The Role of Emotions

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“We were, we told ourselves, too close to the work” (Paris & Winn, 2014). I have told myself this many times in relation to my job. In my opinion, it is a hazard of being a teacher. It is difficult to find the balance between work and home. This probably has a great deal to do with why so many teachers burn out within the first five years. I don’t envision a researcher as having such problems. In the past I have typically thought of a researcher as one who is serious, precise, objective and disconnected. Prior to starting this program, I was trying to determine what I wanted to research. I had a difficult time because I felt I was overly passionate about the things I wanted to research, but on the other hand I did not want to research a subject that I was dispassionate about; I imagine that would become tedious. “We have not paid significant attention to these feelings, yet they persist and continue to shape our work” (Paris & Winn, 2014). When reading through research articles, it appears that the common approach to research is to be detached, in order to be objective.

In Renato Rosaldo’s book, Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis, he discusses the difference “between the technical idiom of ethnography and the language of everyday life” (1994). Rosaldo gives multiple examples in his book of daily life being described in Ethnographic terms. Each time I feel as though the researcher in the example has no idea what they are talking about because all emotion has been taken out of play. It leaves the description sounding idiotic. One example Rosaldo gives is Horace Mann’s paper, “Nacirema”. I had read it in elementary school and I remember being a little disturbed and thinking Nacirema people were barbaric. When I found out it was actually about Americans I was shocked and thought it was the funniest thing I had ever heard. It became a joke to speak in such a manner.

People are emotional; they have joy, grief, anger…etc. When emotion is taken out of the equation daily actions seem a little crazy. I understand that the purpose is to stay distanced, but people research with purpose. “I want to emphasis…research carried out by anyone is a political-historical process.(Lave, 2012) Regardless of whether one expects their research to have an impact, it does, in some aspect have an influence on society. As quoted by Lave, research is political. It goes back to knowing the community and how the research will impact them. Paris and Winn discuss how emotions are used to modify policies. “The fear of terrorist violence of ‘illegal aliens’ taking U.S. jobs, of prisoners using tax dollars…all help to justify expanding the punitive arm of the state” (Paris & Winn, 2014). My purpose in researching is to initiate change within my community. The keyword throughout these readings seems to be balance. One must be aware how their emotions, passions and desires affect them in order to keep bias from impacting the results of their research. However, it is our passions that drive us.  Additionally, remembering that the community you are studying is made up of people and that the purpose of the research is to create a better world for them. Once we lose sight of that, there is no point in continuing to research.

References

Lave, J. (2012). Changing practice. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 19(2), 156–171. doi:10.1080/10749039.2012.666317

Paris, D., & Winn, M. T. (2014). Humanizing Research (p. 277). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Inc.

Rosaldo, R. (1994). Culture and truth: The remaking of social analysis (pp. 1–52). Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

Objectivity and the White Racial Frame Subdued?

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(From author's personal files)

(From author’s personal files)

I was suspicious of an article from Anthropology Education Quarterly, Indigenous Epistemologies and Education—Self-Determination, Anthropology, and Human Rights (McCarty, 2005) because of the role of anthropologists in cultural appropriation, genocide, reinforcing romantic notions of and problematizing Indigenous peoples and a host of other negative outcomes for non-Whites. The editor, however, confesses to the discipline’s role in this brutal history and expresses the need for centering Indigenous epistemologies (ways of knowing). It sounds good. The theme of the editorial piece is a call for systemic change to center Indigenous voices. Given the power of white logic, the white racial frame, centuries of relegating all things non-White to the margins, is it possible for researchers using dominant culture tools and logic to achieve such a movement? This is what it would have to be, a movement. I’ll return to this question later.

Several articles about action research by authors such as Jean Lave, Teresa McCarty, and Renato Rosaldo expose us once more to thinking about our standpoint, intersections, and identities as researchers in relation to our practice. In Culture and Truth, Rosaldo (1993) forces us to examine the ridiculousness of using objective descriptions to explain deeply human interaction and events in cultures that are not our own. When researchers do this they are subscribing to social norms of a science established to be distanced, unemotional, and dominant, in many ways, stereotypically masculine and oppressive. Rosaldo describes how this is harmful in ethnography. “Such accounts visualize people’s actions from the outside and fail to provide the participants’ reflections in their own experiences. They normalize by presenting generalized recipes for ritual action…. (Rosaldo, 1993, p. 58). Interestingly, this gaze or white racial frame as coined by sociologist Joe Feagin has been the dominant framing that has allowed systemic racism to flourish for over 400 years.

A brief historical note: Carolus Linneas, a biologist and the person credited with the organization system for the plant and animal world, together with Blumenbach, a physician, naturalist and anthropologist, believed that people could be categorized into racial groups—much like plants and animals. Linneaus created the categories, and Blumenbach, believing race to be about phenotype and temperament, went so far as to assign meaning to each group, essentially, a racial hierarchy.

Groups of Humankind Temperament
Africanus Black skin; phlegmatic (sluggish), slow, relaxed, negligent
Americanus Red Skin; choleric (quick-tempered), straightforward, eager, combative
Asiaticus Yellow skin: melancholic, inflexible, severe, avaricious
Europeanus White skin and muscular body; sanguine (warm), swift, clever, inventive
(As illustrated in Scott, 2012)

These racial hierarchies are the roots of the social norms we have been socialized into today—the norms that we are challenged to reconsider, resist and replace. In doing this work, Jean Lave in Changing Practice (2012), challenges the silence surrounding researchers’ political stance and the lack of research rooted in time and place. While recognizing that his discipline of Cultural Ethnography is developing theory with the person at the forefront “…for engagement in a political struggle for a different, more inclusive, just and habitable world (Lave, 2012, p. 156) he also recognizes the absence of critical reflection, an awareness of our own political and cultural locations, and the constraints of our own research. Lave talks at length about the contributions of political and social scientist, Antonio Gramsci and his contribution to critical thought. Gramsci was taken with Frederick Taylor’s (the man who developed scientific management and who devised ways to get the most work out of workers in the industrial era) comment that a trained gorilla would make a better worker than a human being because of an inability to think. Gramsci, writing in the early 20th century, believed that the “aim of American society is to develop a mechanical and automatic behavior …where workers carry out repetitive movements without the use of imagination, …creativity, thus forget their craft, … culture… and origins” (as stated by Guiseppe Fiori in the documentary, New York and the mystery of Naples). I think Gramsci was on to something. With the help of 18th century racialization, the colonization of the Americas and establishment of white supremacy, many people adhere to social norms based on the dominant culture, the white culture, without question.

What this means is difficulty for many Whites and those who have embraced the white racial frame to think critically about their own identities, political struggles, value systems, location in relation to others, and essentially the relationship between culture and power. Whiteness is invisible and omnipotent such that when non-Whites engage in truth telling, our experiences are relegated to anecdotes, distortions or are merely subordinated to other more powerful voices (Lave, 1993). Two examples from the literature and one from a recent experience illustrate this.

In Culture and Truth, while Rosaldo makes the case for examining our culture and the interplay between culture and power, he states in his argument that “in many cases the oppressed fail to talk straight [my emphasis]. Precisely because of their oppression, subordinate people often avoid unambiguous literal speech. They take up more oblique modes of address laced with double meanings, metaphor, irony and humor” (p. 190). Whether he meant it to read that way or not, there is a value judgment in that statement, not in favor of subalterns. In Should We Track or Should We Mix Them? Pivovarova (2014), in her research on the impact of tracking on students states, “but is it true that only good peers matter” (p.2)[emphasis added]? And later, “it turns out that independent of own ability, all students benefit when surrounded by good peers” (p. 3)[emphasis added]. It stands to reason that if there are good peers, there are bad peers. Who are they? One need not answer because centuries of socialization have created images of the bad peers: low-income, non-White, immigrant, low achieving, etc. Lastly, in a recent project with colleagues we had decided to ask our peers to reflect on living in a white supremacist world. Once determined, there was concern about the question being too uncomfortable for Whites and adding to an already tense topic. The question was changed to one that allowed “an out” for people to distance themselves from racial inequality and white supremacy much like the objectifying voice Rosaldo explains. The comfort of Whites was primary over the learning that could have taken place and the trust in our peers to take the step to educate the educator (Lave, 2012).

Returning to my question above, is it possible for researchers using dominant culture tools and logic to achieve a movement of systemic change? McCarty (2005) who calls for the centering of Indigenous epistemologies asks, “what does self-determination mean for the world’s 300 million Indigenous peoples” (p. 1).  When the question is rephrased as, “what does Indigenous self-determination mean for the world?” I will feel well on the way to that systemic change. For now, the question is still additive. I’ll leave the question for the reader to ponder whilst exploring and challenging the constraints of her or his own research practice. I will say, resisting and challenging the white racial frame is exhausting. In the words of rapper, Talib Kweli, some days I do enough “just to get by.”

References

Barrata, G. (Director). (1994). New York and the mystery of Naples: A journey through Gramsci’s world [Documentary]. Italy: Le Rose e i Quaderni.

Feagin, J. (2013). The white racial frame: Centuries of racial framing and counter-framing (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.

Lave, J. (2012). Changing practice. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 19(2), 156-171.

McCarty, T. L. (2005). Indigenous epistemologies and education—Self-determination, anthropology, and human rights. Anthropology Education Quarterly, 36(1), 1-7.

Pivovarova, M. (2014). Should we track or should we mix them? Unpublished manuscript.

Rosaldo, R. (1993). Culture and truth: The remaking of social analysis. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

Scott, M. (2012). Think race & ethnicity. New York, NY: Pearson.

 

Mixing or Tracking Students: Reflections on Voice, Accessibility, and Implications for Higher Education

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As I reviewed our list of readings this week, I was drawn to the article by Margarita Pivovarova, “Should We Track or Should We Mix Them?”  for two reasons.  First, as a former eighth grade English teacher, my students were tracked to some degree as students’ math classes dictated schedules. Inevitably, high achieving math students were grouped together throughout day.  Secondly, as a community college administrator, we currently practice ability homogenous grouping in some disciplines as students take placement tests in order to determine what level of English, reading or math aligns to their current abilities.  So, the question of tracking or mixing students is one that has been part of my educational career for the past twenty years, and those twenty years of teaching and educational experience, along with our current development in this course, influence my reaction to this article.Voice

First, I must confess that I am biased regarding using equations, mathematical terminology, and statistics to exclusively discuss an educational topic.  So, I offer this reflection about voice not as a criticism of this study, but as my own development as a scholar-practitioner embarking on my research journey.  Pivovarova analyzes the interactions between classmates with varying achievement levels in the elementary and middle school classrooms.  She utilizes data from Ontario public schools and explains mathematically and statistically the effect of high-achieving (good) and low-achieving (bad) students on groups of students.  According to Pivovarova (2014), “The presence of low-achievers in a class does not impede the achievement of other students, and even helps students who are low achievers themselves.”    Furthermore, “being surrounded by good peers is beneficial for everyone independent of their own learning level.”  To sum it all up,  Pivovarova states that “peer group composition matters”  (p. 28).

In no way do I question the validity of the study, or the means as to which Pivovarova arrives at her conclusions.  But, I left this study wanting more – specifically, the voices of those instructors in the classrooms and the voices of the students (high, low, marginal, etc. – all the labels utilized in the study).  Each of the groups of students from Ontatrio whose data were used for this study has a story to tell.  Each of the teachers who worked with the respective students has a story to tell.  And, from our readings thus far in this course, I now have a sense that by not telling those stories, we may not have a true sense as to the impact of mixing or tracking students on the students themselves.  This study adds to the discussion of ability tracking or streaming, which was the goal of the author.  I offer that it is critical to also include the voices of the participants in the study to gain additional knowledge and insight about tracking or mixing students based on ability level.

Accessibility

As I think further about my development as a scholar-practitioner, I am beginning to question the accessibility of research studies.  How are they written?  Who is the audience?  Is the language used in an article accessible to those impacted by the research? In this case, the author uses very scientific language that includes descriptions of formulas and mathematical explanations, all necessary to fully understand the methodology and processes involved to derive the respective conclusions.  But, as I think of principals I have worked with over the years responsible for making schedules, or I think of the many teachers and administrator who struggle with this question each year, I wonder will studies such as these impact this particular audience?   As I reflect on my upcoming research, I hope I am able to connect my research to my audience and make it accessible to them, in order for it to have a positive impact on current practices and policies.

Implications for Higher Education

Finally, this study caused me to contemplate some current practices in higher education.  In some respects, a community college classroom has the most diverse (mixed) population a teacher could imagine.  Students will differ by age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, ability, personal experiences, and religious affiliation.   But, community colleges also track students in some disciplines.  As mentioned earlier, students are initially placed into English, math and reading courses based on results of a single placement exam.  So, grouping in this instance is based on ability, granted only a single measure is being used to determine ability.  Four-year universities, for the most part, could be viewed as a glorified tracking system.  There are highly selective universities that only accept students who demonstrate a certain academic ability-level.  Isn’t this an example of tracking?  So what does this all mean for higher education?  I think it should cause faculty and administrators to pause and evaluate how our systems may unintentionally or intentionally track students, and discuss whether this tracking is in the best interest of students.

Regarding my line of inquiry with developmental education, is it beneficial to have college students who for varying reasons may be struggling academically in a particular discipline take classes only with other students experiencing similar academic challenges?  Are there advantages to rethinking this model, to allow for mixed classrooms that could benefit all students in some manner? Studies such as these help to shed light on the issue of tracking or mixing students by ability; however, I also believe student and educator voices need to be included in discussions before policies and practices are altered. 

 

Reference

Pivovarova, M. (2014). Should We Track or Should We Mix Them? Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College. Tempe: Arizona State University.

 
 

Languages Need to Live

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Reading Indigenous Epistemologies and Education—Self-Determination, Anthropology, and Human Rights (McCarthy, 2005) struck a very personal cord with me.  The article explains that the groups of people who are identified as being Indigenous live on nineteen percent of the world’s land but populate only four percent of the world.  In contrast to their small demographic population, they speak 4000-5000 of the 6000 languages worldwide.  Of the 210 languages in the area that is now the Unites States and Canada, only sixteen percent are currently being learned by children through their families and communities as they grow up.  If languages are not being learned by children, they will eventually cease to exist.  Not only does the language itself die, but along with it goes other cultural connections.

 

The concern addressed in the article is the loss of many of those languages and what the school systems can do to try and help change that situation.  This article is an introduction to four examples of K-12 schools that try and incorporate Indigenous languages and cultures into their systems in the hopes of saving them.  When providing the example about inclusion of Native Hawaiian into Hawaiian elementary schools, it discussed the importance of doing more than just teach the language—inclusion of the culture must accompany it.  That same lesson was learned for the schools that tried to implement the learning of Ojibwe as an “add-on” course.

 

One successful example of a language reintroduction has been the language immersion program done in New Zealand with the Maori language.  In addition to learning the language, the program has also helped to support a rise in self-determination to a limited extent.  Another positive example is a program connected to a large university (Michigan State University) that has had encouraging effects in revitalizing the Ojibwe language by creating a plan that worked to do more than just implement language learning.

 

My interest in this week’s article stems from my personal experience with a dying language: Yiddish.  I realize that the culture connected to it as a whole, Judaism, is still very much thriving.  That said, I am also very aware that when a language dies there are components and nuances that cannot be recovered.  I have also personally witnessed a small portion of that language die.  As a child, Yiddish was something that my grandmother spoke to my great-grandfather sporadically.  It was also, and still is, the handful of words that some Jewish people, including myself, use to communicate with each other when English words just “aren’t quite right.”  They are also words that have become part of the larger American Jewish culture which still remains intact.

 

What changed dramatically for me regarding my attitude towards Yiddish was when I met my husband.  Yiddish was his first language.  For his parents, who were born in Europe in the years preceding World War II and moved here (and met here) after the war, Yiddish was their primary language.  It was the way that Jewish people communicated with each other in Europe.  Regardless of what country someone lived in or what other language they spoke, Jews could communicate with each other through Yiddish.  After his parents immigrated to the United States, met and married, Yiddish remained the language of their home.  Although his parents learned English fluently, when they had children they still spoke Yiddish.  When I met my in-laws, I became immersed in Yiddish.  Although they were happy to speak English around me, I was eager to listen them speak their primary tongue.  I had hoped to pick up as much as I could.  Now, one generation later, my in-laws have both passed away, my husband has nobody to speak the language to, and my children only know the handful of “cultural” words that I know.  Yiddish wasn’t spoken in our home.  In my little part of the world, in one quick generation, I witnessed the language and the parts of the culture that accompany it go from complete to gone.

 

For Indigenous cultures, the ramifications of lost languages is far more significant than the loss of Yiddish.  The rest of my culture is still intact and Hebrew has now become a daily spoken language where it didn’t used to be.  Although the culture that goes with Yiddish is different, the remainder of the community and many other parts of it are still intact.  That is not the case for all of the Indigenous communities.  The impact of the loss of those languages has had a voluminous loss of access to many things.  For example, many of their stories were often oral so without the language, an even larger part of their culture died.  Work needs to be done to bring as much of those languages back but in ways that manages to help support and encourage the cultures to become stronger and reach independence and excellence and not ways that, inadvertently, impose the same type of oppression on them that has been in place for the past several centuries.   Ethnographers are in the perfect position to monitor the various programs as Indigenous languages are being revived to ensure that they are helping empower the communities they are setting out to support.  They are in the perfect position to be truly be able to assess the inner dynamics of the groups (Paris & Winn, 2014).  With that support, hopefully the languages that are currently alive, and those that are attempting to be reintroduced will be able to thrive from this point on.

 

 

 

 

 

McCarthy, T. L. (2005). Indigenous epistemologies and education–self-determination, anthropology, and human rights. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, (36)1, 1-7.

 

Paris, D. & Winn, M. T. (2014).  Humanizing research: Decolonizing qualitative inquiry with youth and communities. Los Angles: Sage.

 

Turning a New Leaf: The Realization of Exclusion

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Teresa L. McCarty (2005) in the “Editor’s Introduction” of Indigenous Epistemologies and Education – Self-Determined, Anthropology, and Human Rights, discusses several insightful points about indigenous history, language, and education.

I know this article was short in length but it was full of great information that I had never considered before. Personally, I had never had a draw or connection with indigenous studies, articles, or news. Every so often, working in higher education, I would hear about different indigenous issues and brush it off. It was not really until this article and this doctoral class that I really begin to take a different stance at looking and considering the many influences affecting indigenous populations.

One of the main reasons that I began to connect and wonder about indigenous populations was the use of the term ‘ally’. In the last sentence of the article, McCarty (2005) states, “We hope the articles…assembled here lead the way toward transformation…for indigenous people and their allies to build the…cultural infrastructures required to nurture self-determination in education” (p. 4). It was the first time that I had even considered that indigenous people need an ally to help support and protect their interests. I was so used to the term ‘ally’ referring to the LGBTQ population, that I never considered that other populations would need the same support – support from those who are not indigenous or connected to indigenous cultures.

I was also fascinated about the complexities and importance of language to indigenous people. McCarty (2005) opened my eyes to the fact that indigenous populations speak approximately 5000 out of the 6000 known languages. However, although there are thousands of languages, languages are disappearing at an alarming rate which researchers refer to as linguicide (McCarty, 2005). A lot of the reason for their disappearance is the dominance of other languages specifically in educational and urban environments. The author emphasized that languages are epicenters to indigenous populations as they are carriers of identity, knowledge, and ways of knowing, underlining that with a loss of language, there is a loss of history and culture (McCarty, 2005). One way in which to preserve languages is through the implementation of indigenous languages in education. By implementing specific indigenous languages in targeted areas of education, we begin to protect that particular population’s culture and history.

One way that language can be revitalized in education is through universities and language development course work. By implementing programs and spaces for students to have everyday speaking interactions, education can help keep the language alive and thriving (McCarty, 2005). By helping to teach and keep these languages alive, we help support a population that was “burned by centuries of repression, marginalization,and negation” (McCarty, p. 4, 2005).

I am excited to be expanding my education by reflecting and engaging in new information. Because of this class and this article, I can definitely say that I will work on being a better and more educated ally. Which in turn means being more educated about many different types of educational aspects through a willingness to listen and discover new areas of education and its populations.

References

McCarthy, T. (2005). Indigenous epistemologies and education self-determination, anthropology, and human rights. Anthropology Education Quarterly, 36, 1-7.

#ReEntryProblems

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“Our failure to account for how researchers leave the field–how they can responsibly extricate themselves from an ethnographic situation that binds researcher and researched through ongoing processes of ‘colonialism, imperialism, missionization, multinational capital, global cultural flows, and travel’–is a troubling area of silence” (Figueroa, 2014, p.129).

This week I choose to reflect on the above quote from Paris and Winn’s (2014) Humanizing Research because of the applicability to my own area of research.  In education abroad, reentry, or reverse culture shock, “is the process of readjusting, reacculturating, and reassimilating into one’s own home culture after living in a different culture for a significant period of time” (Gaw, 2000, p.83).   In Figueroa’s poignant essay, she implores social researchers to pay more attention to the ‘exit’ phase of the research process, whereby the researchers depart their communities that they have been studying to return to their regular communities of practice. This part of the research process can be overlooked and instead, Figueroa suggests that researchers should ask, “have we acknowledged and fulfilled our responsibility to the communities who have welcomed us?  Have we–in both our own opinion and the opinion of participants–fulfilled the commitments we made at the beginning of the study?” (p.129).  

Just as researchers must leave a community that at once may have seemed foreign and personal to them, so to do our students leave their host cultures only to return to a home that is perhaps less familiar where they must then make sense of all that they encountered and learned while abroad.  Consider this #ReEntryProblem tweet from Twitter user @DanielleSleeper:


The sad fact is, that as Figueroa asserts is the case in research, often times, not much attention is paid to the critical exit and reentry period.  Aside from a myriad of psychological issues that might affect returning students, such as depression, loneliness, and general anxiety (Gaw, 2000), having an intervention during the reentry process can be important for meaning-making as part of the students overall transformational experience. Rowan-Kenyon and Niehaus  (2011) echo this sentiment, stating, “as institutions provide these short-term experiences, it is also important for follow-up to occur after the experience is over. This follow-up presents opportunities for students to build on their experiences rather than letting them fade” (p. 225).

Therefore, as I consider the goals international educators often have for their study abroad participants it is intriguing to apply this education abroad lens to support Figueroa’s plea for researchers to “move beyond outdated notions of researcher neutrality,” (p.130).  Rather than merely being passive bystanders observing the host culture from a bubble, we tend to want to see our students engaging in thoughtful, reciprocal interaction with their hosts.  That is where intercultural learning and understanding can occur.  Why, then, do we expect that this would be any different for social researchers?

While I still struggle with the concept of forgoing objectivity in research, when I think about this dilemma from my education abroad lens, I begin to see logic in what Figueroa and others are advocating for in terms of humanizing research.  In order to maximize the learning opportunity, shouldn’t researchers seek to understand their subjects by injecting themselves in the middle of their daily lives?  The problem is, if this is done, then care must be taken when it comes time to leave the community.  It is a question of humans interacting with humans–a science wholly different from that of a researcher breaking down enzymes in a lab or an engineer working with software on a computer.  When we relegate our human research participants to data in a spreadsheet, what do we lose in the knowledge-making process?  What about ethics?  These questions are similar to those questions I have about our American students studying abroad.  When we fail to assist our students in reflecting in order to derive meaning and to be able to articulate their abroad experiences, when we turn a group of American college students loose in a foreign town without teaching them about humility and cultural relativism, do we not do more harm than good?

 

References

Gaw, K. (2000). Reverse culture shock in students returning from overseas. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 24, 83-104.

Paris, D., & Winn, M. (Eds.). (2014). Humanizing research. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Rowan-Kenyon, H. T., & Niehaus, E. K. (2011). One year later: The influence of short-term study abroad experiences on students. The Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice, 48(2), 213-228.

 

 

Tracking = Resegregation?

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Source (image): “Coming Clean Beyond the Fiscal Cliff”, http://solari.com/articles/beyond_the_fiscal_cliff

I am always amazed at how excellence in education is equated with equity. Although, I am not an elementary or secondary educator, I am often privy to my educator-friends who are assured that one of these concepts comes at the expense of the other; that a school lending itself to equity will undoubtedly sacrifice excellence. Or, that to be academically excellent, the school must limit its equity in order to properly serve high-achieving students who deserve academic consistency and progressiveness. Forgive me, but I am somewhat confused by this idea. Wouldn’t an environment that offers its best curriculum to all students be simultaneously achieving excellence?

In Margarita Pivovarova’s (2014) article , Show we Track or Should we Mix Them?, she explores the notion of tracking in elementary schools. Tracking refers to the grouping of students by ability; thereby placing high-performing students in an environment with peers of the same ability, while placing lower-achieving student with low-achieving peers. Basically, this is a fancy way of saying “put the smart kids in one classroom; put the dumb kids together in a different classroom.” You can tell by my tone, that I do not agree with this idea in any form. Pivovarova (2014) asserts that while positive effects can be seen through tracking, it greatly impacts lower-performing students in detrimental ways. She based her assertion on literature that implicitly showed that “the data does not support the linear-in-means model” (p.7), coming to the realization that the nature of peer effects within the learning environment are more complicated than the model suggests. While Pivovarova (2014) doesn’t clearly state which data set presented this finding, she mentions that some research indicated positive findings, while other research indicated no effect; she finds that peer interaction is a highly important component to achieving the success of tracking (Pivovarova, 2014). I agree with Pivovarova’s (2014) assertion here. Simply grouping students together based on ability alone is not sufficient to prove that this method achieves optimal results. Students must be able and willing to engage with peers and instructors in a way that fosters positive identity and confidence in the learning environment, therefore, producing desired results.

High school principle and author, Carol Corbett Burris (2014) discusses tracking in her book On the Same Track: How Schools Can Join the Twenty-First-Century Struggle against Resegregation pointing out that previous literature documents tracks as “racially and economically stratified” (p. 112). For example, if a high-performing Black student who comes from a low socio-economic background is put into a classroom with a large number of White students from middle to high socio-economic status would the linear-in-means model be so clear cut? Would the student feel confident to perform? Would he/she be able to relate to the classroom climate or culture of privilege within the group? While some students may perform well in this environment, some may not. In addition to the inconsistency of this model, other learning theories come into play (i.e. stereotype threat, “performing whiteness”, etc.) that can easily blur the framework of academic tracking. Tracking also puts a great burden the teacher to ensure that equity is maintained between groups; a burden that lends itself to resources, tools, and institutional support. Pivovarova (2014) concludes that a mixed learning environment is optimal, asserting that the quality of peers has a great impact on both high and low achieving students stating, “…while the average quality of peers is more important for high-achievers, adding just one more smart kid in a classroom has a larger impact on marginal kids than it has on top students” (p. 28).

Tracking, in my opinion, lends itself to labeling as well. In a society where emphasis is placed on the level of coursework studied by the student, it is no wonder that parents will work the system to ensure their child is put into high-achieving classrooms to ensure that all social and academic opportunities are made available to them. Labels such as “gifted”, “honor student”, “special needs” and “remedial” are identities placed on the student which often confirm the student’ identity of self-worth, and so very often students perform to the label by which they are identified. Why not eliminate the curriculum gap in an effort to close the achievement gap? I am sure there is no easy solution to this issue, but we must work harder to ensure educational equity, or risk repeating the injustices of the past.

References

Burris, C. C. (2014). On the same track: How schools can join the twenty-first-century struggle against resegregation. Boston: Beacon Press.

Pivovarova, M. (2013). Should we track them or should we mix them? Tempe, AZ: Arizona State University.

Tracking v. Mixing; Seeking Humanization

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Classroom dynamics are shaped by many things, including attributes, dispositions, knowledge, and skills of the teacher, students’ personalities and backgrounds, and, among other things, students’ academic abilities. Margarita Pivovarova (2014) seeks to isolate and measure the effect of students’ academic abilities, as measured by a low-stakes standardized test, on the performance of other students on subsequent exams, in effect, attempting to address the title question of whether students should be homogenously tracked or heterogeneously mixed according to academic ability. As I read this article, there were several things that I took issue with, each of which I want to address in turn.

Relatively early in the article, Pivovarova (2014) begins to use certain words to describe students’ academic performance that I found to be rather unsettling and dehumanizing in nature; by simply reducing them students to statistics on a page and using descriptors such as, good, bad, average, and marginal, she fails to positively recognize that the data she are interpreting are individual humans who are much more complex than simple adjectives. In an attempt to distance herself from the inescapable connotations associated with such words, she includes the following in her notes section, nearly three fourths of the way through the article:

4In order to make the interpretation easier, instead of labeling students by the level of achievement as 1 to 4, I will call students at the lowest level of achievement “bad” students without attaching the actual meaning of the word “bad”; students at the highest level – “good” students, and students in the middle of the achievement distribution – “average”. Among “average” students, I will distinguish between “marginal” (those whose achievement is below provincial standards, or level 2) and just “average” (level 3). (Pivovarova, 2014, p. 29)

While I recognize that it can often be easier to simplify data for ease of writing and communication with the reader, I found the inclusion and repeated use of these words to be over-simplified and indelible choice. The visceral reaction I had when reading these words, to me, underscores the importance and value of being very conscious and intentional in my word choices when making qualitative judgments and assessments about data points, and to always remember what the data I describe actually represent, which, in this case are students.

                When I began to reflect on the situative context behind Pivovarova’s (2014) work to better her dispositions and analyses, it became clear that her approach was quite distanced from any actual interaction with the students themselves. With such a large sample size (n=228,947 students), it seems likely that this information was reported to her by, or obtained through an institution involved with Ontario’s standardized testing, as opposed to being collected by she herself. While there were likely human-to-human interactions in the collection and analysis of these data, it seems as though one could reproduce such a study without ever seeing an actual person represented by the data. I see this as a major weakness of her methods; by never interacting with the ‘subjects’ of a study, it seems as though it would be quite easy to make such qualitative assessments that fail to acknowledge the humanity of the data points. As I read more about the author and her background, I found that her focus is in field of economics, which can have a cold, sterile distance to it, which was the feeling conveyed through this article.

Despite my above sentiments, when I began to reflect on the motivation behind Pivovarova’s work, I see the most noble of intentions behind it. The article intends to dispel current thinking on the linear relationship between the effects peers have on an individual achiever’s learning. This is done in the name of improving school effectiveness and efficiency, with the ultimate goal of improving student achievement.  If current practice dictates that students be grouped into classrooms in a certain way, homogeneously by achievement, for example, and new information suggests that more students would benefit to a greater extent if they were grouped using a different method, then the paper serves to fill an invaluable need that will improve outcomes for a significant number of students, something that has limitless value. An example of this, representing another particular strength of Pivovarova’s (2014) article is the manner through which she debunked an oft-used excuse of educators: the idea that a “bad apple” student can ruin the learning environment for all other students. Her data suggest that an increased number of low-performing students do not, on the whole, negatively impact the outcomes of high achieving students (Pivovarova, 2014). To use data to soundly reject such a dehumanizing (of students) notion is one of my most valuable take-aways from this research.

Through reading this article, I have gained a valuable insight about how I will implement my innovation into my own practice. I hope that collecting data through participative action research and utilizing methods that always actively seek to humanize my participants, my innovations will not reduce the lives and abilities of those involved to mathematical formulas, algorithms, and simple numbers on paper. But rather, that my methods will always refer to the data in ways that respectfully acknowledge the various backgrounds and stories of those involved in the study.

 

Works Cited:

Pivovarova, M. (2014). Should We Track or Should We Mix Them? Mary Lou Fulton
Teachers College. Tempe: Arizona State University.

The Trajectory of Mental Health Services

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Tegethoff, M., Stalujanis, E., Belardi, A., & Meinlschmidt, G. (2014). School Mental Health Services: Signpost for Out-of-School Service Utilization in Adolescents with Mental Disorders? A Nationally Representative United States Cohort. PloS One, 9(6), e99675. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0099675

 

This article, “School Mental Health Services: Signpost for Out-of-School Service Utilization in Adolescents with Mental Disorders? A Nationally Representative United States Cohort”, looked at how school mental health service providers, such as school psychologists, serve as a guide to out-of-school medical or mental health providers (Tegethoff, Stalujanis, Belardi, & Meinlschmidt, 2014). They used data collected from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication Adolescent Supplement (NCS- A), which is an incredibly in-depth study of children and adolescents with mental illnesses completed between 2001 and 2004. The NCS-A study included data from interviews with the child/adolescent, rating forms completed by the child/adolescent and a parent/guardian, and detailed demographic information. This data is available for other researchers to use to complete their own research. For this study, lots and lots of statistical analyses were used by the authors on the data collected in the NCS-A study order to make their final conclusions.  Overall, the researchers found that school-based mental health services due typically guide families to out-of-school medical service providers, such as pediatricians or emergency rooms. Less often, school-based mental health services guide families to mental health specialists, such as psychiatrists or outpatient mental health clinics.

What was interesting to me, and what I’m still having a hard time understanding, was the “hazard ratios” computed by the researchers. I was able to learn that a hazard ratio is a statistical analysis that tells the amount of time between Situation A and Situation B happening. The statistical analysis did not necessarily look at whether or not (for example) school psychologists encouraged parents to go to the pediatrician or psychiatrist, but how long it took before the family sought those services. (At least, I think that’s what it was saying!) Also, despite my cursory knowledge of statistics and research on hazard ratios, I was unable to understand what a hazard ratio (HR) of 1.17 or 3.15 really meant. I did figure out that HR=3.15 takes about 3 times longer than HR= 1.17, but I can’t turn that into raw numbers. (I mean… three times longer than what? What does 1 equal? A week? A month? Some theoretical amount of time that is never really determined? Argh!)  The article doesn’t really explain it, though it may be because their usual audience would already know.

The authors organized the article in an easy-to-read format, and I really appreciated that the tables were embedded into the article instead of attached as appendices. I think it just makes it a lot easier to read that way. I enjoyed how they used end notes and not parentheticals, too – I know it’s just a personal preference (and I have made my peace with APA style, since that’s the preferred format for educational research), but I do think end notes allow for more fluid reading. There was not a specific literature review included, though the authors did reference many studies previously conducted to support their reasons and findings along the way.

Some of the data reported in the tables was interesting, but I’m not sure how necessary or useful it was. For example, I found it really interesting to see that nearly 50% of the children and adolescents in the total sample cited 3 or more siblings, and that over 35% of the total sample were first-borns. Though I am not a fan of birth-order theories, I had a mental jaunt about this. Does a bigger family simply increase your chances of at least one child having a mental illness? Are first-borns more susceptible to mental illness? Or is it just that parents need more support recognizing mental illness in their first-born, and are more likely to seek outside services for later children without the school initially intervening? Interesting questions – right?? Well, they are to me. But even though this information is given in the article, it was not referenced anywhere in the text. I’m a fan of visuals, but only when the pertinent information is provided and explained within the article. Otherwise, it just appears to be fluff and can overwhelm the reader.

According to the article, “this is the first comprehensive study of the role of the school mental health sector as a guide to mental health care in out-of-school sectors” (Tegethoff, Stalujanis, Belardi, & Meinlschmidt, 20149, p. 6). It did not explore whether school mental health providers caused students to seek outside mental health support, but did look for a temporal relationship (i.e. that the school-based referral came before seeking outside help). The next step would be to look at causality. The authors note that this will be really difficult to do, though, because of the size of the sample needed to make it representative of the entire population.

In some ways, I was pretty bummed to realize this article didn’t explore causality. I mean – was this really necessary to prove? Did anyone NOT think the school-based referrals came first?? But then I remembered one of the basic tenets of research the way it exists in the world: if it hasn’t been proven, then it can’t be used to support your theory. I also thought about how a handful of my students who I don’t realize have any mental illnesses until their psychiatrist sends a script requesting testing or a 504 Plan. So there are times that the school is not the first one to find a problem.

Additionally, even though this information cannot be used to show causality, it did have interesting findings. It implies that school psychologists and other school-based mental health professionals are doing well at referring to pediatricians and emergency rooms, but less well at connecting directly with community-based mental health service providers such as psychiatrists and therapists. I would say I find that to be true in my district. We (school psychologists) shy away from making recommendations about medical diagnoses because we are not doctors. I think it’s because of this that we are also wary of sending parents to mental health providers and instead suggest they check our results with their primary care physician first. And when we have a child in extreme crisis, we tend to recommend the emergency room to families and not the psych ward. I’m not sure how much is due to our desire to be “PC,” how much is due to a hesitancy to suggest medical diagnoses, and how much is pragmatically due to insurance requirements (i.e. many insurances need a formal referral from a primary care physician before paying for specialist services like a psychiatrist).

As I’ve mentioned before, I would love to see school-based mental health service providers working together with medical professionals. I would love to have wrap-around services provided within the school, including access to fully licensed psychiatrists and therapists. I think school psychologists have more training and expertise than we sometimes give ourselves credit for, and I want us to be part of a system that supports us using that expertise. This article helps clarify where we  land in the overall mental health trajectory for students, and I think it can speak to what our next steps should be (better awareness and better connections with outside providers).

Finally, on a completely separate note, I have recently read many articles about “outsiders” doing research on a particular culture or society, and how that framework is inappropriate. I have struggled to really understand the problem with it, because the “outsiders” have primarily been people who I identify with. But this study was completed by Swiss and German researchers on U.S. children and adolescents. Why? Why wouldn’t they study their own countries’ mental health trajectories (especially since they probably have a very different medical system than the U.S., so results would not be generalized to their countries)? Why wouldn’t U.S. researchers have been the ones to spearhead this study, or at least be involved?? Overall, I don’t see anything in the results that seems like they would be tainted by the nationality of the researchers, but I still questioned why. Ah… perhaps this is a small example of what those indigenous cultures have experienced!

Policing of Native Bodies and Minds

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Quijada Cerecer, P. D.  (2013).  The policing of Native bodies and minds:  Perspectives on schooling from American Indian youth.  American Journal of Education, 111(4), p. 591-616.

SUMMARY

In Patricia P. Quijada Cerecer’s (2013) article, “The Policing of Native Bodies and Minds:  Perspectives on Schooling from American Indian Youth,” Quijada Cerecer analyzes “how school policies and leadership practices have assimilationist underpinnings that create hostile environments for these youth, negatively affecting their identities as learners.”  Using four of the nine Tribal Critical Race Theory tenets, Quijada analyzed how “colonization is endemic to society,” “U.S. policies toward Indigenous peoples are rooted in imperialism, White supremacy, and a desire for material gain,” Indigenous peoples occupy a liminal space that account for the political and racialized natures of our identities,” and “educational policies toward Indigenous peoples are intimately linked around the problematic goal of assimilation” (Brayboy, 2005).

The study involved 21 high school Pueblo youth (11 female and 10 male).  Participants must be students at the public high school and have lived on or near the reservation for at least 10 years.  The author decided upon this requirement to “capture perspectives of students who had lived on the reservation for most of their lives” (Quijada Cerecer, 2013).  Data was taken from the qualitative study that spanned over the course of 5 years.  The data were collected from interviews, focus groups, and observations with students, families and community members.

Quijada Cerecer said, “the research unveils a narrative that runs counter to the ‘neutral’ tone embedded throughout institutional policies alleging to foster healthy academic identities for all students; instead, the youth’s experiences and voices illustrate how campus climates and institutional policies restrict and control Native students.”  This was supported by the leadership decisions to hire a police officer to work on campus even though there had not been a history of violence or gangs on campus.  It was also supported by the implementation of a dress code, in which all students had to wear khaki pants, and, again, there had never been an issue with gang-related activities.

The study found that “leadership practices and curriculum did not reflect Native views of the world or lived experiences” (Quijada Cerecer, 2013).  This was reflected in Arizona’s banned books initiative, which included some Native American authored books, such as Sherman Alexie.  William, an eleventh grader, also posed important questions to the researcher and his peers, “’Why do we have to learn the White man’s way?  Why can’t we learn our way?’” (Quijada Cerecer, 2013).  Quijada Cerecer wrote, “his question underscores the notion that schools expect Native American youth to learn and adopt a white identity as students learners.  In other words, schools expect Native youth to assimilate.”  She also found that, for the most part, students were not actively involved or encouraged to become involved in ways to improve the school’s policies or leadership activities.

STRENGTHS & CRITIQUES

I appreciate Quijada Cerecer’s requirement of having lived on or near the reservation for most of their lives to get a more accurate perspective of what schooling has been like for these students.  I also thought it was a great idea to have the study span over a 5 year time period.  However, I would have liked to read more dialogue that occurred between her and those she interviewed, students, families and community members.  It seems as though she selected snippets that would support her research.  Out of the 21 students who participated less than a handful were presented in her article.  This leaves me wondering if they had seen and felt the same divide as the ones she did include.  Or, if their perspectives did not support her research.

Because I like visuals, I would have liked to see a record of her data, either in the form of a chart, graph, or diagram.  I would imagine that she would have extensive data to share considering her study lasted for 5 years.  I feel like the numbers would have made this article more impactful.  Instead, I feel like she molded her data into what she wanted it to be.   Which led me to question, again and as we have discussed in class on several occasions, is there such a thing as objective research??

Quijada Cerecer mentioned Arizona’s ban on books that was a result of the dismantling of the Mexican American Studies Department in Tucson Unified School District.  However, I questioned whether or not this had an impact in New Mexico.  If not, then why mention it?  Unless it was just to support her research, which led me to wonder if her data was limited or non-existent during the course of her 5-year research.

REFLECTION

As I began to read this article, I immediately connected with it because this is something that I am very interested in.  For the purpose of this blog, I did not delve into the story of Mr. Thompson, a white English teacher, because he would have consumed this entire blog.  While I understand Quijada Cerecer’s desire to include his racist perspectives, I wonder about the other teachers.  I wonder if there were other teachers that did their best to include culturally relevant material in their classrooms.  I wonder if other teachers valued their students and built positive relationships with them.

I remember when the controversy with the Mexican American Studies Department in Tucson.  I worked in its sister department, the Native American Studies Department for 4 years.  I saw their classes in action, and it was nothing like it was portrayed by the opposition.  I was saddened when they had to dismantle the program because I knew what the students walked away with.  And, it most definitely was not trying to find ways to overthrow the U.S. government.  They did not walk away with hatred for other races.  They walked away empowered by their culture, knowledge of their own history, and an appreciation for others.

This study has made me think about how I could do something similar with my students, their families and community members.  I am truly interested in learning more about their perspectives and how they have changed over the years, if at all.  One of Quijada Cerecer’s suggestions was to form both student and parent councils that report to an administrator.  I wonder if this is something that my principal or superintendent would be open to doing.  If not, I will find a way to make someone listen.  Our school need a voice.  And, I know my students want to be heard.  I am going to make this happen, one way or another.

Brayboy, B. M. K.  (2005).  Toward a tribal critical race theory in education.  The Urban Review, (37)5, p. 425-446.

Quijada Cerecer, P. D.  (2013).  The policing of Native bodies and minds:  Perspectives on schooling from American Indian youth.  American Journal of Education, 111(4), p. 591-616.

Subjectivity in Social Analysis

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Traditional elements of social analysis, particularly ethnography in research include a high level of detachment from the people or group that is being observed. Removal from the context being observed is thought to give the researcher an objective view to record the “truth” of what is being observed. Rosaldo (1993) argues that pure objectivity cannot be achieved and should not be sought after. He made reference to the Horace Miner’s “Body Ritual of the Nacirema,” as a poignant example of the dangers of stark objectivity (pp. 51). He claims that this approach disguises what is really going on and misses the most important elements for observation and analysis (Rosaldo, 1993). What are the most important elements for observation and analysis then? One important element is self recognition of your own culture and experiences. Or in other words, what makes you know what you know. According to Rosaldo (1993), what you observe as truth in ethnography has a lot to do with your backgrounds, identities, and interactions within your context. Rosaldo (1993), places importance on this recognition of self as you interact with what you are studying. Another important element is the power of the analysis and views, and reflections from the people or groups that you are observing. Who else would know more about their situations than the people that are living them? He warns that excluding the voice of the observed participants, “fails to provide the participants’ reflections in their own experiences.” (Rosaldo, 1993, pp. 51) This may lead to incorrect generalizations of cultures, events, and situations.

I can only see benefit in including a level of subjectivity in ethnographic types of research. According to Crow’s New American College ideologies (2002), “We measure ourselves by those we include, not by those we exclude”. Excluding the thoughts, and stories or research participants only stands to exclude and marginalize them. If we take into consideration how our experiences or lack of them may create biases when we are trying so hard to be objective researchers and we consider the views and reflections of those being observed, the result will be the truthful depiction of what is being studied. When we are exposing truth in research, we create opportunities to tear down walls of oppression based on ignorance or false perceptions. I am not saying that objectivity is harmful; I just see Rosaldo’s vision of social analysis as a way to give a voice to the voiceless and report truth. Our research should focus on access, accessibility, and impact. Keeping this in mind, our research should tell the stories accurately so we can clearly respect those in which we are trying to learn about in order to make an impact that will be positive in nature.

References

Arizona State University. (2002). A new American university: The new gold standard. Retrieved from http://www.asu.edu/inaugural/address/.

Rosaldo, R. (1993). Culture & Truth: The remaking of social analysis. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

 

 

 

Race and class impacts instructional decisions

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Mertzman, T. (2008). Individualising scaffolding: Teachers’ literacy interruptions of ethnic minority students and students from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Journal of Research in Reading, 31(2), 183–202. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9817.2007.00356.x

Summary

The article, Individualising scaffolding: Teachers’ literacy interruptions of ethnic minority students and students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, discussed a group of teachers’ scaffolding techniques of interruptions during literacy instruction. Interruptions from teacher to student are a common practice, especially when getting students to learn how to read, but little research has been done to analyze the types of interruptions teachers implement, to which specific students that teachers are interrupting as well as what effect interruptions have on literacy development. Before the study was conducted, participating teachers were interviewed to determine their beliefs and approaches around literacy instruction. The study showed, however, that teacher beliefs often contradicted or conflicted in some way with actual instructional practice. A key finding is that with ethnic minority students, teacher interruptions were more frequent and were more often related to a phonics or accuracy issue instead of an issue related to reading comprehension.

Organization

A particularly helpful heading was “Research on teachers’ literacy interruption” (Mertzman, 2008, p. 187) because it allowed me to quickly go to that section to see what is out there in terms of this topic. There is not a whole lot of research out there, but something the author did write in this section that I was not too surprised about was that students in lower ability reading groups were interrupted more than students in higher ability groups (Mertzman, 2008). This implies, however, that if a student is in a lower-ability group, they will end up reading less on a daily basis than those students who are in a higher ability reading group. This made me quickly see the relevance of this issue to not only instructional scaffolding, which is the breaking down of concepts in order for students to learn, but also to the hot topic of ability tracking. This caused me to ask, if students read less in lower ability classrooms, does this mean that we should discontinue ability tracking? It’s a complex question, but one that I began to think about right away as result of this section.

Another helpful heading was entitled, “Overall patterns of teacher interruptions: more focus on word recognition than on text meaning” (Mertzman, 2008, p. 190). This told me right away that teachers cared more about phonics than comprehension. In other words, in this study, it was found that teachers felt that it was more crucial that kids could read the words accurately than be able to understand what they actually mean. This made me think of a concept that I am learning in my human development class, in that kids at this age are cognitively able to realize that words represent concepts, so it is crucial that we focus on both the pronunciation and meaning when kids come across words.

Contribution to the Field

One major contribution to the field of early childhood literacy and instruction is the identification of the types of interruptions that are implemented in classrooms. This allows early childhood educators to discuss these types of interactions with colleagues in order to be cognizant of them and improve upon them. The types of interruptions that teachers implement are: “student or teacher model, scold, praise, repeat answer, explain the right answer, focus on meaning, focus on word recognition and sounding out Convergent questions” (Mertzman, 2008, p. 191). Knowing what these interruptions look like in practice will allow us to study them more in the future, especially as there are positive interruptions that provoke student academic achievement and those interruptions that hinder it.

Data Collection Methods

This study was conducted through examining four different classrooms within the same school closely. It was made clear to teachers that the point of this study would be to analyze interactions between teachers and students, but interruptions were never mentioned in order to avoid the problem of participants being self-conscious about these types of interactions. Once teachers were selected, each teacher was observed for two entire days of instruction in order to provide context for student behaviors throughout the day. Then, the period of class that was exclusively devoted to literacy instruction was filmed. Immediately following the literacy period, the researcher interviewed both teachers and students that were interrupted. The filmed segments were then played back to the interviewees in order to get a sense of what thoughts and feelings the participant had behind that interruption. Then, transcripts were consulted in order to begin the data analysis process and the identification of types of interruptions occurring.

Findings

The key question that the author was trying to answer was whether literacy interruption patterns were different with students from different races/economic classes (Mertzman, 2008). Unfortunately, the findings were that yes, they are. In the interviews conducted before the study, teachers never once mentioned socioeconomic status or race as a means to individualize instruction. However, as ethnic minority students were more likely to be interrupted than their white, higher income peers, it seems that teachers do in fact consider race and class as a factor when making instructional decisions. Additionally, the fact that the interruption types were more likely to be a word recognition/phonics issue does not support a balanced approach to literacy (Mertzman, 2008).

New ideas this study suggests for my area of interest

The author made it clear that interruptions can be a powerful force to effectively scaffold a child’s instruction. As this study identified interruptions that would foster a balanced approach to literacy, I began to think of cues that could be taught to teachers during professional development. I thought how when I go and observe teachers, I can specifically focus on the interruption types, the frequency of them and to whom they are being given in order to come up with appropriate suggestions for instructional improvement. I also thought about how we can connect positive interruptions to the idea of helping students manage their uncertainty within the context of learning how to read.

Further study

It is important to note, as disturbing as the results of this study are, that this was a very small-scale study. Only four teachers were studied and the school was in a rural area of the Southeastern United States. Therefore, to get a better sense as to whether race and socioeconomic status impacts teachers’ literacy scaffolding, larger studies in more diverse settings should be executed.

A top-down approach to retention

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In many ways and for a variety of reasons, I’ll take a top-down approach to research when looking at ways to improve retention rates amongst Hispanic students at private, Catholic and prep schools. One of these ways will be reading articles centered on retention rates of Hispanic students at post-secondary schools. First off, there is more research out there on supporting Hispanic students at colleges than there is at prep schools. And secondly, if I can discern ways to support Hispanic students succeed in college, certainly many if not all of the methods utilized could be used to support Hispanic students at college prep schools as well. I think that the tangential relationship between retention rates at both of these types of schools is correlative, especially since one type of school builds to the other.

I found one such article by G.M. Stern (2008) on Mercy College, a small college in up-state New York, and its attempt to recruit and retain Hispanic students. I’d like to think that an article about Hispanic college students in New York is relevant to my findings in Phoenix because I’d love to send my high school students back East for college. I think there is value to leaving one’s home state and seeing who you become away from home. One of my best Hispanic students is leaving us this fall to study engineering at Swarthmore on a full scholarship. He’s someone I’ll be interviewing for my research as well.

From Stern (2008), I found it interesting to learn that, “Of all undergraduates enrolled at Mercy, Hispanics comprise 29 percent of the student body, more than double the percentage of Latinos in the U.S. population. Last year, U.S. News & World Report named Mercy one of the seven most racially and ethnically diverse colleges in the North” (p. 2). This college in New York seems like one to keep an eye on because it is obviously doing something right when it comes to recruiting and retaining Hispanic students. One thing Mercy seems to do well is to do a lot of discernment of which students will do succeed at their college prior to students even enrolling. Stern (2008) has written, “The college is seeking students that fit Mercy regardless of their ethnic background” (p. 1). This suggest that Mercy has a strong of sense of self, knowing which students will succeed at their college because they’ve reflected upon this thoroughly prior to their enrollment process. This sounds like an important first step as schools try to better retain Hispanic students on their campuses: know thyself, to borrow a phrase from the ancient Greeks.

Organization

The author’s article was organized well and easy to follow. The headings were helpful, especially ones like “Retention Strategies.” I also found it helpful that some of its headings guided me to Mercy students where the article discussed how the students found success at the college. For instance there was Karen Quijano. Stern (2008) wrote of Quijano, “She didn’t apply to large campuses with 30,000 or so students because she considered the numbers too intimidating” (p. 3). I think that Quijano’s example goes back to Mercy College’s front-end recruitment of students they know will have success at their college. There doesn’t seem to be a point to recruiting in bulk. Rather, be it secondary or post-secondary, it seems best to really do research on the students early on in the enrollment process.

Literature Review

Stern’s article was not a bastion of well-researched theory on Hispanic education as it pertains to Mercy College, so in this case, I found his literature review somewhat lacking. Stern’s research centered on Mercy College itself, interviewing faculty, students, and administrators on the things it does well. It wasn’t just that, though. Stern also analyzed data relating to Mercy College in the context of the state of New York and colleges in general. Still, I didn’t find the depth of theory regarding why Hispanic students might do well at this college. I’m not sure if this is a negative thing or not. I plan on discussing ideas like indigenous methodologies in my research paper, but I also would like to have some “boots on the ground” data so to speak regarding tangible information from schools that are successful in recruiting and keeping Hispanic students.

Data Collection

As intimated in the previous section, Stern’s data, for the most part, comes from the analysis of college retention numbers at the school, data related to other colleges in New York and back East on the whole. Stern (2008) wrote, “Despite all of its efforts and successes, Mercy College can’t retain all of its Hispanic students. Though 29 percent of students enrolled are Latino, only 18 percent of its graduates are Latino. Why don’t the other 11 percent graduate?” (p. 5). After presenting this information, Stern went on to analyze the results and answered his own question by anecdotal evidence and interview data.

Analysis

Stern did a nice job of allowing others to do his analysis for him. Just as I previously mentioned, the author asked questions like the one above and used more knowledgeable sources to provide answers. Stern (2008) wrote here, transcribing the thoughts of Carolyn Tragni, Mercy College’s assistant vice president for academic support, “’Some Latino students come in with barriers. They’re working to support families, sending money back to families, coming out of high schools that may not have prepared them for college – and for some, English isn’t their native language. We struggle like any college to retain a higher number of students’” (p. 11). The data provided by Stern supports that Mercy College is doing a good job of retaining its Hispanic students. What Tragni relates here is that each year attrition will happen with Hispanic students. I’d like to not accept this answer, and I’d like to find methodologies to offset some of the things that Tragni mentioned in this article as hindrances to Hispanic students finding success in college.

Theoretical Framework/Lens

Stern wrote his article as a researcher and inquisitor. I feel that he wrote as a reporter as well. Reporters tend to be devoid of opinions and simply want to parlay facts to readers. I found that here to some respect. His writing style does seem to distance himself from his readers. Still, the subject matter and research shows that Stern cares about the topic – or else he would not have taken the time to write about this college and its success with regards to the issue of Hispanic education. Reporters find that they must cover, for instance, car crashes or fires for whatever news source he or she works for. This topic does not cry out for public consumption and so Stern’s interest in bringing it to the attention of others proves that he does care for the population it relates to. I will say, though, that he seems very conscious of trying to relate facts and best practices without himself being a part of the data. This, I believe, only strengthens his findings.

Findings & Conclusions

Stern, through using this small college in New York, has found two things that interest me in my pursuit of finding better ways to recruit and retain Hispanic students at private, prep, and Catholic secondary schools. First off, know your own school and student body well and find students who fit profiles of success at your school. This seems very important. Schools must consciously reflect upon what types of students can and will do well by reflecting upon the types of successful graduates it has had previously. Once this reflection occurs, the rest follows much more smoothly. Secondly, support your students.  Stern (2008) quoted the assistant vice president once again, “What’s the key to attracting Latino students to a private college? The ‘holistic’ approach works best, Tragni said, combining one-on-one assistance from an advisor, identifying problems early, providing academic support and offering career development” (p. 12). I think one-on-one advisors, which is, of course, not something unique to other colleges and universities is vital here with Hispanic students, but, more so, it centers on how well these advisors are utilized. Students at post-secondary or secondary private schools need means of support throughout the entire school process. From Stern’s piece I’ve gleaned that the front-end recruitment process seems the most important with multiple means of support as something that is imperative as well.

References

Stern, G. M. (2008). Mercy College: A retention model for Hispanic students. The Hispanic    

          Outlook in Higher Education, 18, 55-57. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com

          /docview/219229155?accountid=41434

 

Don’t Believe the Hype: Indigenous Student Learning Styles May Not Conform to the Literature

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Roppolo, K. & Crow, C. (2007). Native American education vs. Indian learning: Still battling Pratt after all these years. Studies in American Indian Literatures, 19(1), 3-31.

Written in Blood

I surrender to Roget’s pocket Thesaurus

I confess my crime of breaking into this container of words,

and slaughtering this poem with meta innuendo./

But I needed something. I wanted to gather the dust

of 84 warriors and 62 women & children. I robbed,

from this vault of words, language of the enemy, in hopes/

I could capture these people, allow their prayers to

Reach Wovoka in the final hour before I end this poem.

I wanted to know that I am not merely grieving from the guilt /

of that European blood that separates me from two worlds.

I need to know that I can be allowed my grief.

Sadly, I have failed. This 1961 Cardinal edition thesaurus/

I depended upon has betrayed me. Betrayed my Indian kin.

With this language there are times I feel I’m betraying myself.

In my search for synonyms for murder, I find Cain,/

Assassin, barbarian, gunman, brute

hoodlum, killer, executioner, butcher

savage, Apache, redskin.

(Midge, p. 212)

 

I am using Tiffany Midge’s poem (Harjo & Bird, 1997) to speak a truth about the relationship between Indigenous peoples and dominant-culture education. The legacy of 300 plus years of “Indian education” has left Indigenous communities fractured and traumatized. Our people are in various stages of quasi-assimilation (because we know it’s impossible for full assimilation as we are racialized as brown, or red as is often referenced), without identity, ashamed, and thankfully, recovering. In much of the literature education is lauded as the key to our future and our very survival (Campbell, 2007; Guillory & Wolverton, 2008; Harjo & Bird, 1997; Roppolo & Crow, 2007). Unfortunately, college degree attainment has not become widespread among Indigenous peoples in the U.S.  despite the various research examining this social problem (Guillory & Wolverton, 2008). This week, I turned to a small pilot study that took place at a tribal college on teaching Native American literature to Indigenous students, for a slightly different approach to Indigenous learning at the college level.

In Native American education vs. Indian learning: Still battling Pratt after all these years, Roppolo and Crow (2007) rely on the research about Indigenous students’ learning styles to construct an intensive week-long Native American literature course for five (mostly Cheyenne and Arapaho) students. The authors used two quantitative assessments—one to assess whether students are auditory or visual leaners and the other to assess if they are individualistic or collectivist. Upon finding that the students in their course did not test as the assessments predicted—visual and collectivist, the authors used their knowledge of Cheyenne and Arapaho culture to create an additional assessment to measure assimilation in hopes of explaining the contradictory results. Following are some questions on the assessment. Answering true to the first four and false on the last question reflect “traditional” responses.

  • If I acquire a beautiful object that I value greatly and someone I respect will appreciate it, I would give it to them as a measure of my respect and gratitude without regret.
  • Life experience is more important than book learning, though both can be beneficial.
  • Sometimes hard things have to be said, but it is important to say them in a good way so that people won’t be offended no matter how bad their own behavior has been.
  • My family’s needs are more important than my own.
  • If I went to somebody’s house after eating a large meal and they offered me food, I would politely say that I was full, but thank you, or find some other way of turning down the offer.

The authors also used qualitative data collected from student assignments and their own observations as participants in the research. They found that the literature on Indigenous education does not always apply and that researchers must be willing to change their methods mid-practice in order to impact learning. As the subtitle suggests, society is still using predetermined notions (current literature) of what Indigenous students are like to create an educational environment for them that may not work.

Theoretical Frameowork and Literature Review

The authors used a constructivist approach as a learning theory, philosophy and application in the classroom. Constructivism is the idea that students have their own cultural wealth they bring into the classroom and rather than ignore that capital, the instructors build upon it so that students can construct new knowledge upon the foundation of previously constructed knowledge which is beneficial for learning. I found the literature review sparse, however the authors used an article that reviewed the recent literature (as of 2003) on improving academic performance among Native American students. They also use literature that examined historical educational practices toward Indigenous peoples, the impact of cultural literacies, cultural variables, and cross-cultural assessment in learning environments and a few specific research studies about Indigenous peoples and education. I think they could have used more research to support their own. I am convinced that that the articles situate the authors’ contribution as innovative, however, I am not convinced that the 12 articles specifically about Indigenous students sets a solid foundation for the author’s contribution. It seems to me there could be a lot more support for their argument.

Data and Analysis

Three quantitative methods: Joyzelle Godfrey’s Assessment of personal tendency toward individualism or collectivism, Brainworks Personal Evaluation to test for audio/video preference, and their own 24-item survey to test for assimilation. The 24-item survey was created midweek to find out why students had tested as auditory learners rather than visual and individualistic rather than collectivist. Interestingly, the students’ scores contradicted the literature that theorized Indigenous students were holistic and visual learners. The authors also used qualitative data, the students journaling and classroom assignments as well as the author’s own observations as participants in the learning environment. The qualitative data offered more insight into how the students connected with the coursework and gave a richer description of how the students’ lived experiences impacted the work they completed in the class. The two quantitative methods that tested preferences for audio/visual and individualistic/collectivist revealed the students to be unlike what the data had shown for Indigenous students—which led to the creation of a new assessment.

Findings

The authors theorized that students tested strongly as both visual-auditory because the culture requires it. Engaging in traditional ceremony requires one to complete complex tasks often after very long instructions. One needs auditory focus to be successful. Also, attending ceremonies and watching what others are doing prepares one for the day it is their turn. The authors suggest their contradictory findings on students learning styles makes the case that we should not apply predetermined theory and practice to Indigenous students but must be flexible to change theory mid-practice to ensure real learning happens and that new pedagogies and theories can arise.

The authors’ findings are in line with the complexity of human beings and the idea that people adapt. Being willing to adjust your research methods mid-stream takes reflection, critical thinking and courage. To me, this is what it means to be innovative and to practice excellence. The authors did not accept the contradictions and report those findings, instead they set out to figure out why the students in their research contradicted the literature. In the end, the students’ final projects were a mix of visual representation, spoken, and written word.

References

Campbell, A. (2007). Retaining American Indian/Alaska Native students in higher education: A case study of one partnership between the Tohono O’odham Nation and Pima Community College, Tucson, AZ. Journal of American Indian Education, 46(2), 19-42.

Guillory, R.M., Wolverton, M. (2008). It’s about family: Native American student persistence in higher education. The Journal of Higher Education, 79(1), 58-87.

Midge, T. (1997). Written in Blood. In Harjo, J. & Bird, G (Eds.), Reinventing the Enemy’s Language: Contemporary Native Women’s Writings of North America (p. 212). New York: Norton.

Roppolo, K. & Crow, C. (2007). Native American education vs. Indian learning: Still battling Pratt after all these years. Studies in American Indian Literatures, 19(1), 3-31.

Branding at Embry-Riddle

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Curtis, T., Abratt, R., & Minor, W. (2009). Corporate brand management in higher education: the case of ERAU. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 18(6), 404–413. doi:10.1108/10610420910989721

“Corporate Brand Management in Higher Education: The Case of ERAU” is a good primer on branding a higher education institution.  The article is easy to read, well organized, and has appropriate headings.  Included in the article is an extensive and clearly presented literature review with an overview of corporate branding as well as how this concept and the concepts of corporate identity and corporate image can be used in higher education.  The rationale for adopting corporate brand management in higher education is comprehensive and straightforward.  Regarding contribution to field, this article is helpful for institutions that don’t have much experience in branding, particularly those that are considering starting a branding initiative.  I don’t believe the information in the article is strong enough to change the mind of skeptics who believe branding is incompatible with academic principles and values.

The theoretical framework for the research is informed by the perspectives provided regarding how corporate branding, corporate identity, and corporate image relate to higher education.  This is helpful because the information presented is applicable to most businesses and institutions including colleges and universities.

A qualitative approach with a single case study method was used for the research.  Data was collected from a variety of sources including secondary sources (e.g., university documents and Web site, archival data) and interviews of top university administrators.  A discussion document focused on brand management was drawn up for the interviews based on the literature review.  Open ended questions for administrators were focused on identifying the purpose of the corporate brand management process and logistics.  This approach is appropriate due to the complexity of the process, multiple and dynamic variables involved, and numerous participants on the initiative.

Corporate Branding in Higher Education

Corporate brands should be true, meaningful to the target audience, and distinct from the competition. Target audiences in higher education might include prospective and current students, parents, faculty and staff, alumni, community stakeholders, and the general public.  A brand can also incorporate “belonging.” This is important in higher education where graduates may identify with the brand of their school throughout their life. University brands may include a variety of quantitative measures to position themselves compared to competitors such as faculty research productivity, student scores on entrance exams, selectivity of admissions, and starting salary of graduates.  Qualitative measures used for positioning may include the perceptions of the university’s target audiences.  Branding is not only the responsibility of the school’s marketing department.  A successful brand requires alignment of all the university’s resources.  The quality of the institution’s faculty and research, the programs offered, the service provided to students, and the physical attributes of the campus and facilities should all express and reinforce the brand.

Corporate Identity and Image for Higher Education

Corporate identity is the portion of the brand that is created by internal stakeholders.  In higher education these identities should position the school appropriately in the marketplace, be accepted by society, and create a consistent image among stakeholders.   Previously, corporate identity used to be limited to visual identifications and logos but has now evolved to include how the school’s employees behave and interact with those outside of the institution.

Corporate image is how those outside the institution (including external stakeholders) view the school.  For comparison, corporate identity is “what the school wants to be” and corporate image is “what the school is perceived to be.”  Corporate image is the result of corporate branding.  Improving image is no easy task because of the diversity of multiple stakeholders and effects of many factors including organizational, situational, personal, business, and regulatory.

The case at Embry-Riddle

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University is a well-known institution specializing in aviation and aerospace education with about 34,000 students on two residential campuses, online, and at training facilities around the world.  With the leadership of a new president in 2006, the university embarked on a corporate brand management initiative to facilitate additional expansion of the school outside of the United States market.  A substantial challenge was the lack of unity among university constituencies with regard to the brand, image, and identity that the school should have to maintain or improve its existing competitive advantage while expanding programs and research domestically and internationally.

For corporate brand management, the marketing proposed a new website, some program marketing, and developing corporate brand positioning.  The information provided about the website and program marketing activities was basic.  Developing a new website is commonplace in higher education institutions whether or not they embrace branding and the program marketing example was unsophisticated.  The information about developing the corporate brand position illustrated some of the strategic complexity associated with defining a brand.  Should Embry-Riddle broaden its position to become a premium provider of comprehensive education or should they focus their efforts on building on their existing strengths in the domestic and international markets?  These questions are of critical importance and once the brand position is defined it should drive organizational focus and resources.

The next step in the process was to conduct a brand audit.  The article had worthwhile information about the internal and external groups that were to participate and about a brand positioning process model that was used.  There are three measures in a brand audit: awareness, key attributes, and relationship outcomes.  Awareness was measured among key segments in geographical areas. Key attributes were measured as percentages for geographical segments such as, “Embry-Riddle has a broad selection of programs (to meet a variety of needs)” or “Embry-Riddle helps you get a job or advance your career.”  Relational outcomes were measured as percentages for geographic segments among key prospective student groups.  Examples of questions to measure relational outcomes are: “Would you consider Embry-Riddle if you were planning to obtain an aviation/aerospace or general education?” and “Would you advise a co-worker, family member or a friend to consider Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University if they were planning to obtain an aviation/aerospace education or general education?”

Information in the article about the rest of the corporate brand management process was limited. The results of the brand audit are used to generate a concept, which in turn is used to develop the university brand positioning statement.  In the next phase the positioning statement is tested among key stakeholders.  Based on the feedback the formal university positioning statement is created.  The final phase of the process is to develop the marketing campaign based on the statement and determining metrics to evaluate the brand on a regular (in this case annual) basis.

My view

The authors utilized a comprehensive literature review to provide a strong rationale for why institutions of higher learning should articulate and manage their brand.  I liked their use of “corporate” to modify the terms of branding, identity, and image.  In this way, they communicated that the concepts they are recommending for higher education are the same that have been used successfully in businesses and other organizations.  I had high hopes that the case study would provide information regarding the challenges and opportunities faced by the university and substantive implications for developing and managing a brand.  The research did provide helpful information about branding process used by the university but little about the position developed or the lessons learned about the process, both of which were beyond the scope of the study.  What university positioning did Embry-Riddle develop? How was it implemented? Was it effective?

It would have also been helpful to include information from the contrary viewpoint that sees branding as unsuited for higher education.  Individuals with this viewpoint have strong positions that can derail a well-intended branding effort.  Developing a compelling brand for a university is an important and difficult challenge.  Even with an elegant process, there are going to be bumps along the way.

Using difference-education to make a difference

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Stephens, N.M., Hamedani, M.G., & Destin, M. (2014). Closing the Social-Class Achievement Gap: A Difference-Education Intervention Improves First-Generation Students’ Academic Performance and All Students’ College Transition. Psychological Science, 25(4), 943-953.

How can difference-education make a difference in the success outcomes of first-generation university freshmen?  A recently published study, authored by Nicole M. Stephens, MarYam G. Hamedani and Mesmin Destin (2014), sheds light on the matter.

Stephens, Hamedani, and Destin conducted a study to determine if an educational intervention that highlights difference and demonstrates why difference matters would reduce the achievement gap between first-generation students (those whose parents do not have a four-year college education) and continuing-generation students (whom have at least one parent who has obtained a four-year college degree).  Using a convenience sample to recruit first-year students and financial incentives to entice them to participate, the researchers organized two moderated panels of college seniors to share their personal stories of how they have succeeded at that university.  The same group of seniors spoke at each panel and shared the same stories; the only major difference between the panels was that one panel included difference-education in the form of the panelists identifying their social-class backgrounds and then linking their stories to those backgrounds, whereas the other panel did not include such mention of experience-based difference.  The group of freshmen participating in the study (which included first-generation and continuing-generation students) were randomly assigned to observe one panel or the other.

In addition to observing the panel, participating freshmen were asked immediately afterward to complete a brief survey about what they learned and how they would use that learning to advise future incoming students, and they also filmed a brief video testimonial that they were told would be used to educate the following year’s cohort of freshmen (the researchers added this wrinkle to produce the saying-is-believing effect articulated by Yeager and Walton (2011)).  At the end of the year, participants also completed a survey designed to gauge their understanding of difference, how much they utilized available student resources at the college, and the success of their college transition as determined by a range of psychosocial measures such as levels of stress and student engagement.

The results are encouraging.  After eliminating outliers and controlling for other factors such as SAT scores and high school GPA, the researchers found that the achievement gap (measured by year-end college GPA) between first-generation and continuing-generation students who observed the difference-education panel was virtually eliminated!  In contrast, a significant gap emerged between first-generation and continuing-generation students who observed the standard panel that did not contain difference-education.  The researchers also found that, although there was not a significant difference in year-end GPA between the groups of continuing-generation students who participated in the study, the group of first-generation students who observed the difference-education panel had a much higher mean GPA than the group of first-generation students who observed the standard panel.  Similar patterns emerged in relation to utilization of college resources.

This seems like a sound study.  The researchers’ survey design and statistical analysis controlled confounding variables, and results were statistically significant. Moreover, the researchers used multiple methods of obtaining data.

I am intrigued by this research because it relates directly to my area of inquiry.  It also confirms other research articles I’ve read, my own personal observations of students, and conversations I’ve had with colleagues that support the notion that, although interventions such as academic skill development programs and financial literacy education can clearly be beneficial for first-generation students, educators must also be attuned to psychological factors such as self-efficacy and feelings of belonging and hope that can impact student success outcomes.  Students can be exceptionally bright, but if they feel like they don’t belong in college, if they don’t recognize that their struggles and challenges might be related to difference in their backgrounds rather than who they are as individuals, or they don’t seek help, their chances for success are diminished.

This study also has major implications for issues of access and equity in education, which is a major national agenda.  As the authors of the study wrote, the achievement gap between first-generation and continuing-generation students is well documented, and first-generation students are a large percentage of the student population.  Therefore, administrators who are seeking to improve their institutional graduation rates and promote student success should be aware of this study and consider how they might use the findings in their own context.

The researchers identified several areas for future study.  For example, they suggested studies on how similar interventions might affect other areas in which there are educational disparities.  This study has definitely given me ideas for my own research.  I would like to try a similar intervention at ASU.  The key will be finding a way to do it at scale.

Additional Reference

Yeager, D.S., & Walton, G.M. (2011). Social-psychological interventions in education: They’re not magic. Review of Educational Research, 81, 267-301.

 

Preparing teachers for diversity

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Multicultural education knowledgebase, attitudes and preparedness for diversity by Teresa Wasonga

Wasonga, T. A. (2005). Multicultural education knowledgebase, attitudes and preparedness for diversity. The International Journal of Educational Management, 19(1), 67-74. Retrieved from http://login.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/229173969?accountid=4485

 

Over the last four school years, budget crisis, school closings and boundary rezoning have greatly altered the demographics of the school where I teach English language learners.  Participation in free and reduced-fee lunch programs has more than doubled from 27.2% to 70.1%; students that speak a language other than English at home increased from 10.5% to 34%; and the number of minority students grew from 38.7 % to 68.4%.  These rapid changes have left my school challenged to meet the needs of this newly diverse population. Through my action research, I want to study, develop and implement multicultural educational practices to improve the equity of students’ access to academic and social resources at our school.  This paper investigates the effects on attitudes and feelings of preparedness of pre-service teachers after taking a class in multicultural education to prepare them to teach diverse groups of students.

In 2005, Teresa Wasonga associate professor of leadership, educational philosophy and foundations at Northern Illinois University conducted a research study to determine the impact multicultural knowledge has on attitudes of pre-service teachers.  With the passing of time, student populations across the United States have become increasingly diverse. According to the study, the pool of new teachers is increasingly white, female, and middle class. The study questions how future teachers should be best prepared to successfully impact educational achievement for diverse students.  Watonga’s definition of diverse students includes “aspects of ethnicity, language, socioeconomic class, learning styles, disabilities, sexual orientation, race, and gender.”(Wasonga, p.67).

“The question in this study was to establish a nexus among multicultural knowledge, multicultural attitudes, and feeling prepared to teach children from diverse backgrounds.”(Wasonga, p.71). The second fundamental question was how much knowledge base in multicultural education and personal interactions with diverse cultures pre-service teachers need in order to alter their attitudes and feelings of preparedness about working with diverse students.

The subjects of the research were from three classes of senior year pre-service Caucasian female teachers, average age 23, enrolled in “Multiculturalism in education” a 500 level course at a Mid-west university.  They all took pre- and post-tests. Questionnaires included Multicultural Content Test-Educational (MCCT-E) to assess their knowledge, Multicultural Questionnaire (MC) to measure attitudes about educational diversity issues nationally and internationally, and a Preparedness Survey (PS) to rate pre-service teachers’ feeling of preparedness to work with diverse students. Descriptive statistics were used for data analysis. Researchers were looking for growth during one semester.

Findings from the post-tests showed that the one semester course in Multiculturalism in education increased the pre-service teachers’ knowledge about multiculturalism.  Also, pre-service teachers reported feeling more confident about working with diverse learners, except for children from same gender parents.  There was low to no correlation between multicultural knowledge and attitudes.  There were also no correlations between attitudes and preparedness to teach children from diverse backgrounds. The growth in knowledgebase did not have a direct effect on the pre-service teachers’ attitudes or beliefs about multiculturalism.

The author concluded from the research that a knowledgebase in multiculturalism is not enough to strongly influence teachers’ attitudes or change their practices. Wasonga refers to other studies that encourage strategies like personal experiences, sustained interaction with diverse students and extensive study of issues about diversity as means of impacting pre-service teachers’ attitudes and beliefs. (Gay,2002;King,1991;Schoorman,2002;Watts,1984.)

The article ends with suggestions for future teacher education programs. More integrated methods of teaching multiculturalism  should be included for pre-service teachers.  Wasonga also suggests authentic, direct, and significant interactions with diverse students.

I chose this article because I was curious about how effective learning about multicultural education would be in changing teacher’s attitudes about diverse students.  Based on the results of the study knowledge is not everything.  If I conducted a similar study among teachers at my school, I am curious about how daily interaction with diverse students, while learning about multiculturalism would shape their attitudes and practices.

The research methods were straight forward, clear, and detailed enough to duplicate.  I question the use of such a segregated population of all white young female students.  The group was so homogenous, that I also question if the research results could be applied to all pre-service teachers.  The population of my school is mostly white females with about ten percent of the teachers being male. There are no minority teachers or administrations. Some support staff members are minorities. The biggest diversity among teachers is in age and life and teaching experience among the teachers. Still, I was shocked that among the three graduating classes of pre-service teachers in this study all participants were all white, female, and around twenty-three years old. Would the findings have been different if the pre-service teachers group included a wider range of ages and was mixed with males?  How would the results from minority pre-service teachers vary from the all white group?

With widening gaps in achievement between minority and white students schools are scrambling to meet the needs of struggling students.  How can we create equity in our academic settings for all students? “To meet this challenge, teachers must employ not only theoretically sound but also culturally responsive pedagogy. Teachers must create a classroom culture where all students, regardless of their cultural and linguistic background, are welcomed and supported and provided with the best opportunity to learn.” (Richards, Brown, Forde, 2007).Pre-service teachers need to be exposed to multicultural education in more than just one course. Pre-service teachers need to not only read about, but experience firsthand through visiting, volunteering, and meaningful interactions with members from the communities where their future students live.  Experiences will help pre-service teachers confront fears, misconceptions, and prejudices they may hold.  The demographics of teachers and students should not be so disparate. Teacher Colleges should be filled with a heterogeneous grouping of pre-service teachers from diverse backgrounds.

References

Gay, G. (2002). Preparing For Culturally Responsive Teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 53(2), 106-116.

 

Jones, R. L. (1984). Attitudes and attitude change in special education: theory and practice. Reston, Va.: Council for Exceptional Children.

 

King, J. E. (1991). Dysconscious Racism: Ideology, Identity, and the Miseducation of Teachers. The Journal of Negro Education, 60(2), 133.

 

Richards, H. V., Brown, A. F., & Forde, T. B. (2007).

Addressing diversity in schools: culturally responsive      pedagogy. Teaching Exceptional Children, 39(3), 64-68.

 

Schoorman, D. (2002). Increasing Critical Multicultural Understanding Via Technology: “Teachable Moments” in a University-School Partnership Project. Journal of Teacher Education, 53(4), 356-369.

 

Watts, W.A. (1984), “Attitude change: theories and methods”, in Jones, R.L(Ed.) Attitudes and attitude change in special education: theory and practice. Reston, Va.: Council for Exceptional Children. Pp. 41-69.

 

 

 

 

Putting the cart ahead of the horse.

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Zembylas, M. (2008). Adult learners’ emotions in online learning. Distance Education, 29(1), 71-87.

Putting the cart ahead of the horse.

As I continue down the path of gaining better insight into what research is out there around professional development, I’m also pursuing what research is out there in regards to adult online learning. This particular branch of my area of inquiry is quite interesting because it takes me all over the world. Adult online education has been a huge thing in European countries for decades now and much research has been done abroad. It is these particular articles that I find interesting because the focus and topic may be similar but often it is the lens that is different and, at times, quite revealing.

The journal that I most recently read centers around a qualitative study out of the Open University of Cyprus in Nicosia, Cyprus. This particular study followed the emotional ups and downs of twenty-two graduate students enrolled in a year-long, distance education course on the topic of multicultural education and social justice pedagogies. The majority of the participants were women and averaged an age of 36 years old. The researcher, Michalinos Zembylas, was the professor for the course and he gathers data around the emotions of the online students through a monthly journal, two in-person interviews at the start and end of the course, 867 email messages between him and the students, his reflective journal, field notes from the face-to-face meetings, phone conversations, student work documents, and his own planning.

His findings include: new online students experience both positive and negative emotions in relation to their new roles and the new setting in which they’re learning in, those emotions change over the course of the year, and men and women experience the outside pressures of being a student differently.

In general, I found there to many strengths to this journal article. The organization and overall coherence of this article to be good. It was very clear and understandable and particularly easy to read. I do think that his participation in the study might have made him write in a certain point of view that was then easier to read. I believe that elements of this work appear to be original to an extend and do offer something new to the field. Since the students were self-reporting their own emotions and causes for those emotions throughout the year-long course does seem to make this unique. I do think the socio-historical aspect of the setting in which the study took place also provides a uniqueness to the text that I’ll speak more about later. I found the literature review to be thorough and it really, naturally built up to the need and space for this particular study. The theoretical framework that was chosen, critical and postructuralist thinking, seems to make sense for the setting. This framework outlines placing and identifying emotion in a space between the public and the individual. Hence, the students self-reporting would occupy that same location. One last strength of the article, was the many direct quotes that were captured from student documents that really highlight and humanize the findings. The unique struggle that Zembylas’ findings found was the difference in emotional reporting and reasons between men and women. I will come back to this particular point later as I personally connected with it.

As interesting and easy as it was to read Zembylas’ work, I did find a variety of elements disconcerting in the research and make me want to offer them up as ways for improvement. Since this research centers around utilizing only qualitative data, it would seem wise to have incorporated some elements of quantitative research and even utilized another reviewer to ensure more reliability across the coding and results. I found the fact that he was their professor to be highly problematic to this whole design model. In the article, Zembylas mentions talking about the research the first night and inquiring how students felt about the study and his position of power. Having not hearing any negative responses, he offers them 10% of their grade if they’d participate. I know the rules about if you can’t and can “pay” someone to participate but this method seems to be completely against the established code of conduct. If the journal assignments were somehow aligned to the topic of the course, then maybe. One other similar concern was that the author never listed or illuminated what the specific interview questions were that he utilized in this study. In the author’s findings, he mentions that the student emotions changed over the year. First of all, I’m sure I, if I thought about it for a little while, could have written these findings just off of the top of my head. These “findings” didn’t appear to be so revealing or revolutionary. In fact, the “findings” were a let down to the development of the literature review and the scope of the study. And upon even deeper reflection, I don’t know how he made the “leap” from his findings to his very strong conclusions and implications. One conclusion he establishes is that the the emotions of the students changed over the course of the year. Again, that is so vague and obvious, that I could’ve written that sentence years ago without any data. What would’ve been revealing is an even deeper dive into the data and a more linear projection that truly demonstrated how their students’ emotions did change over time. There seems to be a chasm of disconnect between the findings and conclusions. I was also surprised to see citations from other articles in the Conclusions section. It would seem like these concepts and citations should be up in the literature review helping to build the case of why this study is important.

This article struck a personal chord because of the slightly tangential point it made about working women as professionals and students expressed more negatives around the many roles and responsibilities they have to upkeep along with their studies. I also over the past year and a half have had to face this same battle but I do think it speaks to something Zembylas mentioned. These women have gone back to college at a graduate level and are being forced to take on the evolution of equal opportunity and/or gender equality while still maintaining old family traditional values. I daily face this balance and have wanted to engage further in research around the concepts and tension between the expansion of gender equality or more access for women to ladder climbing experiences with the lack of equal fluidity in gender responsibilities shared in the family unit.

Lastly, I do think this study has opened up a new consideration for in my field of influence. The incorporation or explicit focus on user emotion in professional development that occurs online. Applying interventions that provides the students with innovative strategy of how to engage the importance of user emotion in a learning experience as well as its correspondence to particular events in the online platform.

In general, this article seemed to make quite a few leaps from their findings to their conclusions. So much so, that I almost thought that they had written a bunch of other articles where this data was further unpacked and graphics were utilized to support the statements made and helped the user track the same trends that then logically lead to an appropriate conclusion.

I will use the positives and improvements to make sure I don’t put the cart of my conclusions before the horse of my findings.

“Damned to be concrete”: Considering productive uncertainty in data visualization

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Marx, V. (2013). “Data visualization: Ambiguity as a fellow traveler.” Nature Methods, 10(7), 613-615.

In their musings on the importance of uncertainty with regards to social networks and educational attainment, Jordan and McDaniel (In Press) bring to the forefront an interesting concept of “productive uncertainty” (pp.5).  This idea allows that while uncertainty is not always pleasant—and while learners will often seek to minimize it—the experience is not without value.  Marx (2013), while discussing the complexities and shortcomings common among data visualizations, expands upon this concept; uncertainty, particularly within a statistical realm, can illuminate new characteristics of the data or new methodologies that address shortcomings in collection or analysis.  However, data visualizations themselves can obscure or outright hide this level of detail.  So how do we visualize data in a way that is both simple and transparent?

“[With visuals], we are damned to be concrete” (Marx, 2013, pp. 613).

Marx (2013), using examples from genomic and biomedical research, poses an interesting question: In discussing scientific results, researchers often feel compelled to gloss over, if not exactly obscure, uncertainty in their data.  These questions can arise from inconsistent collection, imperfect aggregation, or even unexpected results.  However, these “unloved fellow travelers of science” (pp. 613) cannot exist visually in the type of “grey area” analysis that Marx contends they often do while in text.  When faced with creating an honest visualization, then, researchers must decide to what extent they will account for study uncertainty.  Marx, in explaining the potential impacts of this decision, advocates that researchers strongly consider two points: First, that uncertainty may have implication upon the data itself; and second, that a transparent consideration of uncertainty strongly impacts “what comes next.”

Thus, Marx (2013) is explicitly pushing productivity over negativity when reflecting upon uncertainty in data or the wider study; however, she is also acknowledging that even within the specific context of biomedical researchers, the pull to minimize uncertainty when broadly discussing results exists.

Down the rabbit hole: Analysis can create uncertainty too

One should also consider the process—largely mathematical, in this context—of moving from a raw dataset to a clean visualization.  Common steps for creating data visualizations, particularly in genomics and the biomedical sciences, often include aggregating data from different sources (and thus methods of collection) or summarizing large and complex markers into something more easily digestible.  By attempting to standardize disparate collection methods into something more uniform, or by summarizing disparate study groups or grouped variables, an important level of detail is lost.  These processes themselves can obscure data, which in turn obscures uncertainty for the end audience, whose exposure to this study may wholly lie in the visualization.  Going somewhat down the rabbit hole, this in itself can therefore create new uncertainty.

Certainly, simplicity is important in a data visualization; however, as Marx argues, researchers also have an obligation to consider that by glossing over details of uncertainty, or by creating new sources of uncertainty through their analyses, the wider community may understand their work less, or may make assumptions of their findings that are unfounded.

In particular, missing data presents a complex dilemma.  Marx (2013) gives the example of a genomic sequencing experiment, seeking to map a stretch of genetic material that contains 60 million bases:

“The scientists obtain results and a statistical distribution of sequencing coverage across the genome.  Some stretches might be sequenced 100-fold, whereas other stretches have lower sequencing depths or no coverage at all…But after an alignment, scientists might find that they have aligned only 50 million of the sought-after 60 million bases…This ambiguity in large data sets due to missing data—in this example, 10 million bases—is a big challenge” (pp. 614).

As opposed to data that is statistically uncertain, or uncertain by virtue of its collection methods, missing data is a true negative whose effect is difficult to truthfully express and explain.

So how do we show uncertainty visually?

Marx suggests several methods for including uncertainty visually when discussing data.  Broadly, she suggests including some representation of uncertainty within a visualization; this can be layered on top of the data visualized—for example, using color coding or varying levels of transparency to indicate more and less certain data.  A visualization can also account for uncertainty separate from the data, by using an additional symbol to denote certainty or the reverse, for example.  She also discusses contrasting analyses of similar (or the same) data that have reached differing conclusions; taking into account their methods of analysis, this inclusion of multiple viewpoints can also round a discussion of uncertainty.

In addition to understanding how to represent uncertainty visually, however, one should also consider how and when (during a study or study analysis) one should tabulate uncertainty.  One platform looking to incorporate uncertainty holistically into data visualization is Refinery.  In particular, Marx notes that this system seeks to find “ways to highlight for scientists what might be missing in their data and their analysis steps” (pp. 614), both addressing uncertainty situated in data and analysis.  As shown below, this system considers uncertainty at all steps throughout the data analysis, rather than only at the end, giving a more rounded picture of how uncertainty has influenced the study at all levels.

“The team developing the visualization platform Refinery (top row) is testing how to let users track uncertainty levels (orange) that arise in each data analysis step” (Marx, 2013, pp. 615).

In the graphic, the blue boxes represent data at different stages during analysis.  Orange, in the top row, represents the types of uncertainty that may arise during each analytical step, concluding that the orange error bars in the bar graph to the far right are much more comprehensive in their calculation.  The light blue bar in the bottom row shows the disparity, theoretically, when error is only taken into account at the end of an analysis.  While the magnitude of uncertainty may not be as significantly different as shown in the graphic, researchers are better able to account for what causes or has caused error in the top row; they are better able to situate their uncertainty.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but do they have to tell one story?

Analyzing data is often a narrative process; however, as Marx (2013) alludes, there can be consequences to how one tells their story.  Washing over uncertainty, in both preparing and discussing results, can be misleading, limiting both a researcher’s true understanding of their own data, and collaborations or theories that use the data as a foundation for further study.  Marx, however, is not disparaging researchers who fail to consider uncertainty as dishonest; she is promoting the idea that considering uncertainty positive—or productive—can lead research in novel directions.

Sources

Jordan, M.E. & McDaniel, R.R. (In Press). “Managing uncertainty during collaborative problem solving in elementary school teams: The role of peer influences in robotics engineering activity.” The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 1-49.

Is Culture the New Dumping Ground?

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Ladson-Billings, G. (2006). It’s not the culture of poverty, it’s the poverty of culture: The problem with  teacher education. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 37(2), 104-109. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3805060

Howard, T. C. (2010). Why race and culture matter in schools: Closing the achievemen gap in America’s classrooms. New York, N.Y: Teachers College Press

Losen, Daniel J (2011). Discipline policies, successful schools, and racial justice. Boulder, Col: National   Education Policy Center.

The journal article, It’s not the Culture of Poverty, It’s the Poverty of Culture: The Problem with Teacher Education by Ladson-Billings (2006) asserts that anthropology should be a part of the teacher preparation program. The author describes how pre-service teachers take courses on philosophy, sociology, history and psychology but anthropology is typically absent from teacher programs. Ladson-Billings (2006) argues, “The problem of culture in teaching is not merely one of exclusion. It is also one of overdetermination.” (p.104) She describes overdetermination as “culture is randomly and regularly used to explain everything.” In her research the author describes how she collected data on pre-service and new to the profession teachers on their understanding of culture.

Data collection was not a strength of this article. Although, I was entirely engaged in the data the author collected through interviews, electronic portfolios and student journals the explanation of the data analysis was not detailed enough to duplicate. Ladson-Billings (2006) reflects on “critical incidents” captured through the data collected. She conducted the interviews at the end of the pre-service teachers’ field experience. She asked the pre-service teachers to tell her about a child that was difficult to handle in class. I was saddened to learn that most pre-service teachers described the difficult student as one that was not like them in race, gender or ethnicity. The majority of teachers chose African American boys as the student that was most difficult to handle in their interview responses. This reminded me of Losen’s (2011) work on Discipline Policies, Successful Schools and Racial Justice, where he refers to a speech by Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, who suggests, “students with disabilities and Black students, especially males were suspended far more often than their white counterparts.” (p. 3)

One incident that the author reflects on is a conversation she had with one of the pre-service teachers. She describes how the pre-service teacher said, “The black kids just talk so loud and don’t listen.” Ladson-Billings asked the pre-service teacher why they thought that and the teacher responded, “I don’t know; I guess it’s cultural.” (Ladson-Billings, 2006, p. 106) As I read this, I flashed back to conversations I have overheard at schools when teachers are talking about the reasons why students are not successful, why parents are not involved or why students are not making good choices and the answer I often hear is culture. Ladson-Billings asserts that “culture has become the answer to every problem.” (2006, p. 106)

Through the data collection, the researcher invited pre-service teachers to consider their own culture. The majority of her pre-service teachers are white, middle-class, monolingual Mid-Westerners. I was astonished by their responses detailed  in the article. “They describe themselves as having ‘no culture’ or being ‘just regular’ or just normal.” (Ladson-Billings, 2006, p.107) I believe in order for teachers to understand and value their students’ culture, they have to know, understand and value their own culture.  I connected their responses to what Howard (2010)  refers to as the demographic divide where the majority of the teachers she interviewed are white and the majority of the student population are African American.  Howard (2010) explains how “cross-racial teaching and learning arrangements have the potential for varying degrees of misunderstandings between students and teachers, especially where teachers lack the training and competence necessary to effectively teach students from diverse groups.” (p .43)

Organization is a strength in the article It’s not the Culture of Poverty, It’s the Poverty of Culture: The Problem with Teacher Education. Ladson-Billings is masterful in weaving in and out of data analysis and conclusions. Although this article was not organized with typical headings found in empirical research, it was written in a way that was easy to navigate. The author was also succinct in the development of her argument. I was drawn in by the examples, stories and clarity of her writing.

Another strength of this article is the conclusions the author draws. Ladson-Billings draws three major conclusions throughout the article. One of the conclusions that Ladson-Billings draws is that pre-service teachers need to interact with students outside of the school setting. She reminds us of the importance of celebrating students’ success outside of academics. The author argues that this will support pre-service teachers in becoming “careful observers of cultures” for their students and themselves. (Ladson-Billings, 2006, p. 109) Another conclusion she draws is that the pre-service teachers need to experience schooling in other parts of the world. The last conclusion she draws is that pre-service teachers need to see identify their own culture and own it.

I believe researching pre-service teachers and new to the profession teachers’ understanding of culture is a meaningful contribution to the field of education. I think it is important for teachers to understand their own culture and the students that they interact with. I also believe the author raises an issue that I have seen and heard on many school campuses and that is blaming student failure on culture.  Culture should not be “the answer” or the dumping ground for failures that happen within the educational system.

“I think I can, I think I can, I….”

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Sriram, R. (2014). Rethinking Intelligence: The role of mindset in promoting success for academically high-risk students. Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory, and Practice, 15(4), 515–536.

Consider your responses to the following three statements:  “a) you have a certain amount of intelligence and you really can’t do much to change it; b) your intelligence is something about you that you can’t change very much; and c) you can learn new things, but you can’t really change your basic intelligence (Dweck et al in Sriram, 2014).”  Not exactly, “I think I can…;” rather I think I can’t.”  Those statements are used to measure something called mindset, a construct studied (primarily in children) to determine their view on intelligence and consequently their ability to learn and be successful.  This article is one of the few that looks at mindset in college students.

Being convinced myself that what a person believes to be true is likely to become their reality, I was immediately drawn to Carol Dweck’s mindset research about how one thinks about their own intelligence (Yeager and Dweck, 2012).  People who think intelligence is malleable are said to have a growth mindset; they also tend to be more goal-oriented.  People who think intelligence is unchangeable are said to have a fixed mindset and are less motivated to put forth effort.  Sriram does a thorough and convincing job of providing support for the development of growth mindset in high-risk college students.   A growth mindset is important because, “besides prior academic achievement, the motivation and energy students apply to their education is the best predictor of their learning and development” (Sriram, 2014).

This article is readable, contributes to the literature, and suggests topics for further research and policy.  The author is methodical and thorough in his approach providing context and rationale for his study.  He works at Baylor University.  His study was of Baylor students who were considered academically high-risk for that institution.  Students were randomly assigned to either a control or experimental group.  Both groups participated in four short (15-minute) web based sessions over the course of four weeks as part of a remedial course they were taking.  The control group was instructed in study skills; the experimental group was exposed to the idea that intelligence can be developed.  Based on a comparison of pre- and post-tests (consisting of the three questions at the start of this blog) the experimental group’s view of their intelligence shifted to a more growth mindset.  They also reported exerting more academic effort.   Given the positive results, happily there were more students in the experimental group (n=60) compared to the control (45 students).

Sriram is not stingy on providing methodological and contextual details. He acknowledges that colleges and universities are spending a lot of money on programs to help students succeed.  With the influx of students to higher education, there are greater numbers of students who show up under-prepared.  Baylor, like most colleges and universities, wants to retain their students and help them to graduate.  Again like so many schools, they have created remedial support.  However, a significant amount of research indicates that remedial coursework does not increase students’ rate of graduation so Sriram set out to find something that might supplement remedial programming.  The few studies on college students’ mindset suggested that a growth mindset might increase motivation and effort.

The reader is meticulously guided through the author’s data collection.  He clearly defines terms and uses the same terms often enough to help the reader make connections.  The analysis is detailed.  He addresses internal and external validity and treatment fidelity.  He examines the pre/post test differences.  He tells the kind of analysis he is doing – ANOVA and MANOVA looking at multivariates and univariate and degrees of freedom and conditional effects.  I was, however, left with curiosity about the details of each of the 15 minute on-line intervention sessions.  The author detailed seven distinct parts of the experimental sessions including a quote, a video, reflection questions, and information about the brain and said that the control groups experienced similar activities.  An appendix with the details of each session including quote and url’s to videos would allow for others to duplicate the intervention.  Perhaps he is saving that level of detail, though, until his results also show higher achievement.  Despite the fact that students in the experimental group displayed more of a growth mindset based on post-test results and greater study efforts than the control group, they did not show higher academic achievement based on end of semester gpa.

The author has possible explanations for that and other surprising results.  He suggests that the brevity of his intervention may be to blame for the lack of increased academic achievement and suggests that future studies look at increasing that.  A surprise was that, on closer examination of the conditional effects, students of color and men did not show increased effort; that was limited to females and students of European descent.

This article reads like a story – a story with new and more complex details that reveal themselves at each reading.  After reading (and re-reading) this article, I am considering adding an intervention to enhance students’ growth mindset to workshops I am constructing on motivation with a colleague for our institution’s new early alert program this fall.  The program will focus on students in developmental classes.  Attendance at the four workshops is optional and we were not anticipating that students would necessarily attend all four.

Considering how to make this research humanizing seems to me it must include dialogue.  In this study the intervention is solely web-based, there is no interaction with other students or instructors.  Getting feedback from the students on their attempts to enhance a growth mindset – and before that being transparent with them about the questions the researcher is attempting to answer – would humanize the research.

If students – especially those who come to college under-prepared – could think about intelligence as dynamic rather than static, that could improve self-confidence resulting in increased motivation to engage in more strategic academic behaviors.  Then the mantra, “I think I can…” will take hold propelling the student to greater effort and, hopefully, college success.

Yeager, D. S., & Dweck, C. S. (2012). Mindsets That Promote Resilience: When Students Believe That Personal Characteristics Can Be Developed. Educational Psychologist, 47(4), 302–314. doi:10.1080/00461520.2012.722805

Sriram, R. (2014). Rethinking Intelligence: The role of mindset in promoting success for academically high-risk students. Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory, and Practice, 15(4), 515–536.

College Persistence…Mentoring Matters

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Bordes-Edgar, V., Arredondo, P., Kurpius, S.R., & Rund, J. (2011). A Longitudinal Analysis of Latina/o Students’ Academic Persistence. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 10(4), 358-368.

Summary:

It has previously been shown that there is positive correlation between student success and participation in mentoring programs in higher education (Salas, Aragon, Alandejani, & Timpson, 2014; Bordes and Arredondo, 2005). In the article “A Longitudinal Analysis of Latina/o Students’ Academic Persistence” authors Bordes-Edgar, Arredondo, Kurpius, & Rund (2011), use data from a longitudinal study to determine what factors might impact student persistence in higher education, and then re-examine the actual impact of those same factors 4.5 years later. The factors examined included decision making, self-efficacy, mentoring, value of education, family valuing of education, perceived social support (family and friends), and academic factors (including entrance exam scores, high school GPA, and college GPA).

Participants:

Participants in the survey were Latina/o students from a southwestern university. In the original study, there were 112 1st-semester, freshman students. Of those 112 students, 76 students (20 men and 56 women) agreed to be part a follow-up study. Of the 76 students who were part of the follow-up, twenty-one (6 men and 15 women) were still enrolled, 25 (4 men and 21 women) had graduated, 25 (8 men and 17 women) had dropped out, and 5 were withdrawn for academic reasons. It should be noted that those who were withdrawn for academic reason, were not included in the final sample.

Testing:

After receiving consent from each of the participants, researchers accessed student data on all participants involved in the study. Based on admission data gathered, participants were grouped into one of four separate categories. The categories were “graduated, enrolled, dropped-out, and academically withdrawn” (p.361).

The original survey included demographic information and self-report measures. In both the original survey, as well as the follow-up survey, there were several instruments (scales) used to measure correlation of various factors to student success, including, student decision making, self-efficacy, mentoring, value of education, family valuing of education, perceived social support (family and friends), and academic factors (including entrance exam scores, high school GPA, and college GPA). Correlation was determined using Cronbach’s alpha test.

Results:

Results of the study indicate that students who persisted from the initial survey to the second part of the survey (4.5 years later), received more mentoring, made more positive persistence decisions during the initial phase of the survey (i.e., valued education, had positive self-belief in their own ability, received positive social support), and had a higher high school GPA.

Social support from friends was initially a strong predictor of persistence with the freshman. As it turned out, the importance of social support from friends was shown to diminish over time, and students had to rely on other forms of social support (i.e., mentoring), to be successful.

It was noted in the article that students who are isolated from friends, are more likely to drop out of college. The strongest correlation for social support as it relates to student success and persistence, came from mentoring, in which students who graduated perceived that mentoring was a critical reason for their success.

It should be noted that the authors examined the racial/ethnic background of the mentors to see whether having a Latina/o mentor made a difference in persistence. Results of the study indicate that there were no differences found.

Limitations / Recommendations:

As it pertains to my own action research, the most notable limitation in this study, is that it focused on Latina/o students. For my own research, I wish to expand to include first-generation, low-income and students with disabilities. Other limitations include a small sample size, and that most participants were of Mexican origin, so generalizability to other Latina/o groups may be limited. In addition, there were significantly more women than men in the study. I am not sure whether this would have a direct effect of the outcome, but is worth noting and examining in future action research.

Application to my own Action Research / Discussion:

The most telling result of the study, is that the initial connection that we have with students is the most important in helping students to be successful. The initial self-beliefs of students is a strong indicator of future success. Therefore, mentors that are very intentional in how they establish that relationship with students during their freshman year will be critical to the students future success. For example, having the mentors develop and build student self-efficacy.

As it relates to social support, we might assume that social support from friends will increase the likelihood of student success. Results actually show that the importance of friend support diminishes over time. Establishing that social relationship with a mentor during the initial phase of a student’s college career will be important.

It was noted in the article that development of partnerships between high schools and colleges were critical, as student success in high school is a strong predictor of their success in college. As it pertains to mentoring, high school staff could work with college staff in making arrangements to mentoring assignments to happen prior to students start in college. As noted in the article “If students have a mentor at the beginning of their college career, they are more likely to succeed” (p.365). In looking at future action research, explore how ASU might partner with high schools to better prepare students to transition, help those working with high school students understand the importance of having a strong GPA in high school (as a predictor of college success), and establishing mentoring relationship early in their admission to the university.

It has been shown that mentoring has a positive impact on whether college students are successful. At Arizona State University, I have seen the impact that mentoring has had on student success. While the survey focused on Latina/o students, I believe the mentoring component could be applied to any at-risk student group. The student groups that I wish do my own action research include first-generation, low-income and students with disabilities.

References

Bordes-Edgar, V., Arredondo, P., Kurpius, S.R., & Rund, J. (2011). A Longitudinal Analysis of Latina/o Students’ Academic Persistence. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 10(4), 358-368.

Bordes, V., & Arredondo, P. (2005). Mentoring and 1st-year Latina/o college students. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 4, 114-133.

To Compete or Collaborate – Status in group

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Spataro, S. E., Pettit, N. C., Sauer, S. J., & Lount, R. B. (2014). Interactions Among Same-Status Peers: Effects of Behavioral Style and Status Level. Small Group Research, 45(3), 314–336. doi:10.1177/1046496414532532

 

Summary:

Looking at group development and collaboration it is important understand how titles, status, and implied hierarchy of organizations have an effect on the desired outcomes set forth by the group.  Spataro, Pettit, Sauer, & Lount (2014) set out to determine what the effects are on group dynamics and willingness to collaborate in and within status groups.

Through the research Spataro et al., took a group of 61 university students, had them complete a general knowledge quiz, and a NASA survival quiz.  Once finished, participants were given a status of “high”, “middle”, or “low”.  These status’ were not based on any results of their test, but rather as an imposed control to make sure that at least one member of each status was represented in a small group.  They were then given “feedback” on their quizzes from other members; the feedback was manipulated so that it was either seen as competitive, or collaborative in nature, and from what “status”.  For this test the competitive feedback was more direct and accusatory of why answers were chosen, and the collaborative was more exploratory and asking how answers were chosen and that a discussion of rationale would be sought after.

After the feedback was given, participants were asked to how likely they would be to work with each member based on the feedback given. The researchers found that there was a higher level of willingness to work together in a collaborative manor among the “high” status members.  The “low” and “middle” status members were willing to work in a collaborative manor at higher rates than competitive.  However, those in “low” status were just as likely to work in a competitive group.

Overall, Spataro et al., state that the perceptions of status and the implied hierarchy that comes with titles have an effect on members willingness to collaborate over compete, as the lower statuses have a desire to stand out as an individual to gain higher status.  Where as those in a higher status find greater benefits from learning from others and sharing with those in similar titles.  They did state that the lower and middle status will work with higher status in collaborative levels.

Personal Application:

Looking at the results and background of this study, I see this play out in my own work.  Competition being set forth by the structure of title and rank, as it relates to advancement of position, rather than knowledge base and skills brought forward.  When thinking about areas of intervention I would like to implement, I have to wonder if having a group representing multiple departments, with individuals of varying “status” at the same table, will there be a natural divide in the group when goals and initiatives are set forth to accomplish.

Even though we should all be working on the same goal of student retention, regardless of college affiliation, as that is the common charge of departments.  I still have concerns that there may be some that the connection to individual departmental goals will supersede the desire to work as a collective. Furthermore I am worried that status of individuals in the group will overshadow or deter some from working in a collaborative group effort to assist all students.

Limitations in my practice:

I see the limitations coming out in who will be the participants, and I also have to consider that this study was done with a group of relative strangers.  The group that I will be working with has preexisting working relationships in other areas, or have personal relationships outside of their titled positions.

As stated in the report, this does not take into consideration “control over resources” (Spataro et al., 2014,  p. 328), as I know some of the more established colleges have more financial, and personnel resources.  I need to get an understanding of what personal characteristics someone might be looking for in those one collaborates with.

Final thoughts:

I found this article helpful in framing out a reason as to why or why not groups working together are successful or not, more so if they are as successful as they could be due to individuals perception of status in the group, where they stand, and what can be obtained from standing out or working together.   If through working with groups I can identify if someone is being more competitive and intentional holding back, or stunting somebody else’s opportunity to contribute perhaps I can get help that individual see the benefits of a more collaborative approach, as in what can be learned from the group and the ease at which outcomes can be achieved.

References

Spataro, S. E., Pettit, N. C., Sauer, S. J., & Lount, R. B. (2014). Interactions Among Same-Status Peers: Effects of Behavioral Style and Status Level. Small Group Research, 45(3), 314–336. doi:10.1177/1046496414532532

Authentically Motivating Students

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Willems, P. P., & Gonzalez-DeHass, A. R. (n.d.). School – Community Partnerships : Using Authentic Contexts to Academically Motivate Students, 22(2), 9–30.

School-Community Partnerships: Using Authentic Contexts to Academically Motivate Students by Patrica Willems and Alyssa Gonzalez-DeHass discusses ways which the school and community can work together to form a partnership where students can learn by engaging in relevant learning activities.  They ideas are supported with research from three different models; authentic instruction, problem-based learning and service learning, that provide students with an environment with real, interactive life examples for learning and allows them the opportunity to participate in the learning made possible by community partnerships.

The research is very well organized and is separated by headings and subheadings. The writing and lay out is plain and easy enough to follow that it could function as a How To book on building school-community partnerships.

 

The content of study by Willems and Gonzalez-DeHass is a windfall of information that contributes to the field of research that I am interested.  This is exactly the type of research I imagined prior to starting classes. As it relates to what was discussed in class, this is the narrowing of resources in the midst of the breadth of material we’ve covered so far.  There are several factors I have yet to explore. For example, “which methodologies have the best chance of addressing teachers’ needs to meet significant curricular objectives amidst pressure for accountability and time demands associated with statewide standardized testing?”(Willems and Gonzalez-DeHass, 2012, p.25) There is also “limited time to meet, identify, and contact community members” (Hands, 2005, p.71) not to mention the   There is still more to uncover and that will require an even more narrow focus but this is an excellent start on my journey to gathering resources and gaining perspective.

 

The theoretical framework, “student academic success is best achieved through the cooperation and support of schools, families, and communities” (Willems and Gonzalez-DeHass, 2012, p.9) aligns perfectly with my topic of inquiry.  I want to bring the school where I work and its local community together for the benefit of student motivation.  I’d like for the community to witness results like the Problem Based Learners who had “higher levels of intrinsic goal orientation, task value, use of elaborative learning strategies, critical thinking, and metacognitive self-regulation in comparison to students instructed in a more traditional teacher/textbook-centered fashion” (Willems and Gonzalez-DeHass, 2012, p.21). I believe this research is timely, which will carry  weight in attempting to create change.  Its relevance is demonstrated by the service learning model, which is “increasing in popularity, with some estimates showing that approximately 30% of all public schools and 50% of high schools include service learning as part of their curriculum.” (Willems and Gonzalez-DeHass, 2012, p.23)

 

The study by Willems and Gonzalez-DeHass did not discuss their own collection of data.  Instead, they were informed by a collection of research from a variety of sources. To begin, the discussion connected and fit together references to “the literature that address the social contexts of learning, including that of situated learning, social constructivism, and learner-centered education.” (Willems and Gonzalez-DeHass, 2012, p.10)  Next, Willems and Gonzalez-DeHass provided a section titled, “Suggestions for School-Community Partnerships” (Willems and Gonzalez-DeHass, 2012, p.13) which revealed some of the pitfalls and necessities of establishing partnerships.  Finally, three different models; “authentic instruction, problem-based learning and service learning” (Willems and Gonzalez-DeHass, 2012, p.9) were discussed which actually inspired me to make notes and begin planning some details for my own innovation that I may otherwise have over looked.  I have a model now of how I will communicate my intentions to the stakeholders which will be invaluable for coordinating their efforts.

 

Some of the examples that are compelling are the ones that teach students through doing instead of observing through the words in a textbook.  The advantage is that students have the school to support their access to areas of the community that would otherwise be unavailable. As students in the youth participatory action research “by learning what resources and opportunities other schools offered, the school visits gave them a context to understand their own schooling experience” (Bautista, Bertrand, Morrell, Scorza, & Matthews, 2013, p.9), it will be my goal to provide similar experiences at my workplace for similar results. In view of equitable education there is no text books required.  Students will have real world tools at their disposal. Lastly, the impact a program like this will have on the students is beyond measure. There is a benefit in every aspect of the program. First, students will be more intrinsically motivated from their experience and exposure to achievable possibilities. And “By including students in identifying genuine needs in the community, they are more likely to see their involvement as making a significant difference even as they further their own academic learning” (Willems and Gonzalez-DeHass, 2012, p.24).   Second, students will get to experience a variety of opportunities to help them to define their interests. More importantly, “infusing these opportunities for contextualized learning into academic activities will help students begin to see the meaningfulness of academic subject matter and its relevance beyond the classroom setting.”(Willems and Gonzalez-DeHass, 2012, p.25)

 

The study by Willems and Gonzalez-DeHass did not conclude with any result to reflect on.  They make a very reasonable case to move towards building partnerships. The final comments are proposals for future work that will need to be done “that will require ongoing discussion and reflection in the educational community.”(Willems and Gonzalez-DeHass, 2012, p.25)  Some new ideas that I will have to consider will be how to present this innovation to the district office level.  While brainstorming ideas I suspect that their primary concern will be the expenses involved, and what the implications are on testing and student achievement.

 

References:

 

Bautista, M.A., Bertrand, M., Morrell, E., Scorza, D., & Matthews, C. (2013). Participatory action research and city youth: Methodological insights from the council of youth research UCLA, 115(100303), 1–23.

Hands, C. (n.d.). It ’ s Who You Know and What You Know :  e Process of Creating Partnerships Between Schools and Communities, 63–84.

A Brain for Business

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Rock, D., & Sctiwartz, J. (2007). The Neuroscience of Leadership, 10–17.

Summary

Concentrating on three main parts of the brain:  the prefrontal cortex, the basal ganglia, and the amygdala, Rock and Schwartz (2007) explain some of the functioning of the brain and implications for leaders of change.  The prefrontal cortex is where working memory resides and where new information is processed.  The basal ganglia is used in routine activities that we know how to do well without a lot of conscious thought and links simple behaviors from different parts of the brain.  If someone wants to change a routine or process that is already well-known, he has to concentrate on that change until it is embedded in his memory.  This means he has to override what is stored in his basal ganglia, a low-energy part of the brain, by using his prefrontal cortex, a high-energy part of the brain.  This expenditure of energy and effort causes an actual physical sensation of discomfort.

The brain also has the ability to detect “errors” or patterns that are different from what is expected.  The unexpected input causes the brain to give “strong signals that use a lot of energy, showing up in imaging technology as dramatic bursts of light” (Rock & Schwartz, 2007, p. 12).  These bursts of energy alert the amygdala, which is where the primal emotions of fear and anger are located.  They also take energy away from the prefrontal cortex.  So, when something is different from what we expect, we reduce the energy used for logical thought and increase the energy used for fear or anger.

The implications are that change is truly physically painful as high-energy areas of the brain are at work. Change arouses the basic feelings of anger and fear, which can inhibit learning. Focusing on new behaviors is powerful and can actually change the pathways in the brain, especially if the focus is repeated until the change has moved from the prefrontal cortex (working memory) to the basal ganglia (long-term, automatic memory).

Strengths and critiques

This is a well-organized article that takes a dense subject and makes it understandable.  With the projected audience of business leaders, the authors probably assumed that the readers do not know much, if anything, about brain functioning and research.  The practical, clear advice delineated in each section is supported with brief technical explanations of the workings of the brain.  Everyday examples help exemplify the technical points.

This is a unique contribution to the field of business management because few authors combine the fields of management and neuroscience.  The authors,

Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz, M.D. and Dr. David Rock, are unique because they come from different fields, yet their collaboration is essential for applying the findings of brain research to other fields.  Dr. Schwartz is a psychiatrist who has done research on brain functioning, concentrating mostly on brain imaging and obsessive-compulsive disorder, and Dr. Rock is an international business professor who has written articles and speaks widely about the implications of brain research in business.

The main drawback of this article is that the studies that contributed to this body of knowledge are not identified with in-text citations nor with an end-of-paper bibliography.  Schwartz & Rock are respected in their fields and are reliable sources of information.  The researchers for various studies are noted in the text, but direct reference to a particular journal is not included.  Perhaps Schwartz & Rock did this by design so that the article would be more accessible to the general public and to business professionals who are not academics.

Connections

I think this article informs some of the work of Dr. Michelle Jordan.  In our class discussion with Dr. Jordan (2014), she pointed out that uncertainty can be productive and is essential for learning.  However, in a study of uncertainty in a robotics task in fifth grade collaborative groups, one student, Roy, had difficulties with interpersonal skills as part of his group seemed to ignore or chasten him.  Jordan and McDaniel (2010) comment, “So salient was Roy’s need to resolve his relational uncertainty that he seemed unable to attend to the robotics task” (p. 24).  Roy’s brain was reacting to an “error” where what was happening in his group (they were ignoring him) and what he expected were different.  His brain is now using a large amount of energy to relay error messages and to activate the amygdala, the home of primal fear and anger.  This use of energy reduces the ability of the prefrontal cortex to process the higher-order thinking necessary to attend to the engineering problem.

Further study

This article focuses on the implications for business management and change.  However, the field of education can also benefit from this type of study.  It was a good place to see how neuroscience can inform practices in another field.  Many of the ideas are directly applicable to an educational setting.

Also, I would like to go back and delve in to some of the actual scientific studies mentioned.  The field of neuroscience is still new.  Much of the research is recent and more implications may be found as the research advances.

References

Jordan, M. E., & Mcdaniel, R. R. (2010). Managing Uncertainty During Collaborative Problem Solving in Elementary School Teams : The Role of Peer Influence in Robotics Engineering Activity, 00(2002).

Rock, D., & Sctiwartz, J. (2007). The Neuroscience of Leadership, 10–17.

Do Educators Utilize PD?

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Doherty, I. Evaluating the impact of professional development on teaching practice: research findings and future research directions. US-China Education Review, A, 703-714. Retrieved June 12, 2014, from http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED527691

 

Professional Development (PD) that is centered on meaningful learning activities is professional development that is generally considered to be highly effective. In his article, Iain Doherty (2011) sought to address whether or not there is a correlation between satisfactory participant experience following a professional development session and educators actually implementing changes and utilizing skills and strategies learned in their teaching practice (Doherty, 2011). Previous research suggested that meaningful professional development focuses on several principles: 1) contextual realism that intimately connects with teaching practice, meaning PD modules are linked to challenges and practical teaching situations; 2) content that allows learners to connect new information with preexisting schematic frameworks; 3) the utilization of authentic activities that mimic how new information can and will be used in future activities; 4) offering multiple and diverse perspectives, and; 5) collaborative reflection that promotes articulation of new knowledge (Doherty, 2011).

Doherty (2011) utilized PD modules that were built with the aforementioned considerations firmly in mind. They gave University-level educators in New Zealand information regarding the implementation of various technological tools that could enhance the learning of their students. These tools included things like blogs, social networking sites, Wikis, among others (Doherty, 2011). Further, the PD sessions were not a sage-on-stage/sit-and-get style session; each educator in attendance had the opportunity create accounts and begin to use them during the session. To measure his results, Doherty (2011) gave the educators a “pretest,” that asked them to assess their own familiarity with the various web-based tools that they were about to learn about. Following the session, participants were, again, asked to self-assess their own knowledge, awareness, familiarity, and ability to implement the tool into instruction. Doherty (2011) found that participants were significantly more knowledgeable about the resources following the training, than they were before it.

To truly assess their own effectiveness, they came back to the educators three months after the PD modules had been completed and gave a survey designed to assess whether the participants had, in any fashion, begun to implement or use the knowledge gained in the PD sessions in their instruction.  Doherty (2011) found that the vast majority (91-96% depending on the technology) of participants had not utilized any of the technology showcased, despite very strong reviews immediately following the sessions. Doherty then sought to supplement his quantitative results with qualitative information, ascertained through interviews with willing participants. Doherty’s (2011) sample size had diminished from an initial 27 to only seven who agreed to the interview; only one of the seven had made use of one of the multiple technology tools in their instruction, and the others were unable to articulate the reasons as to why they had not begun to implement learned strategies.

Upon reflecting on Doherty’s (2011) methods and results, there are both connections and areas of strength and weakness, each of which I want to take a moment to address in turn. There are a number of connections of this research to my own community of practice. One of the things that we emphasize in my role is the follow up to ensure that educators 1) feel supported as they begin to utilize the methods discussed during the actual PD session and 2) actually implement the strategies and tools into their professional work. I think that had Doherty offered on-going implementation support to the educators, he may have seen significantly higher rates of tool utilization. I know when I have been a participant in professional development sessions, I’ve  left feeling very motivated by all that I am able to do with the new tools and strategies, but that if I don’t begin to utilize them almost immediately, that I begin to lose understanding of the capabilities and how to integrate them into instruction.

One of the strengths that Doherty’s methods offered was the manner through which he assessed his participants’ knowledge before the session, after the session, and gauged their implementation by following up with attendees three months after the modules had been completed. This gives a good understanding of, 1) at what comfort and familiarity levels those in attendance entered the session, 2) the effectiveness of the facilitator(s) in communicating the desired knowledge to the participants, and 3) how valuable the content was to the educators by assessing the rates at which they actually utilized the information conveyed. This approach was a strong one, as it assessed the participants are various, predetermined intervals, providing information that a short-term data collection period wouldn’t even come close to measuring.

Another particular strength offered by Doherty’s procedure is the application of interviews and qualitative methods to supplement the quantitative information. Doherty (2011) chose to interview participants to pinpoint why and how participants chose to, or in his case, chose not to utilize the information conveyed through the professional development sessions. Though they couldn’t self-identify the root causes for their inaction, the process of interviewing participants, in addition to a simple post assessment, offers invaluable insight that might not otherwise be communicated to the researcher. This research model definitely provides a framework that I can utilize as I begin to plan for my own innovation in the area of professional development, combining both short- and long-term quantitative data, as well as qualitative data to provide further information.

The last area I want to address regarding Doherty’s (2011) methods was a lens he lacked, through which he ought to have collected and analyzed data to understand an even more meaningful perspective on the role of professional development in education.  In the introductory paragraph, he writes, “[professional development] is important to improve and enhance student learning” (Doherty, 2011, p. 703). If educators are tasked with improving outcomes for students, and professional development is meant to play a role in that charge, then the improvement in student performance, either academically, socially, behaviorally, or otherwise, should be an essential consideration when measuring or assessing the effectiveness of any session, content, or implementation. Given that Doherty (2011) mentions that purpose of professional development, I thought the perspective that could be offered by looking at the change in student outcomes would have been a valuable lens through which he could have collected and analyzed data.

 

Screen Test: E-Reading Comprehension

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Margolin, S.J., Driscoll, C., Toland, M.J., and Kegler, J.L. (2013). E-readers, computer screens, or paper: Does reading comprehension change across media platforms? Applied Cognitive Psychology, 27, 512-519.

I never thought it would happen to me. I am, and always have been, a bibliophile. I love books for the stories within their covers, sure, but I also love books as books. I love spines and endpapers and embossing and cover art and epigraphs and acknowledgements and author photos and notes on the type and and those ruffly cut edges on fine hardcover editions. I still have the copies of Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice that my older sister, the best reader I know, bought for me for my 10th birthday. Touching their faded covers, I can still summon how those books felt like the kid sister’s longed-for invitation to hang out with the big kids. One of my fondest sensory experiences is the  squeak of the plastic library cover on a book giving way to yield the sweet, pulpy smell of paper.

I resisted the e-reader, I did. When people argued its merits, telling me I could bring 500 books on vacation with me, I turned up my nose. No, I scoffed, I love the ritual of selecting which book gets the privilege of hopping from bookshelf to suitcase; I love when I finish a book on vacation and so, stranded in Glenwood, Minnesota, with nothing to read, I go into that used bookstore and buy whatever they have that looks pretty good. This is how I ended up reading Geek Love by Katherine Dunn. If I’d brought 500 preselected books with me, that book would never have found me and thank God it did. And then it happened:

Reader, I bought an e-reader.

Truth be told, I’m on my second e-reader. My first was a Kindle, and a few years after I bought it, I upgraded to a Kindle Paperwhite. I don’t really know why I succumbed in the first place. When Amazon announced the Kindle in 2007, I got a good head of steam up about it and swore I’d never give in. I have thousands of books. And I have a hard time parting with them. Before and after I’ve read them, they remain, stacked and spilling from shelves and boxes, in every room of my house. But my affection for gadgetry must have won out, because in 2009 I told my husband that, gee, well, maybe, for my birthday, I guess, perhaps, I’d like to have a … Kindle? He was all too happy to oblige, because he was the one who’d moved all those thousands of books, box by heavy box, when we bought our first home together.

I was surprised to find that I loved the Kindle. I didn’t even need to warm up to it. It helps that the designers have paid attention to the tactile and sensual aspects of reading, so the thing feels like a book in my hands and I can “turn” the page either with a tap on the screen or with a swipe something like the swipe of a licked fingertip. I will say this: My Kindle is only for reading. Deep reading. Immersive reading. Longform reading. Book reading. I do not read magazines or periodicals on it (I read those on my iPad!). It does not have browser capability (again, iPad). Although it does have some interactive functions–for instance, I can hold my finger down on a word and be taken to a built-in dictionary for a definition–I don’t make frequent use of them. It also has functions to allow me to annotate, “highlight” or “clip” portions of text, but I use those infrequently, as well. Truth be told, I am not a heavy annotator in my pleasure reading, and I never have been. Much in the same way that the dog breeds I like best are the ones that are most like cats, I chose the e-reader that was as much like an analog reader–ahem, book–as possible. I deliberately selected the Kindle for the fact that it’s not backlit (like the iPad) and therefore doesn’t result in eye strain, headaches, or fatigue (for me). I also made a conscious choice not to get an e-reader with browser capability or the ability to watch movies (the Kindle Fire, for example).

There are, of course, pluses and minuses to the Kindle. I’m one of those people who can remember that a passage or image was on, say, the bottom half of a left-hand page about a third of the way through the book. With the Kindle, all the “pages” are oriented identically. It’s harder for me to find that passage or image that I remember. On the other hand, I can use the search function to locate a remembered word or phrase from the passage. (Another bonus: When I want to analyze recurring imagery on my own or with my students, I can, for example, search for all instances of relevant words: boat imagery, colors, whatever.) I believe I read more with my Kindle, because if I finish a book at the doctor’s office, I can immediately start another. In fact, I can immediately buy another. Downside: On the Kindle, I can’t tell how long a book is. I can’t tell when the portion in my right hand starts to weigh less than the portion in my left hand so I know to start rationing it more slowly to make it last. On the Kindle, books just up and end on me. And then I’m confronted with a rude-seeming invitation to rate the book I read (how crass!) or buy another book. Can we just cuddle for a few minutes? Geeze. Of course, sometimes it’s a good thing that I can’t tell how long a book is. With the Kindle, I don’t reject titles because they’re 700 pages long and I’m not sure I’ll have the time. I just dig in and keep plugging away. When I secretly wanted to read a trashy Jodi Picoult book but I didn’t want anyone to know, my Kindle kept my secret. On the other hand, thanks to the popularity of Kindles, Nooks, and other e-readers, I can no longer survey a waiting room or airplane to find out what book is the Cold Mountain of this year. I once met and fell in love with a man on a plane because he was carrying a copy of Raymond Carver’s Cathedral. Somehow, I doubt that “So. How about the battery life on that Kindle, eh?” would have, well, kindled the brief but beautiful romance that followed.

As a reader and a teacher, I have often wondered if the type and quality of reading I’m doing on my Kindle is comparable to the the type and quality of reading I always did (and sometimes still do) on paper. This question has increased relevance to me now, as my school has recently decided to “move away from printed copies of textbooks and towards a greater adoption of digital resources and eBooks” (J. Boehle, personal communication, February 28, 2014). To that end, “all students in grades 7-12 will be required to Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) to school starting in the fall of 2015” (J. Boehle, personal communication, May 29, 2014). We teachers received our school-issued iPads last week (bringing my household total of Apple devices (iPads, laptops, and iPods) to a slightly embarrassing 9. This doesn’t include the treasured Kindle or my husband’s PC computer. Incidentally, we are a household of two people and three cats. We have more computers than we do sentient beings).

Reading “is a process that, once learned, allows an individual to mentally represent written text” (Margolin, Driscoll, Toland, & Kegler, 2013, p. 512). As simple as that sounds, reading is a cognitively complex act, and there are many theories about what exactly is going on when I curl up with an afghan, chew on the end of my ponytail, and get lost in Anna Karenina for the sixth time. Hoover and Gough (2000), operating on the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory’s (SEDL) framework of the cognitive foundations of reading, explain that “reading comprehension (or, simply, reading) … is based upon two equally important competencies. One is language comprehension–the ability to construct meaning from spoken representations of language; the second is decoding—the ability to recognize written representations of words” (p. 13). Furthermore, each of these two abilities depends on “a collection of interrelated cognitive elements that must be well developed to be successful at either comprehending language or decoding” (Wren, 2000, p. 20). Wren (2000) explains that, according to the SEDL framework, the elements that support language comprehension and decoding toward reading comprehension are as follows (p. 18):

  • Background knowledge
  • Linguistic knowledge
  • Phonology
  • Syntax
  • Semantics
  • Cipher knowledge
  • Lexical knowledge
  • Phoneme awareness
  • Knowledge of the alphabetic principle
  • Letter knowledge
  • Concepts about print

Each of those elements could form the basis of a nuanced and lengthy exploration; for the purposes of this discussion, they serve only to underscore the cognitive complexity of reading. That is, we will take as a given that reading comprehension relies on an intricate set of brain tasks. The question before us is whether reading on a screen–specifically on an e-reader like a Kindle–as opposed to reading on good, old-fashioned paper, allows us to achieve that end goal: reading comprehension. That’s what Margolin, Driscoll, Toland, and Kegler (2013) examined.

So let’s take a look at their research protocol before we explore their findings (yes, I’m going to make you wait to find out whether you’re reading this as well on screen as you would if you were reading it on paper! It’s like another old favorite, There’s a Monster at the End of This Book) and what this means for my school, and my students, and me. The clearly written, error-free article is organized effectively, prefacing the study itself with a thorough review of the existing literature (see below) as well as the real-world applicability of the findings. The authors also firmly locate their study within a theoretical framework of reading, specifically the Construction Integration (CI) model (Margolin et al., 2013, p. 512).

Literature Review: The Holes in the Research
Memory, not Comprehension
Margolin et al. (2013) first established the research landscape on the subject of e-reading and observed a few trends that seemed to create a niche for their query. They observed that the previous research into electronic reading “has examined memory for text … [but] the reading literature has not yet examined comprehension” (Margolin et al., 2013, p. 512). That is, researchers have examined readers’ ability to recall what they read electronically, but not how well they understood it.

Process, not Product
Secondly, Margolin et al. (2013) established that the earliest research into electronic reading “focused primarily on the process and efficacy of reading from computers, rather than outcomes like comprehension and learning” (p. 513). For example, researchers studied the speed with which individuals could read and proofread on paper versus a computer (Margolin et al., 2013, p. 513) and analyzed discrepancies in terms of the experiential and physical differences between reading on screen and reading on paper (backlighting, typographic spacing and fonts, scrolling vs. page-turning, etc.) (Margolin et al., 2013, p. 513).

E-Readers, not Computers
Thirdly, Margolin et al. (2013) explain that previous research has focused on computer-screen reading with hyperlinks (blogs, online news websites, etc.) as opposed to e-reader reading, which more closely mimics book reading and doesn’t present opportunities for readers to click out of the text (p. 513).

Therefore, to fill the hole in the research presented by these established trends, Margolin et al. (2013) “looked to explore a new technology known as an e-reader, whose intended function is the singular process of reading, rather than searching for an evaluating information online” (p. 514). The authors argue that e-reader reading is fundamentally different from computer-screen reading because “there is no need to search or problem-solve to navigate through the hyperlinks, because these are not present on an e-reader device” like my Kindle (Margolin et al., 2013, p. 514). The authors make a very strong case for their study, demonstrating that the research to date has not really explored comprehension with e-readers. Their study is timely, given that e-readers are gaining in popularity among many age groups and contexts. In this manner, the authors make a compelling case for the relevance of this study to the field of cognition, educational psychology, and general reading.

Many schools, including my own, are implementing tablet or e-textbook programs.  However, the authors fail to address that schools are, on the whole, implementing tablet programs, not e–reader programs. The value of this study is somewhat limited by the fact that e-readers are not the electronic device that is leading the way in the sea change that’s happening at schools. It’s the tablet–full of hyperlinks, browsers, and doodads–that is invading the classroom. So, even though the researchers used academic texts like the ones students study in school, this study may not ultimately be as germane to the burgeoning conversation surrounding how students read required texts in classrooms.

Data Collection Method and Research Design
Margolin et al. (2013) recruited 90 research participants ages 18 to 25 from an introduction to psychology course at a Western New York college (p. 514). Slightly less than a third of the participants were male, but the ratio of male to female participants was retained in the three different groups to which the participants were randomly assigned: Paper readers, computer readers, and e-readers (Margolin et al., 2013, p. 514). It is perhaps worth noting that none of the participants had any diagnosed learning disabilities or dyslexia (Margolin et al., 2013, p. 514). (I point that out simply because I’m particularly interested in how our switch to e-textbooks might affect–negatively or positively–our students with those issues. More on that a bit later.) Each of the groups was presented with 1o passages to read: five were expository, intended to “convey facts and information” (Margolin et al., 2013, p. 514), and five were narrative, intended to “tell a story or chronicle an event” (Margolin et al., 2013, p. 514). The researchers ensured that there was uniformity among the texts in terms of length and reading level, as measured by the Flesch-Kincaid grade-level scale (Margolin et al., 2013, p. 515). The participants were randomly assigned to one of three delivery methods: The paper readers read on standard 8.5″ x 11″ white paper, the computer readers read PDFs on screen, and the e-readers read on a Kindle with e-ink technology just like the one I have (Margolin et al., 2013, p. 515). Immediately following their reading of the texts, participants completed a questionnaire in which they answered analytical questions to probe their level of understanding and interpretation as well as questions about their process and experience (did they skip around, did they re-read, did they follow along with a finger, etc.) (Margolin et al., 2013, p. 515).

The organization of this study seems very thorough. While the researchers could have limited their exploration to correlation between media presentation (paper, computer, e-reader) and comprehension, they went a step further to examine the behaviors that readers employ to assist in their comprehension. This gives us a fuller picture of what reading looks like across all of these platforms and makes the conclusion more compelling.

Results and Analysis
The results portion of this article was less clear than some of the other components. More tables or graphs would have been helpful, especially in terms of depicting the relationships among media type, reading behavior, and comprehension. Nevertheless, a few takeaways were immediately apparent. For one, comprehension was found to be slightly lower for narrative passages than for expository passages overall, regardless of how the text was presented (Margolin et al., 2013,p. 516). The comprehension scores for all three presentation styles were comparable and reflected a similar (small) disparity between comprehension of narrative texts and expository texts (Margolin et al., 2013,p. 516). Comprehension was found to be higher for computer readers when they followed along with a finger or silently mouthed what they were reading; however, these behaviors did not improve comprehension for paper readers or e-readers (Margolin et al., 2013,p. 516). Examining each presentation of text on its own, reading behaviors for the most part did not make a difference in the reader’s comprehension of narrative versus expository text (Margolin et al., 2013, p. 516). The only two behaviors that seemed to correlate to significantly higher comprehension were finger-tracking and mouthing (Margolin et al., 2013,p. 516). There did not seem to be any difference in the frequency with which readers relied on most behaviors (highlighting, finger tracking, mouthing, taking notes, saying words aloud) across the three presentation styles, with one exception: When it came to skipping around while reading, the Kindle readers were found to do much less of this behavior than either paper or computer readers (Margolin et al., 2013,p. 516).

The authors acknowledge that the relevance and applicability of their study may be limited somewhat by the relative youth of the study participants. Older readers, who may have issues with working memory, may find that they encounter more reading comprehension problems overall or that the platform of delivery of text does make a difference in their comprehension. The study would have to be replicated with an older demographic before we could whole-heartedly say that reading comprehension isn’t negatively affected by delivery medium. The college students who participated in this study are probably very comfortable with technology by virtue of their age; it could be that we are seeing that reading comprehension is not negatively affected by e-reading as long as the e-reader has met a threshold level of comfort with the technology. It would also be interesting to study young, budding readers across these delivery methods to find out if the way we learn to read is affected by the medium in which we read. This study included people who were proficient readers and proficient users of technology; it might be telling to examine groups on either side of that center swath: young students with less reading proficiency and older readers with less technological comfort and less ideal working memories.

Discussion/Findings
The results of this study appear to be encouraging in a world where “the amount of digital text being created grows exponentially every day” (Margolin et al., 2013, p. 512) and where “reading, and more importantly, comprehension, is a fundamental skill necessary for the successful completion of almost any type of class as well as in the job marketplace” (Margolin et al., 2013, p. 512). Overall, the authors found no significant difference in reading comprehension among the paper readers, the computer readers, and the e-readers. Furthermore, while readers from all groups comprehended narrative texts slightly less well than they did expository texts, this difference was no greater for the computer-readers or e-readers than for the paper readers, suggesting that, narrative reading might simply be more difficult (for people of this age group and experience level) than expository reading. The data also suggest that people engage largely similar behaviors when reading on various platforms, that only finger-tracking and mouthing had any effect on comprehension (across all presentation styles), and that even that effect was minimal. In conclusion, Margolin et al. (2013) argue that “electronic forms of text presentation (both computer and e-reader) may be just as viable a format as paper presentation for both narrative and expository texts” (p. 517).

This is encouraging news for me personally and professionally, and it seems to support what my own “anecdata” has suggested: For me, reading on my Kindle really doesn’t feel any different from reading a book. I still cry in public with alarming regularity. In my role as a teacher, I have always had a policy of allowing my students to read in whatever platform or media they prefer (except smartphones), as I philosophically don’t believe in impeding reading. Reading is so personal, so… sensual … that I cannot bring myself to say to my students, who have 10 or more years of experience as readers, “No, don’t do it that way, do it this way.”

This study makes me feel somewhat better about the decision my school has made to move all of students’ instructional materials and textbooks to a single device–that is, if we can control the potentially distracting functions of their tablets and, in essence, turn them into e-readers. The benefits of such a policy are many. For one, having every text on an e-reader would mean that the days of schlepping a backpack so laden with books that it causes serious pain and even injury are behind us. I believe we have a responsibility as educators to look out for the physical well-being of our students, and sending a 100-pound kid home with 60-pound backpack doesn’t seem right to me. I’m also particularly attuned to the needs of our kids with physical disabilities, however rare they might be. I was a teenager with arthritis, and my school accommodated me by issuing me two sets of textbooks: One for my locker, and one for home use. But that didn’t help on the days when even lugging my U.S. history text to class was painful. And imagine the flexibility for me and my students when it’s discovered that we have an extra 20 minutes in class that we didn’t plan for and we can shift gears to a new essay or poem without everyone running to lockers and back!

What Next?
E-readers vs. tablets? What about phones?
However, the study raises several questions worth further investigation: are there any differences in reading comprehension or supportive reading behaviors when one compares Kindle reading to, say, iPad reading? I absolutely do not–could not–read a book on my iPad. I do read magazines and newspapers on my iPad, and while I think my taste in magazines isn’t exactly vapid (Smithsonian, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, etc.), this is grazing reading–I do it for shorter amounts of time and I allow myself to pursue tangents and offshoots at will). But for immersive, hours-long reading sessions, the backlighting on the iPad would wear out my eyes in an hour. Secondly, the iPad is loaded with bells and whistles that threaten to distract even the most devoted reader. The whole point of an iPad–and the reason my school is shifting to them–is that everything is right there in one place: Everything for good (books for every course all at one’s fingertips, no running to lockers or bemoaning books forgotten at home!) and everything for bad (E-mail! Text messaging! Facebook! Canvas! Photos! A camera! Shazam! The Internet!).

I’d like to see a study that explores e-readers as compared with these all-in-one tablets. Furthermore, I’ve had more than one student ask about reading our required texts on a smartphone. The constrained size of the screen, in addition to the aforementioned concerns about the iPad, compel me to reject that proposition out of hand. But what if research shows that reading on a 6.7-square-inch phone is just as good?

Students with learning disabilities or ADD?
Secondly, I’d really like to see an examination of how reading comprehension and reading behaviors are affected when the readers are using electronic devices and when the readers have attention deficit disorder, dyslexia, or other learning disabilities. As I’ve mentioned previously, we have a significant population of students at our school with these issues, and I’d hate to think we’re introducing a technology that makes school all the harder for them. As Margolin et al. (2013) point out, when a reader is distracted, his or her “capacity for processing text may be reduced, making difficulties with fully understanding the text more likely” (p. 512). How cruel to mandate that a kid with ADD arm himself with a weapon to sabotage his own performance.

What if kids want to go old-school?
I think it’s important to remember that this study suggests that there is no difference in reading comprehension among the three platforms. The obvious interpretation of that is that e-reading isn’t worse than traditional paper reading. But the inverse is suggested, too: when it comes to comprehension, e-reading also isn’t better than paper reading. Whatever the benefits of a tablet policy, they are likely associated with convenience and synchrony among students, as opposed to cognitive or pedagogical benefit (at least as far as reading is concerned). So what will I do in two years when a student says, “Is it OK if I read The Metamorphosis in this first-edition, hardcover edition that belonged to my grandmother instead of on my iPad?” My inclination will be to say the equivalent of what I say now to students who want to bring an e-reader instead of a hard copy of The Metamorphosis: “Sure, yes, whatever you like. Just make sure you have it every day when we need it in class.” But if my school is making this institutional change across the board, will I have the freedom and backing to say that? Or will I have to say, “No, please, I’d prefer you download it on the iPad.” That feels wrong to me. It feels wrong to interfere with a young adult’s established preference for reading medium given that there doesn’t appear to be a comprehension benefit.

That other “R”: Writing?
Of course, any exploration of how the cognitive experience of reading on screen differs (or doesn’t) from the experience of reading on paper invites me to think about reading’s dance partner, writing. How does student writing differ when it’s typed versus when it’s handwritten? I do know that research is ongoing in this area, and I’d like to explore it. Nowadays, a student can draft, revise, submit, and receive feedback on a “paper” without touching any actual paper.

Ultimately, though, this study seems to be a bracing splash of cold water for those educators, parents, and students who assume that reading on a device must be worse than reading in a book. This is a status quo bias and it’s not, in itself, a good reason to eschew new technologies that indubitably have benefits (convenience and allure, to name two). Some research into e-reading suggests that “reading online may be at the very least more complex than reading traditional printed text” (Margolin et al., 2013, p. 513) and that it involves “more than simply understanding what is encountered” (Margolin et al., 2013, p. 513), requiring “that the reader engage in other higher level processing of the material beyond creating a mental representation of the text” (Margolin et al., 2013, p. 513).

It’s so easy to make the mistake of thinking that the practices, habits, values, and institutions we have now are older and more established than they are. When it comes to reading, it’s perhaps useful to remember that “we were never born to read. Human beings invented reading  only a few thousand years ago. And with this invention, we rearranged the very organization of our brain, which in turn expanded the ways we were able to think, which altered the intellectual evolution of our species” (Wolf, 2007, p. 3). We live in a time when innovation and invention take place at a mind-dizzying pace. It might behoove us to recall how we humans have adapted to our own inventions in the past. As Wolf (2007) argues, “reading is one of the single most remarkable inventions in history … Our ancestors’ invention could come about only because of the human brain’s extraordinary ability to make new connections among its existing structures, a process made possible by the brain’s ability to be shaped by experience” (p. 3).

As Winston Churchill said, “We shape our buildings. Thereafter, they shape us.”

References

Hoover, W.A., and Gough, P.B. (2000). The reading acquisition framework: an overview. In The cognitive foundations of learning to read: A framework. Retrieved from Southwest Educational Development Laboratory Web site: http://www.sedl.org/reading/framework/framework.pdf

Margolin, S. J., Driscoll, C., Toland, M. J., & Kegler, J. L. (2013). E-readers, computer screens, or paper: Does reading comprehension change across media platforms? Applied Cognitive Psychology, 27(4), 512–519. doi:10.1002/acp.2930

Wolf, M. (2007). Proust and the squid: The story and science of the reading brain. New York, NY: Harper.

Wren, S. (2000). The cognitive foundations of learning to read: A framework. Retrieved from Southwest Educational Development Laboratory Web site: http://www.sedl.org/reading/framework/framework.pdf

 

Effectiveness of CRT in Literacy Instruction – An Example of Bias in Research

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Cheesman, E., & De Pry, R. (2010). A Critical review of culturally responsive literacy instruction. Journal of Praxis in Multicultural Education, 5(1). doi:10.9741/2161-2978.1034

Article in Brief

The article in question seeks to determine the effectiveness of the Culturally Responsive Teaching model in literacy instruction.  The authors attempt to do this with a wide ranging literature review while also explaining the recent history of education policy and the more common methods of instruction with literacy.

Organization

The begins by articulating the urgency with which we must consider intervention on literacy instruction in our schools.  We are educated on the serious risks associated with low levels of literacy development both on a whole society level but on the individual level as well.  Once the urgency is created in the author for the high need for exemplar literacy instruction we are introduced to the most recent history in regards to education policy.  Titled “School Reform Efforts” we learn about the steps that have been taken and a few of the models adopted to close the “achievement gap”.  Beginning with the hallmark reform effort most often known as “no Child Left Behind” we learn of the “valiant” attempts of the Bush administration to help the cause of minority and low socio-economic status students in schools.  The author then turns to two common models that have been adopted to try and close the gap within schools.  Tiered instruction and Culturally Responsive Teaching.  The two methodologies are explained (CRT in a more lengthy manner) and the author moves on to other challenges in closing the achievement gap.

A number of “Cause of Reading Failure” are named in the following section, from behavioral problems to reading disability, the author makes a real case for the challenges involved in promoting learning in literacy.  Next we are taken through the research backed components of effective reading instruction.  We learn of five “established” research based practices that are known to develop literacy in children.

Finally we are taken to our section on the actual effectiveness of CRT in literacy instruction.  After a few paragraphs the author moves towards the implications for future research and the article ends with a brief conclusion.

Contribution to the Field/Implication for Future Research

The authors results in their study limit this articles ability to contribute to the CRT movement however the article is certainly part of the educational research canon.  Literacy instruction is a hot issue in our country and particularly in Arizona where students are unable to move on to 4th grade if they have not passed a 3rd grade reading test.

The article draws itself in sharp contrast to my current efforts in education however it does elicit some powerful questions about the practicality of CRT as well as the difficulty to operationalize the method.

Theoretical Framework

The article poses itself as a literature review of the effect of Culturally Responsive  Teaching practices on literacy instruction.  The article certainly reviews A LOT of literature however not enough of it seems to pertain to the actual act of Culturally Responsive Teaching.  The actual framework seems to be much more based around a literature review of recent education policy and practices as well as what works in literacy instruction but the review of Culturally Responsive teaching literature is lacking.

 

Data Collection

The data collection is really just an aggregation of a large number of articles and research findings in education.  The authors have reviewed over fifty articles to establish their research topic and findings in this literature review.

Analyses/Findings

The analyses of the effect of culturally responsive teaching seems to come through the lens of two separate research articles.  While the authors utilize over fifty articles and readings to explain the state of literacy and education as well as define what Culturally Responsive Teaching is, we find they analyze the results of very few articles.  In their analyses they find that while Culturally Responsive Teaching is intuitively appealing it does not seem to actually be so when analyzed with a research based approach.  The author then points to a study that actually hypothesizes that an approach that is not culturally similar will promote interracial awareness.  The authors then go on to attack the credibility of various Culturally Responsive research because of faulty terminology in some articles.  The authors go on to say that recommending these practices without further evidence of effectiveness will serve to undermine the great promise of literacy instruction from scientifically-based reading research.

Discussion/Conclusion

The author concludes by pointing to Dr. Walter J Turnbull, a changemaker in education in Harlem, New York, as an outstanding example of a culturally responsive approach to education.  While lauding Dr. Turnbull on his success the authors question the ability of the approach to be replicated and repeated across different contexts.  In the implications for future research the authors articulate a number of questions about the viability of Culturally Responsive Teaching and the need for more evidence of effectiveness.  These questions include isolating factors within the Culturally Responsive approach, questioning what mindsets are required and pondering how to best analyze the true effects in order to answer research questions.

In short the authors prescribe a heavy dose of future research with strong operationalization and systemization of Culturally Responsive practices so as to catalogue and organize them according to effectiveness and their ability to replicated.

Readers thoughts

I wanted to make some quick comments about the article as it provided strong evidence for comment in relation to the course themes of impact, access and excellence.  From the beginning it seems clear that the authors are not interested in actually discussing the effects and possible benefits of the Culturally Responsive model.  In fact the authors state the correct model about four pages in without ever mentioning the potential of CRT.

I make this note because this article speaks about how structures of power and influence can actually misrepresent theories that empower those that are marginalized.  The authors cite very few articles in relation to CRT and ask for it to be systemized which it is exactly the point of CRT to NOT be systemized.  The CRT method is about reflection, adaptation and evolution not systems and operations that are replicated across communities.  I think that the authors suffer from some sort of industrial complex that does not allow for a dynamic method like CRT to enter the mainstream.  I think it is important to note that an article like this can sway the minds of a good many people because it academically published, however it suffers from some real biases in it’s analyses and presentation!

Analysis of an Ethnocentric Charter School on an American Indian Reservation

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Fenimore-Smith, J. K. (2009). The Power of Place: Creating an Indigenous Charter School. Journal of American Indian Education, 48(2), 1–17.

Charter schools have often been endorsed as an alternative to the public school system, as it allows for more freedom in curriculum and instruction while still adhering to state standards.  Specifically ethnocentric charter schools have been employed to address the complex and unique needs and challenges surrounding the educational struggles of marginalized and colonized indigenous populations.  The objective of ethnocentric charter schools is to integrate traditional indigenous linguistic and cultural ways of knowing into the Western educational platform.

In the article “The Power of Place: Creating an Indigenous Chart School,” Kay Fenimore-Smith (2009) outlines her study of an ethnocentric indigenous charter school on an undisclosed reservation in northwest United States.  The article outlines a two-year study to identify and examine the challenges and successes of Eagle High School (pseudonym) during the school’s first two years of operation.  The purpose of the study “was to provide a historical record which could serve as a basis for evaluation of the school as well as documentation and analysis of policies and practices of a fledging Indigenous charter school” (p. 2).

Fenimore-Smith (2009) builds upon other related studies that explore the complexities of the development and implementation of linguistically and culturally integrated curricula in American Indian schools.  The research and initial year of operation of the school began in the summer of 2004.  Although Fenimore-Smith (2009) was unable to consistently visit the school during its first year, she did attend school board meetings and school functions, interviewed staff, and conducted multiple classroom observations.  During her sabbatical for the 2005 fall semester, she regularly volunteered at the school to maintain daily contact with the students and staff.  For the remainder of the school year, Fenimore-Smith (2009) occasionally met with school staff and attended in-serve sessions in addition to other school functions.

The research was conducted through a variety of ethnographic methodologies, such as field-notes on interviews, meetings, and observations.   Other strategies included taping daily journal entries, and collecting school-related artifacts, such as student/parent and staff handbooks, classroom handouts, and school schedules.  Fenimore-Smith (2009) employed the triangulation model of reviewing the data by comparing the information garnered through the taped notes to the interviews and artifacts.  Additionally, the initial analysis of the data was reviewed by the school administrator and student who transcribed the interviews.  As the data revealed several themes, Cummins (1992) theory of cultural differences was implemented as the framework and lens from which the findings were dissected and analyzed. The theory outlines four elements that affect minority student access to education: incorporation of students’ language and culture; community participation in school; instruction; testing.  As Cummins (1992) theoretical framework is based on educational access, Fenimore-Smith (2009) contends that the study’s findings are grounded in practical application.

The findings of the research are significant of the systemic challenges faced by Eagle High School.  Eagle High School’s mission statement of “[Eagle High School] is dedicated to recognizing an individual’s worth and dignity and mutual respect between all people. [It] will provide a new educational environment and unique curriculum to bridge educational, cultural, economic and social gaps” (p. 5).  Although Eagle High School consistently attempted to strive toward the goals outlined in the mission statement, it ultimately was largely unsuccessful due to unforeseen challenges. The findings highlighted that the school did not adequately train teachers to integrate Native language and culture and the language and culture classes were not integrated into curricula.  Furthermore, some students were resistant to participate in traditional cultural activities and language and, as the focus of the curricula shifted, the students requested structured, more Western activities.  Lastly, there was no community and parental involvement, and 79% of the students failed the state standardized assessment.  However, the study did reveal that students felt valued by the teachers and, while the community and parents were not actively involved in the school, they expressed appreciation of the school and its mission.

While the findings are very compelling, there are research methodologies and a claim within this study that should be further addressed.  If there are no transparent or valid research methodologies, the study cannot be duplicated as a means of testing for reliability.  Unfortunately, this opaque approach muddles the validity of the findings, no matter how compelling they appear.

The first element is the fact that Fenimore-Smith (2009) admits to have had limited access to the school throughout the first year of her research.  However, she does not address how limited the access was nor in what capacity.  She also does not discuss if this affected her research methodologies and findings, or if she compensated for the lack of access through the implementation of another approach.

The second element is that there are no explanations of how she completed or how often she conducted her research within the two years of her study.  Other significant and absent research facts are the protocols for the interviews, who the participants were, how the participants were selected, and what demographics the participants represented.  Moreover, she never indicated the objective(s) of the classroom observations or how the observations were equated into findings.

The third element is the vagueness of the school and location.  Employing a pseudonym for the charter high school as well as excluding the name of the reservation serves no real purpose.  However, it does perpetuate the ideology that all indigenous communities are culturally and linguistically identical and, therefore, these facets do not contribute to the unique challenges encountered on each reservation.

The fourth element is the employment of a student-participant to analyze the findings. It is not an objective practice to have the student who transcribes the interviews also interpret the data to provide a Native perspective, particularly if the student may know the interviewees.  This knowledge may alter his/her answers due to inherent biases against the interviewees. Furthermore, there is no indication if the student was a participant in the research or served in other capacities as well, such as also being an interviewee.

The last element is that while Fenimore-Smith (2009) claims that she built her research on other similar studies, there are no explicit mention of any other studies’ findings or how they were conducted.  This statement begs the question of to which studies was she referencing and how did they correlate to her research methodologies and findings.  Explicitly comparing and contrasting research methodologies and findings would have also been another way of ensuring the reliability of the findings, especially if they contribute to the research framework of indigenous educational challenges encountered on reservations.

It is very important, however, to acknowledge that throughout the research process, Fenimore-Smith (2009) addresses her intersectionality and positionality as an outsider to both the indigenous community and the school in which she conducted her research.  She also recognizes that her relationship with the students and staff may have been influenced by their perception of her as a teacher and colleague, therefore altering the data rendered from the ethnographic methodologies.  Fenimore-Smith (2009) notes that she is “fully aware that my interpretation of events may indeed affect ‘the interests and lives of the people represented,’ and it is with this knowledge that I present my findings and as understandings, not explanations” (p. 5). The acknowledgement of her positionality and intersectionality reveal layers that may otherwise be undetectable, inherent biases present throughout the findings.

While teaching in a public school within the heart of the Navajo Nation, I also encountered some similar challenges.  The issue that resonated most with my experiences was that of parental and community involvement.  I had approximately 90-95 students in my 6th grade writing class, but for parent-teacher conferences or “report card parties,” only about 15-20 parents would attend the events. The main issues that prohibited the majority of my students’ families from attending were fiscally embedded.  For example, many of the parents would not attend school events because they did not have enough money to pay for gas, they only had enough gas to go to the grocery store, or they did not have any gas in their vehicle tanks.

Furthermore, many parents were disengaged from their students’ academics due to a myriad of other obstacles.  However, the commonality demonstrated by all the parents was that of multigenerational trauma stemming from the impact of colonization, particularly the boarding school era.  Many parents and community members did not feel comfortable meeting in a school setting due to systemic cultural abuse that was perpetrated by the education system.  Therefore, following the theory of multigenerational trauma, the trauma experienced by the grandparents and parents of my students at the hands of educators in Western schools was instilled in the younger generations.  Thus, not only does this explain some of the lack of parental involvement, but it can also be attributed to the resulting lack of American Indian academic achievement.

Research that explores the complexities of parental and community involvement would be beneficial for American Indian students.  I am particularly interested in learning of any reservation schools that have implemented Epstein’s (2002) triangular partnership model that outlines six types of involvement (Olivos, Jimenez-Castellanos, & Ochoa, 2011). As the model should be tailored to better address the needs of the specific communities in which it is implemented, it would be fascinating to see how it has been adapted throughout various reservations.  As parental and community involvement increase student academic achievement, it is imperative to study different approaches to reach particularly traditionally marginalized and colonized populations.

Olivos, E.M., Jimenez-Castellanos, O., & Ochoa, A. M., (2011). Bicultural Parent Engagement: Advocacy and Empowerment. New York: Teachers College Press.

Subject Selection

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Guzey, S. S., & Roehrig, G. H. (2009). Teaching science with technology: case studies of science teachers’ development of technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 9, 25–45. doi:10.1007/s10956-008-9140-4

This week I looked at an article called Teaching Science with Technology: Case Studies of Science Teachers’ Development of Technology, Pedagogy, and Content Knowledge. (Guzey & Roehrig, 2009)The study is looking at how a professional development program called Technology Enhanced Communities or TEC, enhanced science teachers’ TPACK.

TPACK is a theoretical framework which is derived from Shulman’s idea of Pedagogical Content Knowledge. TPACK is made up of three forms of knowledge: content, pedagogy and technology. The argument is that a teacher must have integration of all three knowledge areas in order to be effective. TEC is described in the article as “a yearlong, intensive program, which included a 2-week-long summer introductory course about inquiry teaching and technology tools.” In addition, there were group meetings throughout the year, which was associated with an online teacher action research course. During the two week course in the summer, the participating teachers learned about inquiry-based activities while learning several instructional technologies.

Guzey and Roehrig did qualitative research and collected data through observation, interviews and surveys. In this study, they chose four teachers, new to the field; all of whom had less than three years of experience.

The organization of the article is very easy follow and read. However, the order of the sections didn’t make sense to me. Guzey and Roehrig put the profiles of the teachers in between the results and the discussion. This caused it to feel disjointed, as it didn’t flow properly. The author clearly explains the theories and gives examples of the research they came from. However, the research is supposed to be looking at the impact of TEC, but I felt that there was a lot of focus on inquiry, which is a component of TEC; none the less, too much focus on it. Additionally, the author went into great length of what TPACK is, but, it wasn’t necessary to understand the theory at the depth provided in order to comprehend the research.

Guzey and Roehrig chose beginning teachers because they felt this would provide more commonalities: they had graduated from the same program, they were all going to be teaching their specialty …etc. However, I totally disagree with this approach to selection. Had veteran teachers been selected, there would have been more focus on the authors’ guiding question rather than on common rookie issues (e.g. classroom management, flexibility, lesson planning). Much of the article discusses these issues, which, while they play a role in being an effective teacher, doesn’t necessarily impact whether or not the TEC program is working. By selecting veteran teachers, much of this would have been avoided.

The analysis gives a pretty clear picture of their work and if the resources were available could be reproduced. In the results section, Guzey and Roehrig stated, “Teachers were each found to integrate technology into their teaching to various degrees.” However, their guiding question was how does TEC enhance TPACK? How can the depth of integration of technology be their result? In the decision section of the article they state that TEC was found to have a “varying impact on teacher development of TPACK.” That should have been in their results. Unfortunately, since new teachers are learning so much more at one time than veteran teachers, I don’t know how reliable these results are. It is doubtful that this research had a big impact within the field, as the findings were not significant.

The impact that this research had on my area of inquiry is a different story. I have been solely focused on how integrating technology will have an impact on student achievement and it never occurred to me to consider the teachers’ experience or effectiveness. If a teacher has poor classroom management, adding technology to the mix is not going to increase student achievement. In fact, it is likely to do the opposite. Managing technology in a classroom adds a degree of chaos. Most veteran teachers are adept at establishing new procedures and have enough forethought to know what those procedures should be. One has to be able to understand what problems may arise with students in order to establish procedures that would circumvent said problems. It is unlikely that most beginning teachers have this depth of knowledge. Additionally, veteran teachers have the ability to adjust at a moment’s notice when technology fails, which it does and will. This again, goes back to experience. It would be like giving a two-handed piano piece to a beginning piano student, who is only ready to play with one hand. Reading two lines of music at the same time, maintaining a steady tempo, including dynamics and phrasing is more than one can expect from a beginning musician, but after a few weeks or months of one-handed pieces, that student will be ready to add a level of difficulty. This is not to say that beginning teachers shouldn’t be using technology, the opposite is true; but, to utilize beginning teachers as research participants in how effective technology is, may not be the wisest decision.

Professional development is not a point I considered as a piece to my research. Often, professional development is a hit and run experience. We receive an hour or two of training and then we, the teachers, are expected to have it completely integrated the following day and we never speak of it again. This could be why so many teachers are so cynical about new programs. As a music teacher, very few of the professional developments I have attended have been catered to me specifically. Due to this, I have spent much time over the last twelve years, essentially providing my own professional development. On one hand I have become quit proficient at innovating within my classroom, but had I received more guidance from a veteran teacher, it would have taken me less time to achieve what I have. Technology is a tricky area, in that some people are very comfortable with daily technology interactions and some people struggle with turning on electronics. It may be necessary to include a professional development component within my action research in order to create support for the teachers I work with. It would need to be implemented in such a way that the teachers are able to reflect and discuss their experiences and brainstorm new ideas. This will create lessons that utilize technology to deepen the understanding of the concept, not just adding technology for the sake of technology. Overall, I enjoyed reading this article, it really got me reflecting on the presentation of my own work and the components I should or shouldn’t include.