Blog post for 4.11.13

Workshop group (4.4 and 4.11)

            I thought our workshop group last week went very well.  Lisa led the session and had us read through and discuss (phenomenologically) the transcripts she had been working with.  I read the part of the interviewer, and Val read the part of the interviewee.  After 3 or 4 pages of reading aloud, we would stop and talk.  I was interested to learn that this is part of the ‘phenomenological’ way (at least the existential phenomenology group at UT’s way)… the research group reads the transcript aloud and discusses major ideas in the piece.  It was a pretty emotional piece; I was sort of surprised by that.   I was glad I wasn’t reading Val’s part.

            This week, I am leading the workshop for my group.  I emailed my group members a draft of my methodological ‘deliverable’ on Monday.  For the first 15-20 minutes of class, they will offer me some comments/criticisms/feedback.  I know with their feedback and yours, I will be able to improve upon the draft.   We will spend the rest of the time reading descriptive notes and coding.  I have already coded these particular sets of descriptive notes, but it will be good to have more eyes on the pieces to see if they are seeing the same kinds of “happenings” that the professor and I identified.   Before they begin to read the descriptions and codes, I will explain a bit about the research site and about the prior coding (although little will be needed because they will have read the methodological draft which covers quite a bit of this).   If we have time, I’d like to talk through with them how to look more deeply into each category/code.  Initially, I had really small and discrete codes (splitting), and then the professor and I did some larger categorical coding (lumping) and refined our labels.  Now, I am wondering if I need to look more closely to see if there are differences/similarities within the codes.  For example, with ‘reflecting’….is it individual, teacher/teacher, teacher/researcher or about instructional practice, research decisions, or student behavior?   I just want their thoughts on that.

            BTW, I am really enjoying this workshop group.  We all just seem to ‘fit’ in terms of temperament, interests, and ideas about how to work in a group etc.  We were really productive last week and I feel we will be this week too.

Project Update

            I feel like I have been working on this project non-stop!  I submitted one of my ‘deliverables’ last week – the data I have been working with at the research site as well as the project report to let you know where I was with the readings etc.  Over the weekend, I worked on my other ‘deliverable’- the methodology piece, in preparation for my workshop this Thursday.   I also wanted you to see a draft before I turned in the final piece so that I could get some feedback.  I appreciate your comments back.  I will address your comments in my final piece.

            Yesterday, I returned to the research site with the professor for an all day visit.  As always, we visited many classrooms and worked with kids and teachers.  I will be typing up my descriptive notes as soon as I finish this blog post.   We decided to go to the site next week too (the 16^th) … so that is a change from what I emailed you last week on my plan.  I will have been to the site 9 times this semester for all day sessions.     Also, we are going to do interviews in May with the teachers.  All 11 have agreed to be interviewed.  The professor and I began talking yesterday about the interview protocol and what we’d like to ask the teachers.  I am hoping to work the interview transcription into my upcoming classes – Case Study (with Anfara), Digital Tools (second semester) and maybe Discourse Analysis (this fall).   Thinking of discourse analysis just made me think of conversation analysis…and the work of Courtney Cazden.  Do you know her work?

Readings

            Aside from the Anfara article, my readings this week have really been re-readings.  As I was working on the methodological draft, I reread several of the case study articles I had previously read and taken notes on.  I looked at the two case study exemplars (Compton-Lily and the crappy dissertation (organizational structure - good, content-bad)) as I began to write my draft.  It is funny, for years I worked with kids and we talked about the importance of ‘mentor text’ when you are writing in a particular genre.  I would flood the classroom with personal narratives if that is what the kids were attempting to write and we would study various authors’ ‘moves’ as writers.  I would encourage the kids to try on similar ‘moves’ in their writing. I think this is the first time I have actually done this same sort of thing for myself as a writer.    Academic writing is a much different beast than most of the writing I have done, so I need those exemplars now just like my kids needed years ago.

            I am at UT, and my Anfara article is at home.  I will write about it as much as I can…without my scribbled up and highlighted copy.  I loved his discussion of trustworthiness and how being transparent with the data by using various tables helps the reader understand your process of analysis and contributes to trustworthiness.  I included some of his ideas in my methodology piece including a table that lists the codes from the first iteration and the second iteration.  You asked about trustworthiness in case study in your comments/feedback, and I will include more of Stake (I think he devotes chapter 7 to this issue) in my final draft.   Reading this article made me really look forward to taking the case study class with Anfara this summer.  I am sure I will learn a lot!