thinking. Sara Wilson McKay made some of the same insights we/I did this summer...

"...what looks like learning in one context may not be the same learning in another."
"...live the questions of art education, particularly in designing a technology-infused action research project addressing these questions, because it is in such shared efforts that our endeavors can become meaningful."
"Art asks us to revise our view of the world"
"Question: are we all talking about the same thing?"
"...joining together to really overcome isolation in our work. Whether it is the perpetual state of being in the service of others, or simply the sheer numbers of student we see in a day, we rarely are afforded the opportunity to connect with each other."

The last quote is most significant for me. My greatest enthusiasm for the CSUWPAI came from thinking about no longer working in isolation - hopefully fall will return structure to bring everyone together again and our network of teacher researchers will reconnect.

Okay, time for step one

2007-08-13T14:46:00.001-07:00

Well it seems that time is winding down and our projects are really on the horizon. I feel like my head is in the clouds but I'd like to know my feet are firmly on the ground. Although there is a pre-conference meeting on Saturday, September 19th, I'm still feeling a little shaky on my pre-assessment evaluation and would love to get together with anyone else interested in checking for a firm foundation that will help get the research off on the right foot.

So - if you're out there and interested please let me know - I'm up for any input I can get.

And the insights continue

2007-07-31T08:30:00.000-07:00

Oh my gosh – what a revelation! This morning I completed the research project writing activity, and boy did I learn volumes! First I know I need to collect data on how long students write. My “hunch” is that less time will be spent doing the pre-assessment writing than the final writing. I was surprized at how much writing I wanted to do. Most of the time it seems students are at a loss for information to include (at least the junior high kiddos). But I had soooo much information that it was a real struggle to condense everything into the 60 minutes I allotted for the activity.

When I do this with my students I will make note of how much time each of them spend writing both the pre-assessment and final. I found I could have gone many different directions with what I had to say, so the organization may suffer at the expense of details and inference (I’ll get to this in a minute). I’d REALLY appreciate if you have time to do a quick read on the critical analysis I completed and let me know if it seems organized, you can find it on my blog (it is rather lengthy, sorry).

What excites me about the process is the way it made me THINK ABOUT THE ART WORK! Wow. There were numerous ideas that I was able to infer from my pre-writing. Things about the artist and artwork that I’m intrigued with and wanted to address more fully. Ways in which the artist “might” have been going that I hadn’t thought of before. My hope now is that my students will come to the same conclusion. Because if they do, then this writing activity is about MORE THAN JUST WRITING. It will be about the process of looking at art. Hmmmm, it’s been a busy morning at my desk and in my brain.

hello from the nwp conference in massachusetts!

2007-07-30T12:24:00.000-07:00

Hi, all,
Just a quick message to say that I just showed our Advanced Institute blog (and many of your individual blogs) to the participants here at the "Inside Inquiry" conference in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and they think your blogs--as well as the overall concept of our AI--are way cool!

Craig Moyer and Megan Baker are here with me, and they're cramming every resource about teacher research that they can into their heads, and I'm co-facilitating the conference with other members of the NWP Teacher Inquiry Communities Network leadership team. It's been a terrific, but very intense, experience, and we'll have lots of knowledge to share when we get back home.

- Cindy

Inquiry heats up under the summer sun

2007-07-30T07:57:00.000-07:00

Summer days are drawing too quickly to a close at my house and I’m working to focus my research question. Cooler mornings have even spurred me to work in the studio. I must admit I included an image here only to try and entice you into reading this entry, and perhaps lure you to my blog where I’ve posted my questions and included the responses I came up with when I completed the activity. Rebecca has already found a few chinks that I completely overlooked (thanks for that!) and I’d be very grateful to have another set of professional eyes looking things over.

As far as the image, it’s the “rough draft” of a visual narrative. Each figure a paragraph expressing one idea, the narrative not complete until all seven figures are finished and in place. The work is very much like the formal critique I want my students to complete – there is a purpose for each component and they all work together. Like good writing each separate sculpture needs to be a strong statement that can stand alone (like a good paragraph), but together the idea coalesces into an idea larger than the sum of the parts.

Just some “food for thought.”

Steph's research 7/17/07

2007-07-17T05:32:00.000-07:00

"If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?" - Albert Einstein

I keep getting stuck on this quote for my research. I want to find out more about what it is that I'm doing in my classes in the research I have or why what I'm doing here and there works in my classroom. I have ordered the Gallas books recommended to me by Cindy, but haven't received them yet. But, I am somewhat hesitant about my project focusing on information I already know. But then again I don't really know where to go from where I am now---reading research. I am currently reading (skipping around) the book Natalie loaned me about abstract thinking and the arts. It spends some time on philosophy (Plato, Aristotle) and their opposing views of abstract thinking's value, or lack thereof. It's so fascinating to me.

But I can't disregard the great and insightful comments made by the AI about an interest in my writing something about what I do in my classes, either. I am still just stuck on the idea of retelling what happens---it makes it sound like my classes are all full of genius children and they are that way all because of me---which is TOTALLY not the case! Ha!

I need to find a happy medium among all of these things and see what comes out of it, maybe. I will keep researching as I prepare to go back to school sooner than later (sorry to bring that up!!!) and reflect on my poetry unit and classroom setting for a reader/conference attendee who doesn't know me or my school...more later as I reread my research schedule! I am both intimidated and excited about it: it's a lot, but it gives me a definite focus for the upcoming year!!!

Fun's over now comes the hard part

2007-07-15T09:35:00.000-07:00

Well the fun is over, it was a great two weeks with ya’ll but I guess now we have to get down to the nitty-gritty of our research. At least I feel infinitely better equipped to handle the rigors of the process. Must be these dog-days of summer, but in the short time since the end of the CSUWPAI I’ve already forgotten exactly how we’re supposed to be posting. Is it just to the main blog? Just to our own blog? Or should we do both. So, in an effort to make sure I’ve got all my bases covered (because Renee, like you, I’m a rule follower!) I’ve got two separate (yet equal) posts, here and on my own blog.

I’ve been trying to develop that elusive baseline rubric, the evaluative rubric NOT for grading purposes. My intent is to use this to garner enough information to establish whether or not my students’ writing has improved at the conclusion of my research project. Thanks in advance for taking a look – and I apologize for the length of this blog! Remember that I’m looking for an anticipated improvement in organization and details so that’s what I’m trying to quantify at this point. Students will be looking at art postcards. So, does the following outline what I’m looking for:

Organization
- Introductory paragraph addresses all major components of thesis that follows in the body of the paper (i.e. formal elements, content of the piece, factual and/or inferential information)
- Thesis paragraphs are in the same order as outlined in intro paragraph
- At least one paragraph addresses the formal elements
- At least one paragraph addresses the content of the piece
- At least one paragraph addresses the factual and/or inferential information about the piece
- Thesis paragraphs introduce a concept and build on the concept
- Each paragraph addresses a cohesive, complete component
- Closing paragraph re-addresses all major components of thesis and makes connections that pull them together

Details
- The analysis includes details about the artist, title of the piece, media, subject matter and additional information that could be found on the postcard (size, collection, etc.)
- The paragraph(s) addressing the formal elements include references to both the elements and principles of art
- The paragraph(s) addressing the formal elements relate the elements and principles to one another
- The paragraph relating to content relates at least one idea to a formal element of art
- The paragraph relating to content relates at least one idea to either factual or inferential information about the piece

Outline of Article for a Research Journal

2007-07-06T21:06:00.000-07:00

One last part of my notes from the daily log that may be helpful for future reference.

RQs
Review of Secondary Research

Not a summary
Argument that synthesizes prior secondary research in a way the demonstrates a gap
Cindy usually follows the pattern: 1. Here's the relevant stuff we know 2. Here's what we don't know 3. Here's what we need to know 4. Here's what I found out to help fill the gap

Context
Research Methods
Results: Discussion (Analysis of Key Pieces of Data--often reorganized by themes)
Implications/Questions for Further Research (answer so what? and what now?)

Cindy will send out over e-mail 2 articles as samples.

The Last Daily Log

2007-07-06T20:38:00.001-07:00

We have arrived at the end of our time together on campus, but the plans have already been made to reconvene soon.

Here's a recap of our final day:

Morning Pages: Jason’s prompt asked us to reflect on the AI experience. What worked? What didn’t work? What needs to be revised/tweaked/omitted?

Overall the group discussed the need for more direction in some aspects (goals, final products, researcher's chair, open activity), yet praised the individual focus that the schedule allowed through independent study, researcher's chair, blogging, and inquiry groups.

Some of the highlights of our discussion:

Renee accurately assessed that we rock. I believe her words were, "We're the coolest!"

Natalie compared the pre-institute meeting to whole life insurance. “Whole life insurance makes sense when you’re talking to the insurance guy, but when you walk out of his office you wonder why you need it.”

Researcher’s Chair: Natalie

Natalie, as always, began with a handout of her time line for next year to focus our attention. She then went on to ask for our feedback concerning her study of pre-service art teachers completing a writing assignment focusing on the critique of a piece of art.

One can only wonder how many times were we answering the wrong question for Natalie.

Natalie has taught the group two important lessons.

1. It is what it is.

2. You don’t know, what you don’t know because you don’t know.

BROWN BAG LUNCH:

During our working lunch we covered several important topics.

1. Staying Connected
A. Blogging:

We will blog a minimum of 2 times a month by posting on our blog and commenting on others’ blogs. (see deadline draft questions below for ideas for posts)

Blog schedule: July 16, July 30, Aug. 13, Aug. 27, Sept. 10
On Sept. 10 post demo outline + 50 word session description

Blogging Buddies will be Inquiry Groups.
(Steph, Stacey, Jason M., Jason C.)
(Renee, Natalie, Rebecca, Cindy)
* Remember you aren’t limited to your blogging buddies! *

B. Inquiry Groups
Meeting face to face is optional, but Cindy’s suggestion is to meet at least once before Sept. 15.

2. Post-Institute Meeting: Saturday, September 15 from 9am-2:30pm at Mugs
Remember to bring:
A. a deadline draft that answers these questions: (bring 8 copies for others to read)
DEADLINE DRAFT ?s
- here’s where I am now
- this is what I think now
- these are the questions I still have
B. outline of demo + session description (8 copies--you posted these on your blog Sept. 10)
(Remember that your demo is a slice of your research. Focus on best practices or strategies for the attendees to take to their classroom. Remember Natalie’s frazzled, fast-talking, canvas bag toting performance).

3. CSUWP Conference
We brainstormed ideas for a focus and title for the conference and discussed the plan for the day. The conference is planned for Saturday, January 26.

Penultimate Daily Log

2007-07-04T22:01:00.000-07:00

It is so hot in our room that we changed the schedule so that researcher's chair can be over by 12:30. No air conditioning in our room makes for a warm day.

Morning Pages: Renee; Wisdom from the I Ching
Write from a point of view you've never tried before. Focus on the demo--what will it be like for the person sitting in the audience, what do they want? What will they get from it? Pretend you're an audience member at your own demo.

Renee: I've realized that I'm negative (or paranoid, I don't know which). Renee wrote about the perceptions of audience members and how they might respond. Conclusion: If things aren't going well, just keep going and don't make a face.

Stacey: I went a totally different direction. I figure there is always going to be someone who has more experience, and someone who has less experience than I do.

Natalie: I liked this activity. Made me think of some things I wouldn't have thought of. I guess I would have htem go through the activity. Smiling face. Something on the chairs. Sheet of paper, 3x5 card, art people always expect free stuff.
(All teachers like free stuff, added Steph)

Steph: I wonder if someone in special ed would think "we've known that for years." Other teachers would say, "no way am I teachingpoetry, I hate it and the kids do too. Who does she think she is? But ideally they'll think: Wow, this is interesting to think about the way kids think. If she were up for Miss America I would vote for her.

Malone: I immediately started thinking about what I would do. Creating the documents, thinking about waht I have to rework for my kids. Started going back and thinking about it from the a different perspective. Looks great to me, but I need to back off and think, how does this look to kids. How does this look to parents?

Cindy: Wrote about the Administrator's conference. Very preliminary. Wound up writing about the disappointments. If admin. do decide to come, they may be expecting one thing, and that's not what we do. It needs to be interactive, to get the administrators writing. They are conditioned to think in terms of boxes and binders, and we just don't do that. Professional development like the WP is complex, more than just handouts and worksheets. We want them to write and share their writing so that they can see from the inside out how WP feels and looks. We want admin. to see that WP is not about one person standing in front of the room going through a binder of curriculum materials, it's a more professional life-span approach.

We also talked about the impact of the WP on people, and how to communicate that feeling to administrators. Perhaps a Q&A panel? Cindy also mentioned that we can perhaps co-opt the terminology of the "look for" as in, these are the some of the things that you can look for in a good writing teacher's class.

Rebecca: Good idea for morning pages Renee! I wrote from three different points of view.
First pov: Anti-touchy-feely anti-groupwork teacher might think that it sounds like a "more work for the teacher idea," they hate those.
Second pov: Questioner: How do you actually pull it off? Lots of questions, how do yo make it work? Money? Choices? Groups? How do you set it up?
Third pov: I've tried book clubs, but didn't find it succesful. It seems like a lot more work than just having everyone read one book.

Jason Clarke: I wrote questions for the quick write at the beginning of the session, what would get people writing and thinking:
What is technologies' place in the classroom?
Is technology a revolution for teaching, or just another tool, basically a glorified overhead projector?
Should teachers be on MySpace?
Is the internet making kids smarter and more knowledgable or is it just causing more ADD and creating students who can't and don't think critically?
Which is worse for education, the invention of the television or the invention of the computer?

As we talked, the group pointed out that because my focus is class blog discussions, these discussions should be on a blog as well, which is a great idea--thank you everyone!!!

Inquiry Groups:

Steph: I finished that endless article!
Also found some more articles, but haven't read them yet.
I've also been Gathering information from colleagues over email. My question is more in-depth than I thought. Not caught up with my question yet.
How can I frame questions so that sped kids can get a better sense of what they are able to do?
Survey/questions about reading and writing.
Past experiences with poetry?

Stacey: I think I want permission slips to record the discussions? Other permission slips?

Jason: Blog log, way to track participation in the blog. Each week one student hosts the blog, and then responds to what happened that week. They have to post a question and then answer some questions: I expect them to connect the "four ways of knowing" to the blog; how was it discussed on the blog?

Hopefully they'll use the skills from the class in the process. The blog log will help to track data. It will help to show the connection between the blog activity to grades on papers and grades in the class. It's pretty obvious to me that people who participate in the blog have written better papers. Then we talked for a while about the four ways of knowing and how they work in Malone's "Theory of Knowledge" class.

Open Activity: (Natalie and Stacey)

They started off wearing "WTF necklaces", which concealed the "Hidden agenda".

Asked us to look at three audiences--how would you adress your research to this audience?
1. Define your audience.
2. Identify the data that would be of interest to this audience.
3. Secondary components that would be of interest.
4. Where might you present this information to this audience?

Audience 1: Frazzled, wants everything handed to him/her,wants to be shown, not told, lot's of preconceptions about what is and is not good.
This audience Needs:
Examples
Variety/Handouts
Student Samples
Mini Paradigm-shift
Your Credentials
Secondary Components:
Videotape/Pictures (Visuals)
Related books,
Annotated Bibliography
A disclaimer? What I'm not doing.

The T is removed from the necklaces so we can see "inat."

Audience 2: Super-organized, logical-sequential thinker, who hates touchy-feely stuff and wants data and an explanantion of how that data influences your teaching.

This audience Needs:
Facts
Bibliographies
Statistical data
Quantitative data
Prove that your data is triangulated
Confidence/Attitude is important for the presenter
Show it's tested and "proven" to work
Credentials are important
Want a copy of your paper, including a citation list
Power Point must look like a research report
Context, lit review, research methods, analyze data, findings and implications slide.
CSAP data--numbers on achievement (be careful, they will grill you)

The F is removed so we can see "ion"

Audience 3: Magazines/Journals (Trade Magazines vs. Academic Journals)

The W is removed so we can see the whole word "dissemination"
The "hidden agenda" question is, how do we disseminate our research?

Then they presented us with guidelines for submission from a number of different journals, Steven Church's "Submitting your work," and a "Prospectus Planning Guide."

Researcher's Chair: Steph

After researcher's chair a few of us met at the Pickle Barrel for sandwiches.

Happy fourth of July, see you Thursday everyone!

A firecracker start to July

2007-07-02T16:34:00.000-07:00

Hmmm, interesting karma in the room today…
Triple digit heat and low energy makes us thankful for cool grass and deep shade.
Double-morning snacks and peanut butter M&Ms kick the diet out the window.
Hamburger buns masquerading as bagels signal a fuzzy brain.
Earth shoes and new hair set the style scene.

Welcome to CSUWPAI July2nd, 2007

Morning Pages Rebecca taught us the meaning of “punt” when she mixed up her snack and morning page assignment. Looking at personal reflection and asking for group input the following ‘themes’ emerged.

Timelines are important
Defining terms for a common vocabulary
Checking out search engines for research
Time, time, time – get more done, can’t sleep, too much to do
Revisit and re-analyze data
What would we write in the margins
Resources are elusive for many
Designing the data collection
Resetting the research, rebuilding the blog
What DO expectations look like
Proposals for presentations, publications, grants, oh my
Feedback and book selection
Primary data looks good, is it time for that secondary research

Public Writing Planning & Research Review
Referred to the Sarah Capitelli web page. Look at the AERA paper on her website. Products = 1) public writing and 2) demo to be presented at CSUWP conference. Be realistic and manageable in setting your goals.

Public writing is about making sense of your work and can show just a slice of your work. Documentation is needed for the NWP. Demo to be presented at the CSUWP Conference – which now has a date and a format (more later)!

What happens after the SI?
CSUWPAI participants need to prepare a school-year timeline for their research before this Thursday (eek, 3 days away!), submit via email to Cindy. Can be as informal as a list.
Post institute “work in progress” meeting will be 9/15/07 at MUGS from 9-2:30. Planning for the writing conference and working on your demo - come with an idea and an outline.

CSUWP Writing Conference. 1/26/08, half-day at CSU (Eddy?). Plan for two sessions of 5 – 75 minute workshops. Open to all teachers, some CSUWP Fellows will be invited to present alongside the CSUWPAI participants. Remember the research connection and organize the demo around FAQs related to your practice. Your research question may be the FAQ and the meat of the demo would be workable strategies that include student samples (better know as data). An administrator session is a great idea – can it be accommodated?

Tentative outline
8:00-8:30 - registration
8:30-9:00 opening remarks
9-10:30 – session 1
10:30-10:45 – break
10:45-12:15 – session 2 and summer program recruiting

Ten presenters will be paid a $150 stipend, and $250 is estimated for office expenses (mailing & stuff). 42 conference participants paying $50 each would be needed to break even (breaking even is making expenses + 20% to be recycled into future programs) –

Open Activity with E. Jason & Steph
How to write a research paper … pre-writing based on assumption that if you just write about the subject and then see what you think after you’ve done this – sometimes the free-writing helps if you’re not sure of the process.
research questions
primary data (first pass)
*secondary data
design experiment
What do I need to know/show?
Order of operations (preliminary data?)

The process was useful causing some of us to question our research question again; review the logistics of what is needed for baseline data; verbalized concerns over finding secondary research data; and a re-evaluation of the cognitive connections.

Researcher’s Chair – Renee’s turn in the hot seat. Here comprehensive list of questions provided fertile ground for commentary. Volumes of discussion seemed doomed to semantics – as the issue of a common vocabulary was revisited. Efficient or streamlined – the question isn’t so much the correct word as defining what you want from the kids.

In an effort to keep us all on track Cindy encouraged us to metaphorically “write your side questions in the margins – so you can keep them in mind but not lose the focus.”

A monumental effort to keep the focus today – well done!

June 28 Log

2007-07-01T20:21:00.000-07:00

We have re-clarified the schedule and had ‘mood announcements” :)

Morning Pages Prompt – by Steph J
How does the teacher’s investment in their research question and the students’ background about the teacher’s topic affect the research?

Much conversation about the prompt

Natalie questioned her students’ backgrounds in writing. Is it the demand to write outside of a writing class?

Steph questioned her enthusiasm. Does it force her kids to be enthusiastic about poetry?

Jason also questioned his enthusiasm and wondered if it caused blind spots in his teaching with technology.

Cindy said – “Teacher research is just too intensive (again, think positively) to take on if you aren’t invested in the topic. And while this goes against the traditional notions of the Researcher in the white coat with the pocket protector and his (and, yes, the image has historically been male) supposed objectivity, there’s got to be some passion back there somewhere.”

Rebecca pondered perameters. There have been enough “Cindy groupies” in the district that the students know about book clubs.

Jason C. discussed the assumption that students are comfortable with tech to begin with – the setup is a yearlong process. He discussed his vision of how to do this next year. He does not want to wait to do all the setup at the end of the year. How do I set up the groups?

Renee was contemplating her bias. Is she becoming anti content writing because she wants students to love writing? Are her expectations fair?

Now we contemplate assumptions and agendas that are created by research

Comments worth noting:

Steph - “we do not have to worry about the administrations’ agenda, cause that is just silly” and “I am nothing if not professional”

Natalie – “We need to agree to agree even if we disagree about what we agreed upon”

Natalie – “Maybe they don’t know what they know, ya know?”

Steph – “Would it kill ya to give a word bank for 2 weeks?”

Jason Clarke’s researcher chair continued – see Steph’s notes J

Natalie placed our pictures and quotes on our boards – very creative. We will have to post pictures of our bulletin board.

Data Analysis – Cindy’s Presentation.
Living With the Questions: A Guide for Teacher-Researcher

Primary Data Collection All research findings are provisional

Constant Comparison:
RQs being compared to your data / The thing we are trying to learn is …. Then check data
Pieces of data to one another (ex. Surveys to student work)

Triangulation
Deliberately collect 3 different kinds of data
Example: Field notes, student work, video tape, blogs, etc.

Open Coding – focused coding
What do you do? I have 3 different types of data…now what?
Open coding is what happens you are using your research questions as a filter to understand your data (it is your first pass through your data)
When you do this – themes and patterns begin to emerge
Make list of themes and patterns
Come up with a method to track the themes and patterns
· Highlighting
· Sticky notes
· Reference to data type/date (ex. blog entry)
· Table of contents
· Etc.
The responsible thing to do with your themes is to go back and focus code. This is where sub-themes begin to emerge.
Sub-themes = nuanced analysis

Good places to start for first pass analysis
Sarah Capitelli’s webstie: Inquiry Context, Teacher Reflection, Student work
Inquiry – where is came from
Teacher reflections – this is like her open coding or first pass
Student work – the triangulation piece in action, usually student produced work

Create a sheet for Analysis with these text boxes: Context, First thoughts (what strikes me is…), Emerging themes, Data to cross reference (make list), New questions or hunches/ Things to think about later.

We went into inquiry groups, lunch, and independent study, and then Stacey's topic was discussed in Reseacher's chair.

ya just had to be there

2007-06-29T06:01:00.000-07:00

I'm kind of afraid to post now. What if I lose my privilege to speak on this blog? Is there a digital version of sticky notes that Ms. Rector would allow?

Seriously, though, when I read back through all that we've accomplished in just a few days, I have to say that AI is exceeding my expectations. Yesterday, I got an e-mail from NWP that the interim report was due soon for the grant that funded the AI, and when I write it, I just want to say, "see blog" or use some yearbook cliche like "ya just had to be there." Because like most writing project experiences, this one will be difficult to capture in prose.

Every day, Jason and I go over to the student center, and SI folks ask how it's going. The experience is even hard to explain to CSUWP people on the inside. Yesterday, I just wound up saying that we're zooming in on the teacher-as-researcher part of the NWP trinity in a big way.

If this is even possible, it feels to me as if all the same intensity people generally feel about SI is magnified because it seems that the risk-taking element that often isn't stripped away until the 3rd week or so in the SI has been removed from the start. Maybe Megan Baker's husband who was sitting at the lunch table with us yesterday said it best: "This sounds like a Ph.D. in writing project."

I knew before you all got here that everyone in the room was amazing, but wow...I mean, you guys are truly great thinkers. It's an honor to see everyone digging in to understand the complexity of her or his practice.

I wish that the powers-that-be in your respective districts could see you in action. Not only would they would be awed by your devotion to your craft, but they would understand that in most cases, most schools have no idea how rigorous "authentic" professional development can be.

Want to know what I mean by "authentic"? Well, I guess ya just had to be there....

Day 3 Daily Log for 6/27/07

2007-06-28T06:07:00.000-07:00

Daily log: Wednesday, 6/27/07

We began the day with a new idea!!! Researcher’s chair will be cut in half---30 minutes one day, 30 minutes the next day….so that we can mull over ideas and organizational issues from one day to the next and also so that it’s not an oh-so-overwhelming 60 minutes barrage of help all at once….When it’s our turn, we will post on the AI blog the day before we have RC any context, summaries, or concerns about our own topic … our first victim---I mean---researcher in RC yesterday, Rebecca, mentioned as feedback that she didn’t think she was “ready for what happened yesterday.” Well put! Good feedback for the developing RC so that we can tweak it to better meet our needs!!!

We then picked on someone (Stacey) for going to the public library. Her Morning Pages are from a book she checked out from there: 8 short questions!!!
Stretch your thinking:
1. If your topic were a _____, which one would it be and why? (Think Dating Game….I’ll hum the theme song while you write….do do do do dum dum do dooooo)….
2. If your research were a color, which would it be?
3. If your topic were a weather pattern, it’d be _____. FYI…We decided an earthquake is not technically a weather pattern and "tornadic" is not a word, but I’m not mentioning any names (Cindy).

Then we had to have a moment for a small, but noticeable SNL reference to Jeopardy! With Will Ferrell and contestants like Sean Connery and Burt Reynolds…..how many times did Stacey have to say, “OK…we’re just moving on….can anyone hear me to going to question #3….? Just write anything. Anything at all. We're moving on."

We then finished the Morning Page:
If your topic were food (meal or snack, etc.), an animal, a TV show/movie, a famous person, a country...

Results:
We learned that Renee has fleas (which is totally okay) and that she tries to give her students the fleas…no, no, no. If it were an animal, the TOPIC she is researching would be fleas---something that jumps from one to another, a happy flea/idea exchange!!!

Stacey’s research would be multi-colored and polka-dotted---something between which she needs to connect the dots….no definite beginning or end!

Natalie broke ALL the rules of this activity, and will get in trouble later. She chose her research to be an aspen tree….writing across the curriculum is as annoying as those little aspen sprouts in our yard to her husband, Bob…teachers need to think like a gardener…

Muddy Easter egg water is the color of Cindy’s research….kids might get clever enough to try one color at a time or learn to mix color, use crayons to make designs instead of plopping the egg into all the colors making it impossible to see each one on top of the other….eventually….different filters give different views…it's a two step Easter egg process….each sequence gives more questions….this Easter egg will never be finished…!

Rebecca is still shell-shocked from yesterday and is a safe, non-frilly, mechanically sound Volvo testing out her research….with a solid structure and foundation to withstand any research issue.

Jason C. went from a 1960s Aston Martin (think James Bond) to the Millenium Falcon and Han Solo…always working on his research/technology at his disposal, fixing it, trying to make it better.

THEN it was time for round 2 of Rebecca’s researcher’s chair!!! Good luck, sister! She "played around with her question" about her project overnight (translation: I had terrible nightmares about the badgering mob of people coming after me yesterday.) She narrowed down the ideas from yesterday, as did the rest of us….Next step: What would we like to know about her topic/research? What to do when a brilliant kid does the work but chooses to do everything but participate about it appropriately?

Next....Open Activity time! We had a good discussion and debate about qualitative/quantitative research regarding our subjects. We read pages 2-11 and worked on formulating and articulating our research questions---what to steer away from and what to add to our thinking.

We learned to start with our questions and rephrase them with: “What happens when…”, “How…”, “What is….”. We then webbed about what we anticipate and our hunches about our own questions. The last step was to articulate what we want/need from other people in the group (a “Dear AI, This is what I need from you…..”) which can always help with the RC!!!

Conclusions: as we wrote our web of questions on colored paper, we concluded that colored paper and really new and good smelly markers make everything much better. Some people who shall remain nameless (Natalie, Steph) may have gotten a little too excited about the smelly markers. That's all I'm saying.

Last, we had “status of the class” for the rule followers reading the schedule, who shall also remain nameless (Renee). We determined the status of the class was, in a word, “crazy” and then went to lunch!!!

After individual time, one of the inquiry groups met. I wasn't a part of that, but I overheard that someone stole Renee’s pen but no one knows who it was (Jason).

We watched a video after lunch about Capitelli’s ELD students and the strategies used with them and their unit on family (inquiry context, data, teacher reflection, student work). How do conversations in between students to support English language learning and how do other kinds of conversations impact that learning?

Data from the video included interviews, whole-class discussion/review, evals in writing like stars and wishes, videos.

AI Primary data brainstorming ideas included: surveys, interviews, blog postings, student work, student feedback, field notes, grades, achievement data, test scores, interviews with colleagues, blog reflections, journals….to be continued as we continue with our research.

Lastly, Jason C. took the Researcher's Chair (brave soul) and Steph decided to record the whole thing on her laptop, though it was NOT her turn to do so. However, she is totally prepared for a career as a courtroom transcriber. (Good to keep one's options open.)

Jason's RC took many directions, some of which involved critical thinking and what that might look like in his classroom. What is anonymity on a blog? Renee asked what the freshmen did, since the sophomores in Jason's research did a good job deciding what good, bad, and ugly blogs looked like. Jason mentioned that the freshmen did nothing. They just sat around and did absolutely nothing, zilch, nada. Bad, bad, bad. (Actually, they haven't had a chance to do anything relating to this….that's coming up later in his research….!) Topics such as assessment, revision, and career skills for the future were also discussed relating to Jason's work so far.

Can't wait to see what happens tomorrow!

Day 2: Sound Bytes

2007-06-26T20:31:00.000-07:00

Snacks
We’re official! The chocolate arrived! One of the two bags of peanut M&M’s were opened before many computers were raring to go! Muffins, fruit, pistachios, peanut butter M&M’s, two bags of Twizzlers [Family Size with the Resealable Bag], and Natalie’s special request: cranberry juice and sparkling water. Again, we’re officially at a NWP event!

Natalie started the day by personalizing daily pages. Each person is given an invitation that contains two prompts: a written prompt and of course a visual from our residing artist! :)

Morning Pages: Our Personal Invitations from Natalie to Explore our Research
Renee, I was intriguiged with the idea of “tracking” in your writing circles. This particular artist, who creates images of sacred circles, clearly feels that the diversity of color, shapes and textures adds to the intensity of her message. Do you feel that homogenous groups would spark deeper or more shallow discussion? What are some of the problems in a homogenous group?
The suggestion was given to me by two teachers to let them form their own groups at first. This way they will have a comfort level with who they are with and usually the students put themselves in homogeneous groups naturally. Let them stay in these groups for a while and then make necessary changes.I am thinking that groups of 4 are the goal. From what I have experienced and heard in Kagan cooperative training that is the best number. Also, I am thinking that keeping them in the groups for 6 weeks is a good time. They could be in these groups for lit circles and writing circles. 6 weeks is a hexter and Kagan cooperative training suggests that amount of time also.

Stacey, I’m curious as to what you expect to glean from the Art of Revision ed, Wendy Bishop book. How do you see this relating to your research question?, I’m curious as to what you expect to glean from the Art of Revision book. How do you see this relating to your research question?
☼ As I was reading, I thought of something else I think I know: students need to have experienced something –sports, rodeo, music, cooking – where they have repeatedly practiced that something to get it right to understand the importance of revision. And, as a teacher, I need to help students make the connection between that something and writing! I see a lesson plan and demo in the works…

Nat,Hmmm, I guess what I want to know is how this will all wash out in the long run. Do I have any plan in mind to track the progress of my students?
“It seems that the only way they [students] will actually take the love of writing – and the potential it has to offer their students into this real world is to have made it part of who they are as teachers. My process must address this internalization. Which means the process cannot be a one-shot strategy. Because in order for an idea to become part of who you are I believe there must be interaction over time. And this is a revelation that has occurred to me for the first time now. Prior to this minute I thought of my strategies and entities separate from the rest of my curriculum – but in order to succeed I see now that the concept must become part of my own teaching. I need to face the future and model what I know.”

Steph, it seems that you encourage your students to look at themselves as what they can be, not what they are. Did you know artist Keith Haring began his career as a graffiti artist, undoubtedly someone who many people didn’t think would amount to much. Have you given any thought to looking at any research models in the other arts to help develop your own research question?
“I think kids just don’t get taught ‘life’ much and therefore are so busy figuring that out that they forget to see themselves in it; therefore, I feel they don’t understand their own potential….We talk about ethical and political issues often as a result of looking at Picasso’s “Gernica” or reading one of many of Ginsberg orWhitman’s poems. It’s interesting. The kids have a lot of ideas and are often willing to support them, once they can take a temporary leave of all the other garbage they’re worried about and just put it out there and see what happens. They know full well they’re safe to do so in my class and that saying or doing anything to just please me makes me want to vomit or throw a temper tantrum, so that is never an issue.”

Cindy, In this picture it appears at first glance to be two people, but on closer inspection you see that one is the artist and the other simply a chalk drawing on the sidewalk. This addresses my question for you ...how do you tell what’s real from what’s perception? What I mean is, how do we determine the changes that occur as a result of what we do as t-rs and changes that would have naturally occurred anyway? How do we know what’s real?
“Believe it or not, I’ve been thinking about the last question in particular, and Jason (Malone) and I were just talking about it yesterday in reference to students’ reactions to The Life of Pi, which Rebecca’s kids have been reading to mixed reviews in book clubs for the past couple of years. Well, you get the picture—more groovy serendipity in CSUWP. So it may be hard for me to think of these questions in the broader sense of t-r, but I’m going to try in the next 8 minutes.This question really has to do with the nature of truth, I think (oh, yeah, like I’m gonna solve that problem in 8 minutes…). Okay, so I’ll take a stand. I do think that truth is in the eye of the beholder to a large extent, but I also think it does matter. Yes, there is such a thing as empirical truth, at least when it comes to inanimate objects, but as soon as something moves, well, so does the nature of truth. One of the things I’ve learned in my years as a qualitative researcher (and a human being) is that truth is to a large extent the story we tell to make sense of what happened (cf. Life of Pi again).”

Rebecca, I’m curious about what, if any, parameters do you put in place to help monitor the discussion of controversial subjects in your book circles? Interpretation of artworks such as this one titled “Christ’s Last Day” would certainly be a hot topic in a public school setting - how do you handle the idea of censorship?
“My puzzle is how do I help students to not censor their discussions and deal with those ‘elephants’ presented on the pages of their novels in a productive manner.”

Jason, artist Piet Mondrian felt that balance in his life could be achieved through the balance of color, line and shape in his compositions - by looking into himself and using visual images to express larger ideas such as the feel of the city and essence of Broadway in this piece titled Broadway Boogie Woogie. How do you see this new technology changing the way students interpret ideas - or will it?
Paraphrased by yours truly! :0
The title didn’t match up with the picture. I expected movement and color. Broadway Boogie Woogie – it’s like legos! I got bogged down in my blog with so many ideas – that I was digressing so far away from my topic that I just tabled it for now.
Technology has reprogrammed the way we think – perception of ourselves, each other, the world.

Inquiry Groups
SJ [squared]
It has become apparent within the first two minutes of meeting that this group needs a task master. I’m happy to oblige. With a group as dynamic and energetic as this, we’ve decided on a few short hand phrases/actions that can be applied to the individual who needs to be reeled in:
I got it.
Arm motions.
Can we just focus on this one thing?
Distract the talkers with a shiny object! J

Mantra: Be honest and don’t take offence.

PAB’s
The PAB's are a pretty compatible, (if agreeably moody) crew. Some of the norms we agreed on included: equal time for all members, honesty in our responses, desire to be challenged and most importantly a philosophy of press, address, then bless!

Independent Study Time and Search Engines

Researcher’s Chair: Rebecca
The first official researcher’s chair! We realized that we need –of course -- more time. We’re toying with the idea that each t-r should have two time slots: the first, to share his/her research [half hour one day] and the second, to return with any questions he/she might have [half hour the following day]. This would give the t-r time to reflect on all the information we’ve bombarded them with. We’re learning as we go!

One Liners of the Day
If I got a Mac, I’d have to get a divorce. – Natalie
The essence of the M&M’s are taking over the room. – Cindy
“the Slowskis” seem to have inhabited pre-AP – Rebecca
Teacher research doesn’t give you any more control over the variables in your classroom, but you are able to discern patterns which help you understand what is happening in the classroom. – Cindy

The Inaugral Researcher’s Chair

2007-06-26T19:32:00.000-07:00

After surviving…hmmm…I meant... experiencing Researcher’s Chair, I am ready to come back for more!

In all seriousness, I want to thank my fellow fellows for their tolerance of what felt like a random outpouring of my research experience. Your probing questions and thoughtful suggestions were thought-provoking and genuinely appreciated. I will be asking for more soon. It also was a good reminder of why book clubs is a practice I keep trying; just talking about it fired me up to go and take another crack at it.

Quick re-cap of my research:

Sophomores in my Pre-AP course participate in a book club once a week for a three or four week period. Below is a rough outline of the process:

Week 1:

"Book Talks" (brief overview of each book) to introduce title options
Student selection of top 3 choices
Book club membership determined
Students complete webquest on title to provide background, context, author info, etc.
Book clubs meet to establish norms and goals

Week 2:

Groups meet to discuss first third of book (discussion is guided by students’ sticky notes kept as they read and the discussion log with specific prompt provided by Cindy and me)

Week 3:

Groups meet to discuss second third of book (discussion is guided by students’ sticky notes kept as they read and the discussion log with specific prompt provided by Cindy and me)

Week 4:

Groups meet to discuss end of book (discussion is guided by students’ sticky notes kept as they read and the discussion log with specific prompt provided by Cindy and me)

Week 5:

Groups complete mandala to reflect the “universe” of their novel and prepare to present mandala and their overall reaction to the book to the class
Students individually create a found poem using what they decided was the most important page from the novel
Presentations of mandalas

During the over-flow of my researcher’s chair I could use your help with:

1. I have the fall conference in mind (as well as my NCTE and NWP presentations) and would like to know what an audience of teachers wants to know about book clubs. During today’s discussion most questions seemed targeted towards the process and strategies that we used—is that what you would want to know more about? Can you give me the specific questions you have about book clubs in my classroom?

2. With your help, I think that I have arrived at the question that I am most interested in exploring: How can does partcipating in book clubs allow students to have an “authentic” experience exploring literature and the issues raised by literature? Is this what you heard me saying or did you glean (just for Stacey) something different in my ramblings?

3. That is all. I will burden my inquiry group with any more queries…if Cindy allows me stick around.

Researcher's Chair

2007-06-26T18:17:00.000-07:00

We had our first "researcher's chair" today, and we learned some things that we're going to start applying right away. The idea behind this activity is that each of us will get the chance to talk about our research project and get some feedback from the rest of the group. The first thing we learned is that we need more time--originally we (that's the royal "we"--actually it was Cindy and Jason) scheduled 1/2 hour for each researcher's chair, but after 1/2 hour today we all felt as though we had just scratched the surface with Rebecca's research, so we're planning to spend another half hour tomorrow. The plan now is to give each of us two half-hour blocks of time so that we can discuss our projects, take a night to reflect, and then come back and finish our discussion.

The other thing we learned is that it would be helpful to front-load the activity a bit more. Jason suggested that we write up a quick summary of what we've done so far so that we don't have to use too much time explaining our project at the beginning, and then to write down three questions to help focus our discussion and make sure it's as productive as possible.

I have the researcher's chair tomorrow, so on my blog I've written a summary of what I've done so far with my research project, which I decided was a useful activity in itself. It helped me to focus in a systematic way on what I've already done and what I still need to do, which is crucial for us "concrete-sequential" thinkers.

The questions that I hope we can address tomorrow are the following:

1. What things don't you understand about my project? I'm so close to it that I know I make a lot of assumptions about what others know and understand. The pre-institute blogging has helped me a lot to identify some of them, but I know there are many more. So what is it that is still not clear about what I'm doing and how I'm doing it?

2. What are the things that are troublesome about my project? If you were reading an article about this project, what would be frustrating about it? What things would you be rolling your eyes at, what issues would you be wondering why I'm not addressing, or what concepts or ideas would you be wishing that I would acknowledge?

3. What are the most interesting or intriguing aspects of my research project? What are the things that you think I should pursue further and explore more?

Looking at this list I'm sort of amused at the fact that these are pretty similar to the "stars and wishes" that we do at CSUWP for author's chair. That's interesting, I think, but I honestly didn't start out with that in mind.

TTFN CSUWPAI!

Just kidding everyone, txt tlk is annoying, but I couldn't resist using such an impressive string of acronyms!

(BTW, TTFN means "Ta Ta for Now." Oh, and BTW means "By the Way." ;-)

LOL

Day 1

2007-06-26T12:46:00.000-07:00

this is late... I finally was able to post it...
Gotta love CSU servers.

The inaugural day of AI has come and passed and based on what we’ve seen already, it’s been going to be a great addition to the WP as a whole… Again, our focus is research and technology and here is what we are considering…

Renee wants to know… “How can I make writing workshops (writing circles) function in my classroom?” and “Are ability groups or choices better or not for writing circles?”

Natalie wants to know… “How can I help pre-service art teachers teach writing in meaningful ways?

Stacey wants to know… “How can I help kids become better writing group participants (esp. in terms of feedback)?”

Rebecca and Cindy want to know… “What happens when I use book clubs to help kids talk about difficult texts/topics in productive ways?”

Steph wants to know… “Why are skills-kids able to excel with abstract thinking during poetry instruction?”

E. Jason and Jason want to know… “ What happens when I use technology to create new opportunities for critical thinking discussions?”

The day was spent refining our questions and identifying our assumptions and goals for the two weeks ahead. In addition, plans were drawn out (or at least the process has begun) and our research review of S. Capitelli’s work has given us a look at what good teacher research looks like. A model to follow... and we still have Cindy to look up to.

Cindy and I really didn’t know what to expect but it is clear that it is already exceeding our expectations.

It begins...

2007-06-25T07:30:00.000-07:00

This morning is the beginning of AI, just another brainchild of WP's that is being watched by many across the country. Hope we live up to the hype. We'll be writing, blogging (a lot), and focusing on our research. All for the better of our classrooms and kids.

website address

2007-06-25T06:56:00.000-07:00

Hi, all,
Here's the address for the Carnegie Foundation's Gallery of Teaching & Learning, which we'll be consulting all week. Since you're already familiar with her work, we'll focus primarily on the Sarah Capitelli link, but there's lots of other good stuff by writing project teachers on there, too, so we encourage you to browse. More to come.
- Cindy and Jason

Shaping & Owning Teacher Research

2007-06-19T15:06:00.000-07:00

I appreciate Juarez's honesty and fair concerns about teacher research in her school. Funding and participation are indeed honest concerns with a busy teaching staff. But I seemed to miss how all of this inquiry and planning tied to equity in specific situations.

To start, I think that the idea of ownership is key with a staff. I like the term "teacher-owned" used in the article to explain relevance and subsequent involvement. I agree that "'Teacher research complements teaching.'" I was confused, however, on page 147 where Juarez writes about her objective in this process. She mentions that she never thought of becoming a better teacher as a goal. The deliberate reflection, I think, can't help but improve one's teaching, especially if the time is given during the day to do so. But, that brings me to the next question about this school's process: time and scope.

I got the feeling that one year was not a realistic timeframe in which to try new things, reflect on them, read articles, meet as a staff, make the required changes in the ideas tried out in class, and compose a professional piece for publication. When I reviewed the agenda for the year, I found it very rushed and Juarez herself mentions that next year, she would cut out the professional articles and discussions about them in an effort to save time. I think that would be a mistake and that maybe extending the timeframe for this process to, say, two or more years might allieviate the rushed feeling I sensed while reading this article.

Is it possible to expect teachers who are also coaches who are also StuCo reps who are also parents, etc. to accomplish all of this in one school year and really see a good, healthy body of data to support or reflect what they are trying to do? Or am I missing something? Because isn't it the entire school who are working on this goal? It must be exhausting, I would think, to plan and focus so much on this task. What about the building's other "standard" goals, such as technology or critical thinking, or other such buzz words going around these days (I'm thinking of my building's goals: communication, technology and critical thinking---but we gave ourselves three years to meet our goals in these areas....)?

Don't get me wrong. I think this is an outstanding idea and after I sifted through the weirdly-worded bits about the reorganization of the schools and then the five different schools on one campus, etc.(???), what the staff is trying to do sounds wonderful and commendable. I love the idea of their groups acting almost as "research writing groups" where teacher researchers could bounce ideas off one another and receive feedback on them...I love that kind of involvement and the generating of more and more questions....It sounds like a great experience.

I just am not sure about the pressure and realistic expectations of those in charge? Would this work in other schools, especially when we receive our high-stakes test scores in the months after our students have exited our classes? And where did the equity element go, or is that understood to be embedded in the teacher research?

The Cycle of Inquiry

2007-06-15T14:43:00.001-07:00

Well, my original plan was to respond to each of the three main ideas Friedman presents, so I figure I'll touch on the last one today, since we start the new chapter on Monday.

I think this one is interesting because it happens to be the place that Cindy started us on the first day of the institute. The "Cycle of Inquiry" gives us a very useful structure to follow, and I think that now that I have actually done some teacher research, I understand how it works a little bit better than I did before.

It's been a loooong time since Cindy first posted this list, so here it is as a reminder. This is basically the same as the cycle that we see in Appendix C of the chapter:

What do I want to know? We get fascinated in or curious about a piece of our teaching. That's asking questions.
How will I find out? We start collecting data about that piece of our teaching. That's, um, data collection.
How do I make sense of what I've found? Looking at the data with a critical lens can help us to identify patterns and connections that we didn't seen before. That's data analysis.
How do I share what I've learned? Now that I understand that piece of my teaching better, how do I share what I've learned? That's reporting or sharing your findings.
Now you have new questions. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

The key, I think, is that a teacher researcher goes beyond what a reflective teacher does, and in this chapter I feel that I may have found some examples of how teacher research builds on and adds important elements to reflective teaching.

First, reflective teachers talk formally and informally and listen to each other; teacher researchers engage in constructivist listening and/or structured dialogue sessions with guidelines, procedures, and specific questions to examine. This makes the process more efficient, productive, and useful for each individual teacher.

Second, reflective teachers look at the way their lessons go and make changes/adaptations as they are needed. Teacher researchers gather data systematically and analyze it through the inquiry process with a critical eye (and with the help of other t-rs whenever possible) to identify their own biases, blind spots, and assumptions--to see into and even "through" the data to find out what's working or not working and why. They then use an equally systematic approach to finding potential solutions, gathering more data, and continuing the cycle of inquiry.

Third, reflective teachers share "best practices" with colleagues when they can; teacher researchers consistently share the results of their research in public forums, (books, professional journals, blogs, conventions, writing projects, etc.) joining a t-r community of researchers who help and support one another. Researchers look for consistently reliable practices and share them.

I don't know if anyone else cares about this dichotomy, but I had a hard time seeing the difference between reflective teaching and t-r at first, so maybe this is more for me than for anyone else--but hey everyone, let's call it "sharing results" and call it good.

Anyway, enough from me, I'm looking forward to hearing from Steph about "Practical Practice," hopefully it delivers on its promise!

Dialogue

2007-06-08T21:25:00.000-07:00

Another interesting aspect of the San Francisco Community School's inquiry program was the use of teacher dialogue as a tool for facilitating research. Friedman talks about long inquiry dinners during which members of the staff discuss aspects of their teaching. I found this to be a really interesting concept, less because of the fact that they had inquiry dinners, but more because of the way that the time was structured so much in terms of the different types of dialogues they engaged in.

We do get together as a department outside of school at least once or twice a year. Those are usually non-work occasions, though, and we try not to talk about school too much. I do talk a lot of shop at lunch, though, I really like to use that time to get ideas from the teachers I eat with.

This is not at all structured, though, it usually goes something like this: Nate and I quote some random movie back and forth for like ten minutes before I remember to ask him for a copy of the final he wrote for Tale of Two Cities and then Melissa tells us some crazy story about what strange thing happened to Brittony again--very informal and unstructured. Very useful though, so I can imagine that this kind of much more structured communication would be a great use of time.

We have early release on Wednesdays, and we use that time for meetings and staff development. This kind of dialogue for inquiry would be so nice to set up during those times. Right now our district is emphasizing Critical Thinking, which is something that I definitely support. It's essential for the future job market--it's all about solving problems, not "knowing information".

I think in a lot of ways, though, "Critical Thinking" is like teacher research or "inquiry," in that most teachers think they're already doing it (I admit that with t-r, I truly believed I was already doing it at first--go back to the first couple of these blogs), so it's tough to sell it to them. It's a lot like steph described in terms of staff development that is done by one or two people rather being a collaborative effort.

Everything is so abstract until you actually try to do it in the classroom, lecturing to a group of teachers about critical thinking is a lot like trying to teach my son how to play baseball without giving him a baseball or a bat. The best way to teach Critical Thinking is by getting people to engage in it--sort of like CSUWP, I think.

Constructivist Listening

2007-06-04T23:10:00.000-07:00

There are a number of things that are interesting about this chapter, but the most fascinating to me is the concept of constructivist listening. I love the idea that "People are capable of solving their own problems" (142). I know that for me often times all I have to do is say something out loud to someone else, and I gain a new clarity of thought. Just formulating one's thoughts into sentences, or listening to someone else articulate an important concept, is a valuable activity.

It reminded me in some ways of Cindy Griffin and Sonja Foss's concept of Invitational Rhetoric. This is the idea that not all communication is intended to persuade, or change the behavior or beliefs of others. I was a competitive debater for seven years, so this idea did not necessarily appeal to me when I was first taught it (I took a speech class from Cindy Griffin during my undergrad program).

But this may be the first time that I've seen a non-manipulative form of rhetoric that I think fits in to the concept of invitational rhetoric. You're not trying to persuade anyone, or get their feedback (one of the rules that would be nearly impossible for me to follow), but just to articulate your own thoughts and formulate your own way of thinking.

I think that Griffin and Foss go too far when they characterize persuasion as violence. It is simply not fair to say that all attempts to persuade are violent acts. I heard about a man who called his friend in the middle of the night to say goodbye--he was planning to commit suicide--and that friend stayed up for hours trying to persuade him that life was worth living and that he should live on. The man did change his mind, and eventually fell asleep without following through with his intention.

Persuasion is useful, and essential. But I think that for teachers, sometimes, we just need someone to sit and listen while we sort through all the incredible stresses, pressures, and demands of this job. Perhaps there is a place for invitational rhetoric in my personal philosophy--as long as it is clear that persuasion is not violence.

Rather than rambling on to another topic, I think I'll stop here for the night and bring up some of the other interesting concepts in a second post. That might also help us to keep our threads a bit tighter.

Inquiry for Equity: Or calling a spade a spade

2007-05-19T16:15:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-08T07:59:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-04T21:20:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-04T07:17:00.000-07:00

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.

Some Relevant Reading

2007-04-30T08:06:00.000-07:00

I know everyone's got plenty to read and think about right now, but part of my role here in the AI is to help you think further about how and why blogging is a skill set that I think belongs in the classroom and in your own personal learning. This post by Christopher Sessums is one that might help you further your thinking a bit about how blogging works. His post is specifically about a study about mentoring student teaching, but it seems to me that there's some useful info and research in there for all teaching/learning situations. Here's an excerpt that is really a summation of the post. His writing closely mirrors my own thinking on the subject:

I guess I value weblogging mostly because it is a place where I can share my struggles and brainstorm solutions with others. My blog is a space where I can open up my own line of thinking and invite feedback. My blog is a place where valued colleagues and I can reciprocally reflect on dilemmas. It’s a space where we can learn together, a space where I can learn from my mistakes and make adjustments in my personal and professional practice.
Finally, my weblog is a space where I can be vulnerable and yet still feel safe and supported. For some odd reason, I’ve never been maliciously attacked for my points of view. Instead, I have noticed a wonderful sense of decorum among fellow educators that is truly remarkable if you think about it. I guess that’s why I still feel surprised when professional colleagues tell me they are afraid to blog because they are concerned about not being taken seriously or being overly criticized for their thoughts and feelings. Of course, there is no guarantee they won’t be. I guess it’s a matter of trust in the kindness of strangers.

Take a look at the rest of the post. What do you think? Are you beginning to see a safe space for documenting and sharing your thinking? Can you be professionally vulnerable and take a learning stance through blogging?

revised reading schedule & blogging buddies list

2007-04-30T07:37:00.000-07:00

Below, I've posted the adjusted reading schedule and the new list of blogging buddies. Remember that:

1. If you're leading the book club discussion, you'll need to blog your post by the day indicated below.

2. If it's not your week to lead, you'll need to comment at least once in the two-week period between posts but preferably more times so that we can get a good conversation going. It's been going well so far, so keep up the good work!

3. In regard to your own blog on your research project, remember to continue posting at least once a week.

4. Also, be sure to comment on your blogging buddies' entries at least once a week. Nothing's more depressing than a post with "0 comments" :(.

Book Club Reading/Posting Schedule

4/16 – Cindy – Ch. 3 from The Book Club Companion

4/23 – Stacey - “Building on Success” (pp. 43-57)

5/7 – Renee – “An East Oakland Odyssey” (pp. 69-91)

5/21 – Natalie – “Inquiry for Equity” (pp. 11-20)

6/4 – Jason C. – “Introduction” + “Developing a Culture of Inquiry for Equity” (pp. 125-143)

6/18 – Steph - “A Practical Practice” (pp. 145-157)

6/25 – Rebecca - “Partners in Inquiry” (pp. 159-174) – NOTE: AI starts this day, so we’ll discuss this piece face-to-face.

Blogging Buddies

GROUP ONE: Natalie, Renee, Cindy
GROUP TWO: Steph, Rebecca, Jason C.
GROUP THREE: Stacey, Jason, Bud

quick, but good, news!

2007-04-25T19:54:00.000-07:00

Cam, Rebecca, and I just found out that we'll be presenting our teacher research on book clubs at NCTE in the BIG APPLE. Deborah Appleman will be our chair/discussant. Now that does apply some urgency to the data collection and analysis, doesn't it....

2007-04-23T15:53:00.000-07:00

Peanut Butter, Chocolate, and Hindi

Did you know that you can now post to your blog in Hindi? Amazing, simply amazing! And just to keep with the theme of things (and to keep everyone's vocabulary the same) I'm certain that you can post in Hindi while eating peanut butter and chocolate or one or the other or neither. Will miracles never cease?

Pirette McKamey's article "Building on Success: Changing Our Practice to Better Serve African American Students" provided me much to think about. I know I'm supposed to be reading like a researcher, but I keep reading as a reflective teacher and not so much a t-r. I'm still struggling to settle into this new t-r me, so bear with my long post/ramble. I promise, at least I'll try to promise, to get to something that will spark a discussion --eventually? ;0

First, I found the location and demographics of McKamey's school amazing (I also kept wondering what Hilary would do in the situation...) since northern Colorado is somewhat (lol!)lacking in diversity. Yet, however different the racial dynamics of Thurgood Marshall High School are in comparison to Eaton High School, I feel that the challenges academically are one in the same.

"If hard work, good intentions, subject-matter preparedness, dynamism, and administrative support are not adequate tools for increasing teachers' effectiveness in educating African American [insert Hispanic, Native American, low income, lacking supportive parents, etc.] students, what are?"(McKamey 44). Wow! What a questions she opted to tackle. I was impressed not only with the expansiveness of it but that she also had three years with the same students. (I'm glad when they leave after 180 days!)

The challenges within the English Department and (versus?) the rest of the school didn't shock me. Was anyone? It seemed as if they (the department and McKamey) attempted to create a situation with the entire staff that was similar to the department experience. I don't think you can ever truly re-create a situation --even with the same people much less a larger more eclectic group of people (who held some resentment right from the get-go). Should we attempt to re-create a situation? If so, why? how? benefits? Will this provide a topic for discussion? she wonders as she continues to type...

I did like the meeting protocol the three teachers (TRC) came up with. It seems like common sense, but being part of a group, I know how easy it is to become distracted with work related conversation as well as side bar comments. Setting up clear expectations works not only with students but with adults as well. (Hmmm... I'm sensing some overlap with my own research question of writing group dynamics and online postings.) Have we set up parameters? Do we need to? If so, how? Will this be the spark to ignite a fabulous discussion?

Finally, (yeah, finally, you're thinking!) I love that she ended with the power of her TRC. While I have one group who spurs me to contnue with my writing, I'm looking forward to creating another group who will encourage me to delve into t-r with the same enthusiasm. How exactly do we go about doing that? [insert your best Coffee Talk voice here] Discuss amongst yourselves.

*Complete side note. This probably deserves its own post. Be forewarned. Okay, really, this is the last comment. It may seem unrelated, but I’m not sure I’m really getting this book we’re reading. Can someone (Cindy? Bud? Jason? Anyone?) explain to me how the book Working toward Equity was chosen? I’ve read the two assigned articles, as well as the one by Aguilar (“An East Oakland Odyssey: Exploring the Love of Reading in a Small School”) and I’m confused how this book can help me become a better t-r. Is “equity” the thread throughout all teacher research? Is the book not intended to help me as a t-r, but to become more aware of equity or inequity within my school? job? profession? life? Am I the only one not seeing the correlation? Please advise.

A Confession or A Blogger's Thoughts on the Author's Thoughts on the Author's Thoughts

2007-04-18T21:16:00.001-07:00

This began as a comment to Cindy's book club post for this week. Your comments got my brain working. I started to jot down a few ideas. Then it got big and long and, well, possibly selfish, so I moved it out to its own space so at least it won't interrupt the flow of Cindy's discussion. I hope the post is helpful to the group as y'all are wrapping your heads around blogs and how they fit into teacher research -- and why I think the two probably belong together.

Read on:

Yeah, so I've only been stuck on the issue that y'all are discussing since I became a teacher. It's the reason that I blog and the reason why I can't finish my thesis.

Sort of. We're supposed to be a little self-indulgent in this space -- or did I read Cindy's post wrong?

See, I think a teacher-researcher is more systematic than a reflective teacher. I'm definitely a reflective teacher. Big time, reflective. I think about what I'm going to do before I do it, finally decide on what I'm going to do, sometimes just before I am doing it, and then I'm thinking about what I did after.

But that's not teacher research.
I agree with Cindy, and the authors that she cites, that just being reflective isn't enough. Digging back into data, analyzing it, and then reporting out that analysis is what distinguishes teacher research from reflective teaching.

And that's frustrating. Doing teacher research (and, for that matter, a thesis) means I've got to narrow in on only one thing. Extensively.

I'm not good at doing just one thing at a time -- ergo, I'm not so good at teacher research, even though I think I understand the different pieces of the process and am very curious about others' studies and questions and analysis.

I came so quickly to blogging because I felt that it helped me to approach the bits of teacher research that I was weak on. I blog about my teaching practice, focusing from time to time on specific areas of my teaching in order to help me understand them better, try out ideas, and to share what I'm learning as I go.

That's almost teacher research. It's several steps closer than just being reflective. But it's not the whole shebang, because I'm not specifically analyzing a particular dataset through the lens of a particular question or questions. I could argue that I am, and sometimes it's true, but the blog doesn't necessarily require that I stay with a set of questions or data through to the end product. In fact, I think one of the strengths of my blog is that you can get a little bit on a lot of topics by reading through the writing collected there.

When Cindy and I were presenting on teacher research at our site back in November at the NWP Annual Meeting, we had just had the big "we should put an AI together" conversation on the airplane. We were dreaming big and the wheels were turning in our brains. We shared some of what we had in mind with our roundtable group. Paul Allison, a blogger that I've "known" for a while through blogging and podcasting and commenting, but had never met until that day, was there, and he said something that's stuck with me ever since. And I mean really, really stuck with me. Middle of the night can't get to sleep stuck, if you can believe it. What he said was basically:

We (meaning bloggers) have tons of data. But we never analyze it.

I paraphrased a little, but that was the core of his statement. I can't get it out of my head. That's the flaw in so much of my teaching career. I've got the information. I've asked the questions. I've collected the data. But I haven't done the analysis.

I want very much to figure out how to bridge the practices of blogging (the verb -- here's a post about that) with those of teacher research. It gets tricky right away and the two aren't quite the same, but I think they can inform each other.

Is there maybe a thesis in there?

So, anyway, I've been very selfish about this whole notion of an Advanced Institute. For me, from the start, this has been about putting together the best of the technology and the best of the teaching practices and seeing what works together. I want to figure out how these two very essential items complement and inform the other. I think it's a chocolate and peanut butter relationship. If I can figure out how to document it, analyze it formally, and write it up, perhaps I've finally gotten the thesis out of the way.

Like I said -- a big post. I'd be interested in all y'all's responses, if it made any sense.

the author’s thoughts on the author’s thoughts

2007-04-16T17:31:00.000-07:00

Okay, well I hope this entry isn’t as solipsistic* as the title sounds… (*WORD OF THE DAY: solipsistic: adj., characterized by extreme preoccupation with and indulgence of one's feelings, desires, etc.; egoistic self-absorption).

Before I get to those thoughts, though, I want you to stop and read the posting immediately below this one because it includes the reading schedule and an overall sense of how I think this online book club thing can work.

Are you finished reading that post yet? Okay, on with today’s reading…

I originally asked you to read this chapter for two reasons: 1) to see how a teacher-research (t-r) question can stretch out and morph over a number of years, and 2) to see my transition from basic reflective teacher to more deliberate teacher researcher.

After re-reading the chapter myself today, I still wonder what you think about how this chapter sheds light on those two topics. Do teacher research questions ever really get answered in some definitive way? In your opinion, what makes someone a bonafide teacher researcher?

You know all those times you wanted to ask the author what she really meant to say? Well, now’s your chance. Post a comment, and let’s start talking ☺.

reading schedule + how this is going to work

2007-04-16T17:27:00.000-07:00

At the bottom of this post, you’ll see the schedule for our online book club. With the exception of the 6/18 reading, everything else is from Working toward Equity, the purple book you got at the orientation. On your assigned Monday, you’ll be responsible for writing the lead post that will guide our discussion of the chapter at hand. I recommend that it’s not super-long, just enough to get us commenting.

So what should you say in your post? If you scroll several entries down this blog, you’ll find a post called “Welcome.” In that post, I offer a few prompts to get you started, but you’re smart people, and I KNOW you have something to say that will get us thinking and talking.

If you’re on the commenting end of things, just visit the blog enough during the week to make at least one comment before we move on to the next article. After a while, I’m trusting that we’ll learn how to have a “conversation” via comments. At least that’s what generally happens on other active blogs I’ve visited. So here’s the schedule:

4/16 – Cindy – Ch. 3 from The Book Club Companion

4/23 – Stacey - “Building on Success” (pp. 43-57)

4/30 – Renee – “An East Oakland Odyssey” (pp. 69-91)

5/7 – Jackie – “Taking Tests” (pp. 93-100)

5/14 – Natalie – “Inquiry for Equity” (pp. 11-20)

5/21 – Sherry – “Introduction” + “Developing a Culture of Inquiry for Equity” (pp. 125-143)

5/28 – NO BOOK CLUB

6/4 – Jason C. – “A Practical Practice” (pp. 145-157)

6/11 – Steph – “Partners in Inquiry” (pp. 159-174)

6/18 – Rebecca – “How Colleagues Change Colleagues’ Minds” (English Journal article – Cindy will e-mail this)

permission from parents

2007-04-10T08:27:00.000-07:00

I just finished thumbing through a couple of handy t-r books--Teacher Researchers at Work and Ethical Issues in Practitioner Research--that we'll be looking at this summer to see what they say about gaining permission to conduct research in your classroom. Of course, both of them say you gotta do it, but a chapter in the second book, which is written by a teacher research team in a school district, argues that we do it for ethical reasons as well as legal ones. In fact, the section where they talk about permissions is called "How Do We Protect the Rights of Students and Families While Encouraging Teacher Research?"

They recommend a "graduated process of consent" so that parents can get a sense of how t-r is helping the teacher better serve the needs of the kids and allowing her/him to contribute to the profession via conference presentations and professional publications. Here's what the system looks like:

1. Teachers use back-to-school opportunities like back-to-school night, newsletters, conferences, etc. to let parents know that teacher research is an integral part of their teaching. They ask parents to sign a blanket release to collect student work created in the normal process of the class. They explain that these materials might become part of a professional presentation or publication at some time. They also explain that pseudonyms will be used.

2. When teachers decide to write something up for professional publication and actually want to use an individual kid's work, they send a targeted release form to the parents explaining that they want to use the child's work or quote her/him or whatever. The teacher researcher they mention also sends copies of the final publication to parents if they're interested.

I've personally never used the targeted release form myself, but I can see reasons for doing so. The forms that I previously e-mailed you fall either in the category of blanket release or some combination of the two.

In Teacher Researchers at Work, Marion Maclean and Marian Mohr also talk about permission slips in a chapter on ethical principles where they say that teacher researchers should conduct their research openly with their colleagues, students, and parents (this, btw, is another reason why experimental research studies are tough to conduct). They suggest that parent concerns are rare but almost always allayed if you're willing to "talk calmly and repeatedly with anyone who will listen about the relationship between your teaching and your research" (p. 129). I find it interesting that in all the years I've sent permission slips home, I've never had a parent inquiry.

Below, I've adapted and condensed a form of the permission slip Maclean and Mohr include in this chapter so that you can cut and paste it if you want to:

Dear Parents,
I am a member of the CSU Writing Project Teacher Research group. The teachers in this group study the learning of their students by collecting and analyzing classroom data. As teacher-researchers, we present and write about our research as a way to share what we have learned with other teachers. This year, I am interested in these research questions:

INSERT YOUR QUESTIONS HERE

In order to present and write about our research, we often find it necessary to quote students or include excerpts from their work. Before we include any student's comments or work, however, we obtain written permission from parents. In addition, we change students' names and sometimes change details about them in order to protect their privacy.

I would like your permission to quote your child and/or use excerpts from her/his work in the event that I share my research in a professional conference presentation or publication. Please sign and return the form at the bottom of the page if you agree to this.

Thanks in advance for your support!
INSERT YOUR NAME, Member of the CSU Writing Project Teacher Research Group
INSERT YOUR CONTACT INFO. (E-mail and phone)

Permission form
I grant permission for INSERT TEACHER'S NAME to refer to the work of my child, _________, in her/his research report. I understand that INSERT TEACHER'S NAME will use a pseudonym in place of my child's real name.

Signed _______________________ Date __________________

One last thing I'd mention is that when I was teaching h.s., I always gave my administrator the heads-up in case s/he got any parent questions. They were always interested and (luckily) supportive once they heard that the main reason I was doing this was to be a better teacher.

Hope this stuff helps.

Blog Aggregator

2007-04-08T17:51:00.000-07:00

I wanted to first thank everyone for a great start to the 1st Annual CSUWP AI. Based on yesterday's meeting, both Cindy and I think that it is already off to an amazing start. That's because of all of the work that you have already begun.

As for the Blog Aggregator, I realize many of you don't plan on using Bloglines and I understand why it may not be the route you want to go right now. But if you are interested, I stumbled into Google Reader, an aggregator that is tied to blogger and seems a bit more for those of us that aren't on Bud's level yet. I never used Bloglines but I'll use Google Reader, primarily because it is easy to follow and allows direct links to blogs and specific entries.

I like it... check it out if you are interested. Click on your account info once in Blogger and follow the links to Google Reader.

See you soon.

cindy's thoughts on "Finding Myself in My Inquiry"

2007-04-07T12:06:00.000-07:00

I only have about 8 minutes before our reading time is up, but I thought I'd try out an entry anyway so that we could get an idea about how this book club blog is gonna work.

What struck me about the overall content of this piece

What I found most striking was Sarah Capitelli's realization that her interpretation of ELD students' participation in her class differed from her interpretation. They actually thought they participated frequently, but she just wasn't seeing it. I was struck by her admission on p. 35 that "...I tend to organize data based on my viewpoint as a white, well-educated, middle-class woman." Throughout her article, I experienced the same surprises she did because I think I would have had the same initial interpretations that she did.

What struck me about her question
Actually, she had more than one. The first one she started with was definitely big, but the smaller questions that spun out of it actually led to more detailed findings than her first questions probably would've.

What I learned about her methods
I learned how important it was to use multiple methods (think how different her conclusions would've been if she had only journaled or only distributed the surveys or only had her teaching assistant (Karina) interview the kids. Same thing about seeking other perspectives. If she hadn't shared her inquiry with her teacher research group, she probably wouldn't have uncovered the realization that I comment on above.

The Inquiry Cycle (in a linear post)

2007-04-07T09:08:00.000-07:00

After we introduced ourselves, Cindy asked us to think about the inquiry cycle, as inquiry is why we're here. It's really hard to draw a cycle diagram right now, so imagine that each of these steps fits into each other and feeds each other. Sometimes, we change our question, or we re-collect more data, or we report and that changes our question, etc. Hopefully, this little list will help you to remember the cycle and how it works.

What do I want to know? We get fascinated in or curious about a piece of our teaching. That's asking questions.
How will I find out? We start collecting data about that piece of our teaching. That's, um, data collection.
How do I make sense of what I've found? Looking at the data with a critical lens can help us to identify patterns and connections that we didn't seen before. That's data analysis.
How do I share what I've learned? Now that I understand that piece of my teaching better, how do I share what I've learned? That's reporting or sharing your findings.
Now you have new questions. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

A Good Slogan

2007-04-07T08:58:00.000-07:00

We're here sharing stories about significant objects to us as a way to get started and to meet each other. Thanks to Renee's object -- a nine-year-old Snapple lid -- we've got a great slogan for both technology and inquiry work:

Win nothing instantly.

Welcome!

2007-04-07T05:45:00.000-07:00

Hello, everyone,
I feel as if every activity in the AI should be preceded by the old routine: "This is a test, this is only test...." I've never participated in an online book club before, and I'm guessing a lot of you haven't either, so we'll see how it goes. At this point, though, here's my thinking about how we'll operate:

Starting on April 16, we'll begin our online book club via this blog. The first article you'll read is my chapter from The Book Club Connection that you received on Saturday. As you'll see, this chapter focuses on my transition from reflective teacher to teacher researcher. You'll also see how a perennial question I had about book clubs evolved over time.

Jason will write the first post and lead the ensuing "discussion" for this chapter, and all of the rest of us will need to visit the blog often enough to participate by making AT LEAST ONE COMMENT based on what Jason and others are saying. I'm guessing we'll visit more than once and will want to comment more frequently, but that's at least enough to get us started.

Then at some point between now and the summer AI session, you'll be responsible for leading a discussion just as Jason did. I haven't written that reading/lead post schedule yet because I'm still narrowing down the chapters we'll want to use from Working toward Equity, but I'll post it early next week.

I'm sure the conversations will take on a life of their own, but some guiding questions that might help you as you read and make your lead post are the same ones we used at the orientation, plus a few more:

* What strikes you concerning the overall content of this chapter?
* What strikes you about the question the teacher researcher is asking? What difference did it make for the teacher, kids, school, or education in general?
* What did you learn from the methods s/he used to answer it?
* What connections did you make between this teacher researcher's approach and the approach you're taking?

Okay, I think that's enough to know for now. I'm eager to see where this goes, and I hope you are, too. Happy posting!
- Cindy

Let's blog. Word.

2007-04-06T20:44:00.000-07:00

If you're reading this post, odds are pretty good that you're about to be, or already are, a blogger. This morning, at the first meeting of our Advanced Institute, it's my job to introduce you to the tools that you'll be using as you get going with blogging. You should be thinking about two tools in particular today -- your blog and your aggregator.
The blog is where you'll do your writing, thinking, reflecting, and sharing. The aggregator is where you're going to build a network of writers to help you do the writing, thinking, etc. above. For our purposes, we'll be using Blogger to, um, well - blog. We'll be using a web-based aggregator, called Bloglines, to do the collecting and reading.
Below you'll find some instructions that I've used with some of you to create blogs previously. Don't worry if you've tried to blog and it didn't work out. Today, we start fresh, unless you have a blog that you'd like to continue using from the past.
Here's a link to those instructions. Ignore the time suggestions -- but follow the steps, if you need to. Create a Google Account and then get going on a blog. Once you've written a short first post -- perhaps you want to write about the writing you did this morning, or why you're participating in this institute -- then post the URL of your blog into the comments for this post.
Then go ahead and set up a Bloglines account. You'll want to come back here and get everyone's blog URL to stick into your aggregator. Eventually, all the blogs will end-up in the sidebar of this blog, too, in case you lose track of somebody.
Questions? Cindy, Jason, or I will be around to answer them.

Welcome

2007-04-05T14:04:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the CSUWP Advanced Institute mother-blog. This blog will serve two functions -- the first is that it'll be the central spot for discussion and conversation around the ideas of the CSUWP Advance Institute. The second is that it'll be the space for the book club discussions around the book Working toward Equity: Writings and Resources from the Teacher Research Collaborative.