Note to self:
If you ever enroll in another education course requiring action research, check the scheduled due dates for the project to make sure it actually coincides to times you have students!
I have loved every part of this program, but am really feeling the pressure now to complete the action research project. Cycle one fell during the last month of classes at our school. The only thing the teachers were doing at that point was review. While I was able to set up my training for asynchronous planning, there was no opportunity to deliver the unit to the students. Cycle two was scheduled during our summer break. We are a small parochial school. There is no summer school. Not only that, we had a major overhaul in our faculty over the summer. Since we are a tuition based school, enrollment determines our staffing needs. With the current economy, we have lost many of our students. This necessitated many faculty members being cut to part time. Some of them were not able to accept a contract that did not include benefits, and have left to seek other opportunities. The new additions are all excellent, and willing to pitch in and help with my project, but nothing can be done about the actual dates for our school attendance.
The second difficulty I foresee is in creating any visual record of the project in action. A large number of our students' parents refuse to allow any photos or videos to be made of there children. Many even refuse to allow their students pictures to appear in the yearbook or on the school bulletin board. I suppose the world has changed quite a bit since my own children were in school. I never thought twice about allowing their pictures to be taken and used on campus or submitted to the local paper in recognition of their accomplishments. I'm not sure what next month's course requirements will be, but I certainly hope I will be able to fulfill them!
Excellent observations. One thing that I'm always surprised are the educators who start a 12-month excelerated Masters program in September and complain at how difficult it is to finish the program just as they are beginning a new school year. Ack. Actually, it's extremely difficult to figure out when the best time is to begin, in view of what needs to happen by the end of the program. You're definitely correct that it's kind'a important to schedule your cycles when you have access to your study group/students.
ReplyDeleteThat leads to the second thought about the problem of getting parent cooperation. My thought is that this often is because we form the question in a way that sends up red flags for parents. Getting back to the original concept behind AR: How can I improve my work as an educator or my work environment, this takes the spotlight away from doing a study on kids. I feel like this is one of the shortcomings we've faced in rolling out AR, that many of our students approach AR thinking "study" and not "how do I improve my work" or "how do I improve my environment." If we kept it on the level of "how do I" then this usual disarms the controversy because this become more DIY than inquisition.