EER500 Assignment 2

I have now finished the final assignment. It was an interesting process, not least of which as it exposed in the area of research how different people's views of what constitutes a research paradigm, methodology or design. It was good to go back and hone Assignment 1 and surprising that even after the first 2 assignments that the research question still required a substantial amount of thinking to get it right. Which really does reinforce the iterative process of research question development.

I disliked the textbook as Bryman (2012) seemed much more like a how to for PHD students and some things I wanted more of the debate particularly around those ideas such as who decides what a design is and which approaches are counted as paradigms.

Part of the difficulty for me was that my initial approach was that of me as the TL doing the research in the school with the teachers I worked with rather than as an outside researcher. Thus I was initially thinking of ideas such as action research but realised that the approach that needed to be taken for the assignments was the latter. In some ways this is a failing of this unit for although now i have a great theoretical understanding and have designed a research approach to a particular question, as the TL in a school I would not necessarily approach the research in such an academic way but would aim to be more inclusive, reflective and active. Though having said that, if we as TLs need to pursue evidence based research to further our cause then this has been a useful (if somewhat arduous) assignment.

References:
Bryman, A. (2012). Social research methods (4th ed.). Oxford, UK: OUP.

summer reading....

This image shows what I wish I were doing this school holidays ...... instead I have enrolled the kids in the summer reading challenge a great initiative from our local library which gives each child one raffle ticket per 5 books for a chance to win an iPod .... it works! and my 6 year old has been reading every day since.

http://thebriberyact.com/2011/07/25/holiday-reading-from-across-the-pond/

On the other hand, I have been grappling with the desire to have a holiday while still working and doing the EER500 final assignment.. grrrr i'm glad I won't have to do another summer unit again!

Education survey 2013 - technology and teacher librarians

Australian teacher magazine conducted their annual EducationSurvey asking school staff across Australia for their views on the issues affecting the sector.

In part four is some of the comments received on the topics of technology in the classroom, and teacher librarians.

here are 2 comments from the article....

“Of great concern to me is the reduction in the number of Australian primary schools with a qualified teacher-librarian on staff. At a time when so much Federal BER funding has been put into primary school libraries, it is indeed a contradiction that primary school principals are allowed to continue down this road. I believe that deteriorating literacy levels are related to this current trend.”

'Teachers in specialist positions (e.g. Teacher Librarians and Careers Advisers) play a very important role in overall outcomes for students, but do not seem to be considered in most of the discussion about ‘teacher effectiveness’.”

Click on the link below for the full article.

EducationSurvey 2013: Your comments – technology, teacher librarians

EER500 1b returns

The assignment was actually marked and returned by Christmas eve (which is really quite a feat by the lecturer) but as I decided that I would "take off" the time between Christmas and New Year and not think about Uni or libraries or anything other than the family things I have only now come to look at it.

The feedback was extensive - in fact each sentence was marked in a way like a high school students with grammatical suggestions, and deleted, added and changed words and sentences. I did reasonably well but came away feeling that my work especially my referencing was rather sloppy. It was also the first time (in 2 masters!) that my academic writing style has been criticised - this included things like not having a space between the p and . in p.56 for example and the way i use in-text references. However, in some ways I wish this sort of feedback had been provided earlier as I think I became complaisant about some things which I will now strive to correct.

Having said that, I can see how the feedback and ideas will be useful in going ahead with the next assignment.