Research Rant: Getting Started

Where to start... where to start?!

This seems to be a problem that my fellow full time Masters of Education colleagues and I have faced. When it comes to writing our masters research paper (MRP) or thesis (what I am doing), it can be hard to pick a place to start. More often than not, this uncertainty leads to major procrastination or unorganized research attempts.

I have personally found that rationally telling myself that I have already started... that I have already jumped from the diving board helps to keep me motivated. It is often my highly detailed mind that wants my first 'jump into the thesis pool' to be calculated and 'just right'. This often keeps me from jumping because I worry that I won't be able to create something wonderful or 'perfect' if I start off on the wrong foot.

Some times you have to realize you are ALREADY in mid air! The decision now is not where, when, or how to jump but how to land!

"COMMON!!! GET IN THE WATER!!!"

(Personal photo: Our sometimes-brave dog Dover jumping into the cottage water 1997)

I decided to begin writing with my SECOND chapter (literature review) instead of the intro chapter. I find this makes more sense for how I needed to start gathering my information. I like to call this literature review phase the 'while I am still in the air' phase. While I am here (and it feels like I have been hanging midair for a few weeks now) I can see my landing (writing the intro chapter) much clearer. 

Advice:

1. My advice to anyone out there writing.... well... anything, is to just start writing. Something! Anything! It is easier to edit, change, and add on to something that exists. It is hard to enhance and build upon a blank word document! 

2. My second piece of advice is to find a way to organize your research so you do not waste time going back to re-read or find accurate citations for the work you are doing. Be efficient. Be organized. More about this to come in an upcoming blog. 

Mind Over Mood: A Personal Literacy Story

Mind Over Mood: Using The Text 

As part of an education graduate course at Brock University, I was asked to engage in an interview with a class member to bring forth an understanding of my own literacy story. A series of open-ended questions were asked that allowed me to engage with recent literacy based events.

I found that I gravitated towards reflecting and expressing my thoughts about the cognitive behavioral therapy that I have been engaging with for the past six years to cope with a generalized anxiety disorder. I was able to articulate how effective and valuable the engagement with the text Mind Over Mood: Change How You Feel by Changing the Way You Think was to my personal and teaching philosophies. The text became the scaffolding that structured my meetings with my doctor and allowed me to continue learning, exploring, and reflecting when I was on my own. This, being the goal of CBT, is to enable mind over mood as a self-reflexive practice in all aspects of your life.

Five Pillars of Happiness 

One of the exercises that resonated with me deeply from this book is conceptualizing, understanding, and creating pillars of daily happiness. The idea is to create five things that you feel are the most important to achieve or do in order for you to have a positive, healthy, happy day. There are many examples of 'ideal pillars/ scaffolded pillars' that may help you to create your own. 

Scaffolded Pillars:

1. Eating properly/ drinking enough water

2. Getting proper sleep 

3. Connecting with loved ones

4. Connecting spiritually 

5.Getting your heart rate up 

Monica's Five Pillars of Happiness:

1. Getting proper sleep 

2. Eating well/ drinking water 

3. Engaging with someone I love 

4. Engaging with something I love 

5. Engaging spiritually / self reflection 

I challenged my EDUC 1F95 Seminars to consider and create their own pillars of happiness. This is the brainstorming that both of my classes completed as part of 'Happiness in Education' week. 

What are your daily pillars of happiness? 

New Year! New Research!

It is official! 

I have officially decided to pursue a MEd thesis instead of a major research paper. As a full time graduate student I have the privilege to complete research of my choice as part of my program exit requirements. I had the opportunity to decide during my first semester the topic and scope of my research interests by taking various master’s courses and speaking with members of the department. The master’s courses that I took in the first semester are as follows; (1) Teaching, learning, & development of education, (2) Introduction to Research Methodologies, (3) Innovative Practices in Curriculum/Assessment (K-16), & (4) Developmental and Educational Issues in Children and Adolescents. This semester I am taking (1) Qualitative research methodology, & (2) Theories of Literacy.

I had begun this program this past September knowing that the driving force behind the rationale for taking my Masters now was that I was passionately curious about the power and potential that dramatic playbuilding can have on Qualitative research literature available to researchers. I wanted to seize this opportunity to be academically encouraged and challenged to expand and explore areas of educational research that need some attention and TLC to bring it into 21^st century relevance for our students.

In order to frame the posts that will likely be occurring over the next two years about my research I would like to include a condensed version of my official research thesis plan!

Research Proposal: Monica Taylor

About the Study: Research Interests/Rationale

In collaboration with a local school board, a qualitative research study will be conducted to explore the elements of environmental literacy that currently exist in school communities. The study itself will be between 8-10 sessions in length, whereby secondary students workshop, rehearse, and create a play about the environment and students attitudes towards it (e.g., how do they feel about global warming, sustainability, eco-responsibility), as well as how the environment is perceived or talked about in schooled environments.  Once ready, this play will be presented to junior division students (e.g., grades 4-6) in order to gain access to a more comprehensive scan of students’ ideals around environmental issues.

Participating in DART 3F93 Social Issues Theatre for Community Engagement with Dr. Joe Norris allowed me to see the potential level of engagement and meaning-making of playbuilding and applied theatre techniques for participants and audiences alike. Using playbuilding as qualitative research method will provide student participants creative freedom to explore environmental literacy from a individualized, arts-based perspective.

With a boom in inquiry-based projects in the 21^st century, collective responsibilities to engage in a more environmentally active society are necessary.  This is particularly the case with notions of sustainability and environmental consciousness. My undergraduate degree in dramatic arts and geography lends itself to a curiosity about the effectiveness of literacy initiatives that can enhance students understanding themselves as active 21^st century agents of change for the environment. Additionally, discussions regarding literacy and effective literacy engagement initiatives have led me to a desire to research with students to actively explore current school environmental literacy initiatives.

Proposed Research Methodology

            The study methodology that will be used for this study is Playbuilding (Norris, 2009; Tarlington & Michaels, 1995) with case illustrations/vignettes. I chose this qualitative approach because: a) I have a background in theatre and studied this discipline in my undergraduate degrees (e.g., DART 3F93 Social Issues for Community Engagement); b) playbuilding allows me to work with two diverse groups of students and collect data on both; and c) an arts-based approach invites all voices and perspectives to be included. 

As mentioned above, I will work with secondary students in the Niagara region to develop and produce a 45-minute play that will be performed to a younger audience (i.e., junior grades). Data will be collected on both sets of study participants to get a wider understanding of environmental literacy in schooled settings. Data sources will include: a) interviews, b) surveys, c) focus groups, d) video of the devising and the play itself, e) photography, f) student blogs, and g) student work samples. Data will then be coded and categorized into relevant themes. Vignettes will be selected—those that highlight these significant thematic patterns in order to triangulate the data.

If you have any suggestions, questions, or comments about the proposal I would be overjoyed to hear from you! 

3 Profiles: Secondary School Student's Opinion on 21st Century Learning

As part of tutoring with the SSEN Learning Centre this month, we are focusing on understanding ourselves as active 21st Century Learners. 

We first worked on brainstorming and defining what we think 21st Century Learning looks like in the classroom today using mind mapping.

We then wrote individual mini-blogs to reflect on how the current education system in Ontario is providing 21st Century Learning opportunities and what else can be done to bridge an existing gap.

To begin, the students were each shown this tweet by Lester Laminack to spark their active minds for engaging with 21st century learning concepts. His website http://www.lesterlaminack.com/ was also used for reference.

 MINI BLOG PROFILES

(All information/images shared with permission)

MINI BLOG ONE: ERIC, GRADE 10, DSBN 

 Students from a century ago and students from 21st century are very different. Invention of electronics, such as smartphones and personal computers is the biggest difference between them. Students' learning style and the time period is different. We cannot have a class without collaboration and interactions between students and teachers, and we should remember that we are learning for our future. 

Teachers usually restrict students from using cellphones in a class, but technology can be a tool for students and teachers to make them learn better. Almost every students including grade 1 to grade 12 knows what smartphone is. They use smartphones to communicate with their friends, or playing games a lot, and these reasons make teachers to hate smartphones. However, if teachers can teach students using the smartphones, students will be motivated to learn, because they already are very familiar with the learning tool called smartphones. Electronic resources, such as ebooks or online learning videos actually help students to learn and remember them. 

Teachers in Korea are stuck in the old learning style, which forces students to memorize, not to learn, and actually have a beneficial effect to students for the future.  Students in a class must follow instructions that teachers give, and cannot have a discussion within the class. This method usually makes students to forget what they learned after a year or two because they didn't really understand what teachers were saying. What students did were just copying what teachers said. This is very inefficient way to get students to learn. There must be discussions and debate in the class, and students must share their own opinions and interact with their classmates and also the teacher. Collaboration is also important, but the old method prevents students to learn collaboration and confidence to speak up, and actually "learn". This is why we should have think about the future for the students that really can help them to "learn" something from the education system.

MINI BLOG TWO: BRIAN, GRADE 9, DSBN

 

I often think about technologies settled in our school sometimes needs to be changed or improved. And this comes to my mind very often when I look around my school. When I am looking at slow computer, I think about how should they improve this computer's speed. It's not that I am uncomfortable with these technologies we have in my school, instead, of course if my school is going to expand the level of technologies in learning, they could start putting some more thinking into it. For instance, they could put more classwork into technologies and do some classwork with computers and taking notes with computers to prevent sore arms and hands by writing a stack of notes and make it easier to access their work and so on. They should have more serious rules about electronics and doing other things on computers instead of finishing their classwork. A lot of things should be changing soon and specifically technologies in schools.

EDUC 1F95 - Seminar 11 - CBC News Article

Oilsands companies could get a say in new Alberta curriculum
Click title for link to article

CBC NEWS- Posted: Mar 12, 2014 6:59 PM MT Last Updated: Mar 12, 2014 8:26 PM MT

The Alberta government plans to include oil and gas companies in consultations on the new school curriculum.

School boards were asked to come up with groups to provide input on what children should learn.

Education Minister Jeff Johnson is defending the decision to include oilsands companies in consultations on Alberta's new school curriculum. (CBC)

The Edmonton Public School Board plans to ask oilsands companies Suncor and Syncrude what to teach children in kindergarten to Grade 3.

"What are we looking for in the graduates of tomorrow. Certainly we have a perspective but we need to hear all stakeholders," said Mark Liguori, assistant superintendent of schools for Edmonton Public.

Education minister Jeff Johnson thinks including the business community in discussions will help.
"One of the things I think they may be able to help with is how do we attract kids to that side of the business, science technology and engineering piece of the education system that so much of the economy is telling us we're short on," he said.

However, NDP education critic Deron Bilous thinks this is the first step in allowing corporations to influence Alberta schools, which he worries may go too far.

"There's also examples in the United States where coal companies have been involved in curriculum design where they've written a completely one-sided view speaking only of the benefits," he said. 
Johnson says companies are only providing input and will not write the curriculum.

Syncrude and Suncor aren’t the only companies involved in curriculum consultations. Stantec, PCL Construction, Apple and Microsoft Canada will also get a say.

Suncor has yet to receive an invitation to join the consultations. Syncrude hasn't decided whether it will take part.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION:  
Answers included are reflective of the conversations had in EDUC 1F95 Seminar 15 & 16 - Nov 21
 

1. Should oil and gas companies be allowed to influence curriculum? Why or why not? What impact do you think they would have?

The conversation began heated about this topic. The conversation shifted from who should be able to have a say to who already has a say in curriculum development. What really would be the disadvantages of Canadian companies having a say (not a definitive vote - just a say) in the content of curriculum? 

We discussed how society is always in need for the development of schools to foster youth into relevant, contributing members to local economy and society.  Shouldn't we have a curriculum and school system in place that aids students to developing into contributing members of society with the skills and knowledge needed to survive in that society as an adult. Who better to speak about the skills and needs in demand for that society than the companies on which help build the society? 

The consensus was that companies should be able to have a say but that means all Canadian companies. Allowing certain companies influence and others not can create a biased curriculum with skewed skill sets and societal competencies. The final vote in curriculum standards and content should be left with educational professionals and researchers. They should be considering a holistic view of Canadian needs and skills for a successful society. This includes but cannot be limited to assessing the influence of economic companies. 

 

EDUC 5P42 - Genius Hour Presentation

Genius Hour Idea: Exploring educational uses of USD - Understanding by Design
using www.StoryboardThat.com

CLICK HERE FOR FULL PREZI

Genius hour is a movement that allows students to explore their own passions and encourages creativity in the classroom. It provides students a choice in what they learn during a set period of time during school.

Storyboard That! is the world's best story board creator! 

• Simple & Fun Interface:The storyboard creator uses a familiar drag and drop interface that users of all ages pick up in seconds. Our creator allows you to fully customize numerous aspects of your storyboard; from coloring in your own character, to adding text, we have everything you need to get the story straight!


• Detailed Image Library:Creating a beautiful and expressive storyboard is easy with our extensive and well curated library of over 325 characters, 225 scenes, and over 45,000 images in search. If that still isn’t enough we offer another powerful tool; the ability to upload your own images!


• Focus is on The Story: By using a storyboard like a graphic organizer it helps structure students work into a linear and concise story. Although it feels easy at first, breaking down ones thoughts into just a few cells works critical skills in prioritizing the right information and creating a good story flow.

 To learn more about how StoryboardThat! works and how educators can incorporate this tool into their classroom and project based learning activities - explore the PREZI presentation I have created by clicking HERE. 

EDUC 5P42 - Effectively Warming Up

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A method for enhancing the ability to communicate in the classroom that can be easily over looked by teachers is daily warm up activities to begin the class. The benefit of the warm up, besides the fun consistent addition to any lesson plan is the opportunity for classmates to interact together in a non-threatening manner. One of the most useful warm up activities is the ones that involve improvisation. Examples of warm ups that include the method of improvisation are; charades, blob machine and I’m going on a picnic. Including improvisation allows students to feel comfortable bringing up personal impulses and thoughts in a safe, inclusive space. The warm up allows students to openly communicate with each other at the beginning of every class. This is exceptionally helpful to a teacher, for the rest of the class the students will feel more like a community and more likely to continue communicating between themselves.

The book Free Play written by Stephen Nachmanovitch delves into the importance of free play within any social situation, especially school. Nachmanovitch describes how “Improvisation is intuition in action, a way to discover the muse and learn to respond to her call. Even if we work in a very structured, compositional way, we begin by that  always surprising process of free invention in which we have nothing to gain and nothing to lose”(Nachmanovitch 41). This is the key component to improvisation, allowing the students to feel like they are having fun and making their own decisions in such a structured and somewhat hindering environment that high school can be.

When I was in high school I did the best in the classrooms where I felt like my opinion was heard and accepted. The classrooms (not just drama) that allowed a period of time at the beginning (or end) of the class to work on a small task with the class were the places where I felt the strongest in academics. As a future teacher, I want to enable my students the opportunity to feel heard, accepted, and safe in their academic and social endeavors. I will use warm up activities in all of my classrooms not just my drama classrooms.

Over my dramatic and academic journey I have been able to learn different methods in which to communicate with students about important topics. The method of workshopping a scene is an incredibly effective way in which to give your students a venue to speak their mind without feeling scared. The environment that the teacher must create in the classroom/workshop space is the key component to having work shopping work. The teacher must describe the process fully to the class and the class will have to agree on rules for the process. Examples of rules could be; waiting your turn to talk, never say “no” but instead say “yes, but let’s try adding this, or taking away this.” Once these parameters have been communicated the open communication can begin.
Helpful links for warm up activities:
1.  Warm up & Cool Downs Grades 5-11
2.  Improvisation related warm ups 
3.  Games Booklet - 39 Pages

EDUC 1F95 - The Sociology of Education Seminar 10

Chapter Two - Sociological Theories of Education 

This post will outline the major concepts and definitions needed to understand the content in the chapter and apply to existing social circumstances in the world around us. 


Structural Functionalism: A theoretical perspective that explains social phenomena with reference to their mutual influence on one another, especially though social needs the fulfill and the contributions they make to social order.

Critical Sociology: Engages in a critique of social structures and practices by probing beyond descriptions of the status quo. It is committed to social change as well as social analysis.

Interpretative Analysis: Is concerned with the analysis of social processes rather than social structure 

Correspondence Principle: The view that presents educational reforms and outcomes as consequences of economic requirements, labour market needs, and inequalities within a capitalist economy.

Cultural Capital: The resources that people possess for economic and social success, which include not only wealth and economic assets but also knowledge and understandings about social expectations, dominant values, and other pertinent information that institutions use in their ongoing operations.

Cultural Reproduction: Recognition that, while education contributes to ongoing social inequalities, it does so through cultural and social practices as well as economic requirements.

Human Capital Theory: A theoretical approach, with frequent policy applications, that emphasizes education, skill development, and other learning processes as investments that enhance capacities and opportunities among individuals, thereby contributing to general economic growth.

New Institutional Theory: A theoretical orientation drawn from research in several disciplines including sociology, economics, and organizational studies that focuses on the distinctive characteristics of institutions and institutionalized arrangements and explores their impact on broader social and economic processes.

Pedagogy: Process associates with the organization and practice of teaching. The term refers more generally to various kinds of interactions (and how there are understood and organized) in teaching-learning situations.

Racialization: Categorizing and treating people based on observe physical group characteristics and the stereotypes of group differences that are products of historical and social processes.

Resistance Theory: Analysis that highlights children, youth, and other students as active participants who can oppose and shape their education and social futures rather than as passive institutional clients.

Self-fulfilling prophecies: The notion that the assumptions and expectations that teachers and other service workers hold about students can influence students' lives.

Symbolic Interactionism: A theoretical perspective that emphasizes the importance of language, meaning, and use of symbols in our development of self-awareness and, through our relations with others, as the basis of societies. 

Weekly Words of Wisdom (5P30/5P42/5P37/1F95)

November 6, 2014 

Radiate // “Find ecstasy within yourself. It is not out there. It is in your innermost flowering. The one you are looking for is you.” - Osho

Letter of Intent - Journey from Intent to Proposal - Part 1

Monica Taylor
Masters of Education Application
Letter of Intent
February 5, 2014

Drama in Education: Facilitating the Integration of 21st Century Literacies and Concepts
in the Classroom

As a dedicated student of Brock University's Faculty of Education, my work as
both an educator and a researcher has manifest an eternal respect and wonder for the craft
of teaching. I have found my passion as both an educator and researcher. Studying
education as a concurrent student has ignited my interest in alternative ways of teaching
and learning, using drama techniques to develop life long learning and meaning-making
skills. My studies in the concurrent program have unequivocally kindled a genuine
curiosity in alternative ways of teaching and learning. My courses have allowed me to
explore the creation of standards-based interdisciplinary curriculum and 21st century
literacy skills. Through my practicum experience while in Brock’s Faculty of Education I
have created lesson plans and activities that embody critical literacy skills while infusing
them into applied drama lessons that aids students in discovering, in their own way, how
they can put life together as something that means a lot to them.

Through the "Teaching, Learning, & Development" stream, I will fulfill my
passion and vision for the craft, using my practical experiences and knowledge of the
field as a catalyst for further investigation. I would like to research and examine the
contributions that drama education and drama-teaching techniques can have to the
cognitive, social, kinesthetic and problem-solving strategies used by students in the
pursuit of meaningful and lifelong learning. I believe the most appropriate methodologies
to research the benefits and challenges of using drama as a medium to promote life long
learning and meaning-making is through action research, or living-theory research
(Whitehead, 1993; Whitehead & McNiff, 2006).

My unique flair for teaching and learning has invited several leadership
experiences into my personal life, allowing me to become recognized as a leader within
my St. Catharines community. For example, I was very fortunate to work for The United
Way ‘After School Matters’ program as a Drama Drop-In Facilitator for student groups
in need of enrichment. My job was to provide groups of students with opportunities to
creatively engage with their academics through the use of dramatic and kinesthetic
activities as a way of teaching to achieve higher order thinking. My desire is to work
collectively with community youth programs and the District School Board of Niagara
(as well as other boards) to develop a series of workable documents to aid teachers with
integrating drama techniques into their standards-based integrated curriculum.
As a student of the concurrent education program, I have had many opportunities
to write research papers in my various Education and Dramatic Arts courses. For
example, Dr. Joe Norris of the Dramatic Arts Department based the ‘Alternative Forms of Theatre’ DART 3F98 course on his book Playbuilding as Qualitative Research: A
Participatory Arts-Based Approach. This course allowed me to hone my research skills
by examining how collaborative creation can bring intervention, development, and social
change to fruition. Due to my keen interest and active participation in applied theatre, I
was able to write an 8000-word research paper to conclude the positive findings of the
research.

As an education student, I have worked closely with critical education theory and
have interrogated the links between educational theory and practice; this has driven me to
pursue a Masters of Education degree at Brock University. I have experienced firsthand
the support and innovative research of Brock's Faculty of Education, and would benefit
from the expertise of Dr. Susan Drake while studying standards-based integrated
curriculum and 21st century literacy education (Drake, 2012). Furthermore, Dr. Joe Norris
and Prof. Helen Zdriluk of the Drama Department have provided the framework for
research in drama education studies, which has been invaluable to my research interest
(Norris, 2009). Not only does Brock offer the resources I need to pursue my research
interests, but I am confident that my passion, enthusiasm, and academic talent will be an
asset to the program as well.

Works Cited

Drake, S. (2012). Creating Standards-Based Integrated Curriculum: The Common Core
State Standards Edition. Thousand Oaks: Corwin.

Norris, J. (2009). Playbuilding as Qualitative Research: A Participatory Arts-Based
Approach. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press Inc.

Whitehead, J., & McNiff, J. (2006). Action Research: Living Theory. London: Sage.

Whitehead, J. (1993). The Growth of Educational Knowledge. Creating Your Own Living
Educational Theories. Brighton: Hyde Publications.

Exploring Interdisciplinary Curriculum (5P42)

Literature Review: Integrating the disciplines: Successful interdisciplinary subjects. 

Literature:

Golding, C. (2009). Integrating the disciplines: Successful interdisciplinary subjects. Melbourne, University of Melbourne Press.

Type:

Guide / Descriptive

Review:

This guide, Integrating the disciplines: Successful interdisciplinary subjects, outlines why and how the University of Melbourne believes interdisciplinary teaching and learning to be integral to the curriculum of their institution. As well as the primary document, two supporting documents: Attributes of the Melbourne Graduate (2009) & Refining our Strategy (2009) were included in the guide to support claims made by the CSHE (center for the study of higher education).

This guide seems to provide two distinct purposes; one to enhance and educate on the interdisciplinary methods of the University of Melbourne and to provide a document for reference to enable consistency, second as a tool for educators outside of the University to use this process for themselves elsewhere. I believe that reading this guide has helped me conceptualize how our integrated units are going to be framed and how to go about it. I found the language in this guide very accessible and easy to relate and engage with your own interdisciplinary practice. This guide provides insight the importance and ideal scenarios to engage with either disciplinary or interdisciplinary subjects. Although the guide is written in the context and for the purpose of a University, the methods, procedures and findings are easily transferable to post secondary interdisciplinary work.

I would like to include the sections within this guide as I found just looking at the headings sparked ideas.

• Introducing interdisciplinary subjects
• What are interdisciplinary subjects?
• What are the generic objectives of interdisciplinary subjects?
• Do interdisciplinary subjects require disciplinary depth?
• How do you design and coordinate interdisciplinary subjects? (Included - Interdisciplinary subject template)
• How do you assess interdisciplinary learning?
• What conceptions do students need for successful interdisciplinary teaching and learning?
• How do you evaluate the success of interdisciplinary subjects?
• What criteria can be used for quality assurance of interdisciplinary subjects?

MY COMMENTS: 

I would like to include here a selection of referenced works at the end of this document that I believe may lead to deeper understanding of the practices of interdisciplinary work at the University of Melbourne and to inform practices of interdisciplinary work across the world.

Petrie, H. (1976). Do You See What I See? The Epistemology of Interdisciplinary Inquiry. Educational Researcher, 5(2), 9-15.

Paul, R. W., & Elder, L. (2002). The Miniature Guide to the Art of Asking Essential Questions. Santa Rosa: Foundation for Critical Thinking.

Paul, R. W. (1994). Critical Thinking: What Every Person Needs to Survive in a Rapidly Changing World (revised 3rd ed.). Melbourne: Hawker Brownlow Education.

Nikitina, S. (2002). Three Strategies for Interdisciplinary Teaching: Contextualising, Conceptualising, and Problem-Solving. Project Zero: Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Lyon, A. (1992). Interdisciplinarity: Giving up Territory. College English, 54(6), 681-693.

McCalman, J., Muir, L., & Soeterboek, C. (2008). Adventures with Breadth: A Story of Interdisciplinary Innovation. Melbourne: Centre for the Study of Higher Education.

Miller, M., & Boix Mansilla, V. (2004). Thinking Across Perspectives and Disciplines. Interdisciplinary Studies Project, Project Zero: Harvard Graduate School of Education.

What is development? Defining for a purpose. (5P30)

Teaching, Learning, Development:

What is development? Defining for a purpose.

“Our main critique of a traditional notion of development is that it has been assumed that development is independent of an observer. We argue that development is a social construction emerging in and among communities of practice” (Matusov, Hayes, & Drye, 2007, p.1).

In an attempt to fully understand the scope of the field I am researching under (Teaching, Learning, and Development), defining the broad discourse that falls under each of these concepts will assist in conceptualizing my work. During my undergraduate education classes and pre-service education, I was exposed to many opportunities to discuss, reflect, and define learning and teaching. I had previously assumed that the scope of what development encompasses was a concise, easy to define term used to enhance our understanding of teaching and learning. After reading Matusov, Hayes, & Drye’s article Whose Development?Salvaging the concept of development within a sociocultural approach toeducation, I was able to see that defining the discourse of development was more complicated than I had anticipated.

I am wondering how does education fit into the scope of development? Three differing angles to this debate have fueled education research on the development of students. Piaget believed that development was a constraint for education which cautions educators against implementing curricula and instruction that lay outside the student’s developmental stage. Where Vygotsky believed in the zone of proximal development in which more capable peers, adults, or a sociocultural activity (e.g. play) engage a child in more advanced actions than he or she would have done on their own and thus defines the child’s development (Matusov, Hayes, & Drye, 2007, p.2).  Third, there is also the belief that development is a self-organizing dynamic system that pulls focus to the emergence of stable patterns of relations. This view of development shifts focus from the student (how much they learn/how they behave) to the student’s emerging relationships (with peers, teachers and parents as ‘hidden curricula’ of education) (Matusov, Hayes, & Drye, 2007, p.3). 

The paper reviewed here examines the traditional notion or development and then provides an alternate, sociocultural view to development as a response to defining development in education and psychology. The traditional notion of development assumes that development is independent of an observer. What is common among these attempts to define development is how its observers define development, thus playing an integral part of the development of development. Defining development as something that is tangible and is effected by observers/outsiders allows education to apply pedagogical actions to enhance certain developmental phenomenon specific to the sociocultural aspects of the school/board/classroom. I would be interested in incorporating a more comprehensive understanding and definition of development in my future qualitative arts-informed research.

Matsuov, E., Hayes, R., & Drye, S. (2007). Whose Development? Salvaging the concept of development within a sociocultural approach to education. Educational Theory, 57(4), 1-8.

Ms. Taylor, when am I ever going to use this in real life? (5P42)

I often wonder how as educators in this insanely faced paced 21st century learning world how we can effectively provide relevant curriculum and education for students across Canada's cultural mosaic. We are seeing the need and relevance of moving from one teacher/ one subject learning to a more integrated and collaborative style of learning. There is a passage in Chapter 5 that caught my attention in how it was phrased. "With only one teacher, some excellent teaching and learning can happen with fewer obstacles. Yet we have found that some of the richest integrated units are designed collaboratively." The yet proposes that this action of collaboration for richer integrated units and curriculum is an uncommon or underestimated. It shocks me some times to remember and recognize that this has not been the practice of curriculum development in the past. It excites me to remember we are all in a position of great influence as collaborative educators in the 21st century world. I believe it may be easier for elementary teachers to wrap their heads around the benefit and potential ease of blending and integrating subjects together to teach concepts or themes in the classroom. I have always separated secondary subjects from each other in order to fully grasp the scope and depth of each individual subject. I believed it would be a disservice to blend them together for students, it would be too confusing. 

I am now able to see how integrated curriculum can actually heighten students awareness of the scope and depth of each individual subject. This awareness comes from the explicit skill and ability to make meaningful connections between subjects and between the subject and daily life. Integrated units and curriculum allow for broader themed projects or community based projects, for example, which give students immediate use for the skills and knowledge acquired in a method that connects to them personally. This immediate tangible knowledge can assist with the inevitable question, "Ms. Taylor when am I ever going to use this in real life?" 

In order to find the common themes and threads that can relevantly link material to practice comes from careful consideration and brainstorming on the part of the collaborating educators. I will insert another verbatim Chapter 5 quote here;

"Typically, there may be territorial conflict about what knowledge and skills are front and centre. The backward design process facilitates a process where all collaborators can find a substantive place for their subject areas by providing a way to discover what is common across them" (Drake, Reid & Kolohan 2014). 

Changing the educator territorial and subject specific niches from a rigid to an interchangeable one can impact the approach students take to school work. Collaborative learning that happens at all levels of learning and education (curriculum development, teacher training, daily classroom teaching and daily classroom learning) will permeate and trickle through to daily learning routines. 

Assessment For Learning- Asking Better Questions (5P42)

Reflecting upon my pre-service education in the drama classroom I realized how often I considered how to actively engage students with their own AfL (assessment for learning).

Assessment for Learning - "An ongoing process of gathering and interpreting evidence of student learning for the purpose of determining where students are in their learning, where they need to go, and how best to get there. The information gathered is used by teachers to provide feedback and adjust instruction and by students to focus their learning. Assessment for learning is a high-yield instructional strategy that takes place while the student is still learning and serves to promote learning." (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2010b, p.143)

There are many different activities happening in the drama class over the course of the semester, which can make routine and traditional learning difficult. At least once a period, a focus of mine was to bring everyone together in some way in order to reflect and expand on the work we
were doing. I found that these group meetings were either very productive for influencing higher-level thinking and inquiry or the meetings were unfocused and disruptive to the day's tasks. My goal as a dramatic arts facilitator is to encourage students to make connections and think beyond the immediate relation the work has to their day-to-day lives. The way in which I have been able to do this is by asking better questions.

Chapter 3 of Interweaving Curriculum and Classroom Assessment focuses on backwards design with assessment in mind. Assessment across the curriculum can look very different depending on the strategies and tools each teacher chooses to use with their class. Part of the chapter reminds us that assessment can sometimes be informal and does not always have to take on such a concrete and regimented place in the classroom. Teachers have an opportunity to identify what level of knowledge or processing a student is using. Teachers can pose questions that guide students towards making connections and grasping more complex understandings. 

A resource that I have thankfully picked up over the course of my education has been a book written by Norah Morgan and Juliana Saxton called Asking Better Questions which provides cross-curricular examples of including this kind of assessment for learning. You may access a PDF put together by the authors to provide you with a printable document called Asking Better Questions: Models, techniques and classroom activities for engaging students in learning to inform your question asking practice.

I would like to highlight one activity from the book that enhanced my understanding of HOW to use the technique of asking better questions.  There are six levels of questioning that in sucession, can lead to higher order thinking and contributions from students. The authors use the example of a teacher whose plan is to show a big poster of a busy harbor scene in New York City.

These are the questions she would ask broken down into the Taxonomy of Educational Objectives;

Lower Order
1.  KNOWLEDGE: recalling what we already know
"What do you see in this picture?"
2. COMPREHENSION: demonstrating what we understand through negotiating what we know into different patterns of information
"What do we call places like that?"
3. APPLICATION: applying what we have learned to other situations
"Do you know any other places that look like this picture?"

Higher Order
4. ANALYSIS: reasoning our ideas into logical patterns of understanding
"Why are there so many policemen in the picture?"
5. SYNTHESIS: constructing new ideas from what is known 
"What if there were no policemen?"
6. EVALUATION: valuing what is implicit in our thinking
"Would you rather live in a city that size or in a small town? Why?"

FOR YOU THE READER: try using the Taxonomy of Educational Objectives to ponder if there are times when NOT to ask a question! Can you think of some examples/ scenarios?

Yours truly, 
Ms. Monica Taylor