TIPPR 6

Refined research question:

How does participating in service learning projects in local schools effect BYU student’s perceptions of the community and does the process effect student’s perceptions of their own roles within the community?

TIPPR 6

When I was cleaning out all of my old BYU stuff this summer I came across a notecard with the following quote on it:

While no one liberates themselves by their own efforts alone, neither are they liberated by others. The leaders must realize that their own conviction of the need for struggle was not given to them by anyone else--if it is authentic. This conviction cannot be packaged and sold; it is reached by means of totality of reflection and action. Paulo Freire Pedagogy of the Oppressed 

On the other side of the notecard, I wrote "Development should be a two part process, I learn from others as I help them to learn to develop their own skills". I created this notecard at the beginning of a participatory development class in my last year at BYU. At the time I envisioned an exotic future for myself working in Africa or Asia, but reading back over it now I think it applies to teaching and what I'm doing now. 

As part of that class, we went into local elementary schools to meet with principals, teachers and parents of ELL students to try and understand what challenges their children were facing in starting school and how we could work together to find solutions to those challenges. Reflecting on that experience now, I can see that it was very much an example of empowerment action research, although at the time I never thought of it as conducting research at all. Our goal was to facilitate a dialogue between the various stakeholders in that community, but I can see how the information that we collected during that process could have easily become a case study about the difficulties ELL students face at Farrer Elementary School.

For the last two years, Julia Ashworth has worked with my students on devising a theater piece and the more I think about it, the more I think it is a great example of the action research process. The process begins with the students choosing a topic to address and then all of the activities that follow help the students to examine that topic and refine their ideas about it and help them to express their concerns and opinions. It's an extremely powerful thing to see students using theater games to explore their concerns about their lives and communities. This year we are changing the format a little bit and exploring a topic that Scott and I chose. Although we haven't narrowed down a specific research question, we have decided that we want the students to explore the idea of education and their views on why it is or is not necessary and what does it mean to be educated? I think our selection of a research focus may actually make the process more like an actual action research project with the stakeholders (students) addressing a topic that is very important in their lives. Hopefully it will help students to feel empowered about their educational futures.

I do believe that my role as an teacher should be as an advocate for social change and helping students to find their own convictions, I really like the idea of using action research to do so.

Also, although it doesn't really relate to the other things I've been talking about here, I wanted to mention how much I loved the idea of photovoice action research. When I was teaching in Mississippi I always wanted to do an assignment where I sent the kids home with disposable cameras and asked them to take a picture of what they considered home, then I would develop the pictures and we would talk about why they chose to take the picture that they took. For one reason or another I never actually did the project but reading the section on photovoice has convinced me that I definitely want to do this assignment in the future.

 

TIPRR 6, Jeff Hill

The most attractive aspects of Action Research to me are the socially progressive (I mean that like it helps those involved progress socially, not that previous research was offensive) ideas of working together. The “subjects” are now participants or even researchers in their own right. This is important because the intention of doing this research is to solve a problem or to improve some aspect of the subject or process relating to the subject. I can see why this is a particularly popular form of research in the education field.

Significant and sustained progress can only be made if other educators, administrators, and students are heavily involved. We are part of an evolving field where these forms of research (action research and case studies) are very appropriate and conducive to a classroom setting.

Using the reading for this week, we were to refine this question:

What shifts occur in BYU students’ awareness of community before, during, and after participating in service learning in local schools?

Community has become such a difficult word for me lately.

Where are you from? Does that ever change? I went to high school in Texas, but I have lived in Utah for over 5 years. If I was on vacation, I think I would say Utah. Some people say that you are from wherever your parents are, but that doesn’t make sense. Is that your community? Do feel like you are more a part of the people who live, work, and worship around your parents than those who do the same geographically closer to you? You must be homesick. “Where are you from?” probably isn’t the best question because maybe people are just saying where they were born, although I rarely claim Biloxi, Mississippi.

Do BYU students’ have a relationship with Provo or just BYU? I can see how BYU students may be learning about “community” and their understanding of communities may change as they interact with this service-learning project, but does this community ever become theirs? That is what is difficult about this question. Are we talking about “community” as an abstract or Provo?

Action based research is supposed to help a group interactively improve a situation. So, for this research, the BYU students’ awareness or association with this community must be affecting the project negatively or positively. Are the BYU students that don’t see Provo School District students as part of their community not as effective teachers as those that do? Would discovering their awareness and feelings concerning community help improve Hands On A Camera?

My question:

What correlations can be found (if any) between the BYU student’s awareness of the Provo School District students and knowledge of the community the students belong to, and the effectiveness of those BYU students’ teaching in the classrooms of those students?

What is your community?

TIPRR 6

This is a longish post (sorry Jeff):

Okay, so I have now learned that the actual formulation of a research question is a particular weakness of mine. Lucky for me, Berg says, “your research idea should flow into a potential research question that may continue to shift, change, and take form as the research process unfolds.” Thus, I give you my very humble attempt at a “refined” ethnographic question on Erika’s behalf:

How, if at all, do BYU students gain greater community awareness from participating in Hands on a Camera projects?

Now that I have written that, I would like to broach specifically the area of action research.

As I read the chapter on action research I became quickly aware that what I do every day, and have for years, is action research. Let me tell you a story to illustrate.

Only a few months ago I began a new job as Call Center Manager for a small, recently organized call center. My first order of business was to gain an understanding of how the organization was currently designed to meet previously defined goals, and to understand what those goals were (what, how, who, when, and where questions). I defined first a series of questions bent on gaining a better understanding of the organization that I began asking and informing in a focus group with primary stakeholders, then down the chain in both focus groups and informal meetings. This has led to an ongoing collaboration of in-group forums and agencies, and a few community group meetings, both formal and informal. I have to keep a pulse on the organization as a whole to understand what is happening as decisions are made and improvement tactics and strategies are implemented.

From the reading, I have learned that my subsequent “research methods” have been a combination of two modes of action research: practical/mutual collaborative/deliberate mode and emancipating or empowering/enhancing/critical science mode. From a business standpoint, what I do for organizations is build long-term, self-managed learning organizations. I'm an educator. From an academic researcher standpoint, I do action research. Upon gathering and analyzing data, I felt it important to begin empowering management and other stakeholders with a common vocabulary through the use of “book club” discussions that helped to enlighten stakeholders concerning applicable theory. I have taken a specific model of organizational behavior (organizational systems design) to empower the decision-making framework and begin the action part of action research. Therefore, I have learned, thought, and implemented action plans with a highly participatory, purposefully reflexive research, the whole “project” “carried out with a team approach that includes a researcher and members of some organization, community, or network…who collectively are seeking to improve the organization or situation of participants…an effort at creating a positive social change in the lives of the stakeholders.” We do everything that Berg mentions. I could go into greater detail, but this long post would be longer for it. Apparently, unbeknownst to me, I am a professional action researcher and have been for years. I feel very cool!

With regard to Glori’s thesis (which was tremendously interesting to me, by the way) it was enlightening to read the chapters and then go to her thesis because her organization was useful in understanding Berg’s action research principles. She gave us a theoretical/historical background to set the stage, discussed the methodologies and why they were used, reviewed the data collected, and examined and drew conclusions from the action research. This alone was useful to me, much less her conclusions that blogging (active interest in reading/writing English) helps ELLs and her suggestion to do ethnographic research to explore social interaction between cultures on the Internet. Okay – I’ve said too much. Thanks for reading!

TIPRR 6

Hands on a Camera Stuff: (I'm not 100% sure if this is the kind of thing that we're looking for here.)

Problem Statement: Research proposes to examine BYU students' awareness of community in relationship to their participation in service learning.

Research Questions:
1-How do the BYU students feel about the Provo community in general? (Before the service learning experience)
2-How do the BYU students interact with the greater Provo community, outside of BYU? (Before, during, and after the service learning experience)
3-How do the students at the Hands on a Camera schools represent the community at large?
4-What are the BYU students' motivations for becoming involved in Hands on a Camera?

****************

I'm going to just take a second and talk about nothing related before I move into this week's reading. Please bear with me...

So, I'm currently sitting in Cedar City, chaperoning the High School Shakespeare competition, and this day has been nothing but a reminder of why I absolutely love my job. I have the chance to work with the most amazing people; these kids are just so wonderful, and they are such a blessing to me. I think that it's absolutely insane that there are teachers out there who don't appreciate the joy that can come from fully investing yourself in these people. Really, what's the point if that isn't it?

As I've been observing over the past few days, I have thought about this particular group of young people, and how interesting it would be to do an ethnography of children, ages 14-18, who choose to come to this thing. I mean, seriously, Shakespeare? For FUN? That's a very particular group, and it'd be interesting to take a closer look at it. But, that's more last week's reading...

This week, as I read, it made perfect sense to me why action research is of particular interest to those interested in teaching practices. I am of the opinion that if you are a good teacher, you are constantly striving to improve your pedagogy and find more effective and engaging ways to educate, and according to Berg, that seems to be at the core of action research-a desire to improve something.

Like the other research methods we've discussed, whether generally or specifically, this must be systematically planned out and executed and it must be reproducible. But unlike some of the other methods, I love that one of the main ingredients in your action research is the actual stakeholder. From the reading, it seems that with this research there's no real question of needing to "maintain a value-neutral position" or worrying about "becoming invisible" simply because everyone's in on it, and the ultimate goal is improvement. Did I interpret this correctly, or am I being naive here?

As I read about some of the basic information about action research, I kept thinking about something that has been going on at Lehi High for the past year or so--accreditation. Now, I know that the accreditation process probably isn't a full-blown action based research project, but every few years, schools are asked to gather data and compile information regarding various aspects of the school community in the effort to make improvements over the next few years. This is that progressive spiral of continuous improvement that shows up on page 23 of Glori Smith's thesis. Many of the underlying objectives are the same, I think.

And then there is research using case studies. I can see the value of case studies, especially in that it often opens up opportunities for discovery or the development of new theory. I can see how easy it would be, however, to make broad generalizations based on one specific case study, and I agree with Berg when he says that we need to be careful not to do just that. Can we make other hypotheses based on our findings? Sure. Berg makes the very valid point that "human behavior is predictable" and therefore, this type of research does have scientific value (330). But we can't make any conclusive decisions based on one person/situation.

Overall, I really do like both of these methodologies for research. I think that they would be highly interesting as well as informative, depending on the situation. As we learn about the different methodologies, it becomes more and more evident why we have to be so meticulous in our research design so as to be the most effective in meeting our objectives.

TIPRR 6--Blurring the Lines

As I did the reading for Action Research, it occurs to me that what I actually want to do with my students is not an ethnography, it's an Action Research Project using some ethnographic methods.
I am also with Timbre in that I'm not entirely sure exactly what I'm being asked for. That being said, here's my refined research question (that still seems to address an ethnographic model):

Research Question: How does the BYU student's own sense of community engagement change during Hands on a Camera?

• Follow up research questions: How do BYU students describe their sense of community engagement before the project? What does community engagement mean to them before the project? During the project? After the project?
  

Maybe I've done this completely wrong. That's why we're here, right? Well, not to be wrong, but to learn how to do it right.

Okay, now to Action Research and Case Studies.

As I said at the beginning of my post, I realized as I was doing the reading that what I really want to do is an Action Research Study. It seems to me that the lines between Critical Ethnography (an ethnography stemming from a desire for advocacy and with the intent to change a situation or challenge existing research) and Action Research are fairly thin. Then, when I really started thinking about it, it seems like the lines between all these models are fairly thin; isn't an ethnography a form of case study? At the least, all of these have some methods in common (observation, collecting documents, etc.), which leads me to believe that designing a research project is a little bit like making a documentary film (or any story really, but we're talking about documentary modes in my class so I'm addressing them here): there are lots of modes, and some documentaries are more one mode than another, but in reality all documentaries are generally a mix of one or two. We might design a project that is mostly action research, but it's going to borrow a little bit from ethnography. The best method is to know and understand all the tools at your disposal and design a project that best suits your research need.

I really like the idea of action research because (as was clearly demonstrated in Glori's thesis) it stems from the desire to better a situation--to improve practice, to help others. I also like that even though research needs to happen prior to the project, you don't go into the project with the goal of proving a hypothesis. Yes, Glori hoped that doing a blogging project would help her students with their English, but she had no preconceived notions of how the blog would transform their behavior; she let the research speak for itself. I also appreciate the fact that action research is about helping one community with one problem, and though the results can be extrapolated (my goal is perhaps to use the word extrapolate in every post), the goal of the project isn't necessarily to institute widespread policy change or to generate groundbreaking new ideas (though these can certainly follow). Sometimes I get intimidated by research projects because I'm not sure that what I do will actually contribute to the field in any way, but if I better my own practice in some way, then the research is a success.

And that is cool.