¡sÍ, se puede! you can present a workshop at intesol! turning your teaching questions into an...
TRANSCRIPT
¡SÍ, SE PUEDE! YOU CAN PRESENT A WORKSHOP AT INTESOL!
TURNING YOUR TEACHING QUESTIONS INTO AN INTESOL PRESENTATION
SUSAN ADAMS
2014 INTESOL CONFERENCE
NOVEMBER 15, 2014
WHAT AM I HERE TO DO, THEN?
1.Tell my story.
2.Help you think about your story.
3. Join together with you to think about how telling our stories, informally and formally, can help us all become better teachers.
4.Serve as a hopeful example, as in, “Sheesh, if Susan can do it, surely I can, too!” Yep, you sure can, and probably way better.
WHY SOTL? THE SHIFT FROM PROBLEM TO INVESTIGATION:• “In scholarship and research, having a “problem” is at the heart of
the investigation process; it is the compound of the generative questions around which all creative and productive activity revolves. But in one’s teaching, a “problem” is something you don’t want to have, and if you have one, you probably want to fix it. Asking a colleague about a problem in his or her research is an invitation; asking about a problem in one’s teaching would probably seem like an accusation. Changing the status of the problem in teaching from terminal remediation to ongoing investigation is precisely what the movement for a scholarship of teaching is all about.”
Turn to your neighbor: What do you make of this quote?
Randy Bass, The Scholarship of Teaching: What’s the Problem? (1999, p. 1).
WHAT IS RESEARCH, ANYWAY? MY BELIEFS:#1: All study is ultimately self-study. What interest you is directly connected to your own experiences, struggles, dilemmas, and/or history.
Example: Turn to your neighbor and ask her/him how s/he got into teaching English learners. Look for the self-study connection in your stories.
#2. “DOING” RESEARCH SOUNDS INTIMIDATING, BUT….It is really just paying sustained, focused attention to something that makes us curious in a structured way.
Zora Neal Hurston called it “formalized curiosity.” (I like that!)
Turn to your neighbor: What is your reaction to the quote? What does it make you think of in terms of research in your own teaching?
#3: RESEARCH ON TEACHING IS NOT LIKE LABORATORY RESEARCH
Research on
humans?! Too many variables!
HOW TO GET STARTED: NOTICINGNotice: what troubles you, frustrates you, leaves you feeling vaguely that something was “not quite right,” or puzzles you?
Examples:
• Baffling student performance on a test or assignment
• A concept or task you have struggled to articulate clearly
• Student behaviors, attitudes, or dispositions that seem out of alignment
• A strategy or technology that used to work reliably is no longer available, no longer works, or could be updated
•Negative feedback on exit tickets or evaluations
STEP 2: (THE MOST DIFFICULT STEP) OWN THE STRUGGLE•Don’t sweep it under the rug.
•Don’t assume the problem is someone else.
•Don’t pretend it will go away.
•Don’t hide it and feel guilty.
•Don’t tell yourself it is just you, and that no one else has this problem.
#3: TURN THE PUZZLE INTO A QUESTIONStarter stems:
•What happens when….?
•How do students perceive…?
•What is the impact of….?
•What is the benefit of….?
•What is the connection between _(attendance)_ and _(grades)_?
Turn to your neighbor and brainstorm 3-4 possible questions.
#4: FIND OUT: WHAT RESEARCH ALREADY EXISTS?•Within your discipline
•Beyond your discipline
• Amongst your colleagues
Remember: you are probably NOT the first person to struggle with your question.
#6: IDENTIFY THE SCOPE AND TIMEFRAME OF YOUR EXPLORATION
Ask yourself:
• Is there a specific course in which you can focus your research? A specific section? A specific assignment?
• What is do-able in one semester?
• What might you learn across multiple semesters?
#7: WHAT SUPPORTS OR RESOURCES WILL YOU NEED, IF ANY?
Remove obstacles.
Locate critical friends who will help you think about your question.
Get a partner who will think, write and present a session with you.
Write your research into your annual teaching goals.
#8: SEE IF YOU NEED PERMISSION….EACH DISTRICT IS DIFFERENTBenefits of having IRB (Institutional Review Board) permission:
1. Having to explain your research to your principal or evaluator pushes you to fine-tune your question and your approaches.
2. Using informed consent clarifies your procedures.
3. Informed consent tells students that you are interested in improving the course and invites them to help.
4. Having permission and informed consent allows you to collect artifacts, surveys, focus groups, etc.
5. Having permission and informed consent means you can share with colleagues and publish your learning down the road.
6. Um, dude: it is the ethical thing to do anyway!
STORY TIME WITH SUSAN….
Once upon a time, there was a frustrated person teaching ED398
•The problem: student discomfort with topic of race and white privilege
•The question: What would give students a chance to express themselves more comfortably with me?
•The intervention/new variable? Midterm Check-in appointments
HOW THE INVESTIGATION HAS CHANGED OVER TIME• What the literature says about changing student attitudes in multicultural education classes, evaluation concerns, etc. (Hint: it is NOT just me having the problem!)
• Reframing the issue de-personalized the issue for me, reduced my anxiety and allowed me to study the issue more calmly.
• Multi-semester experimentation has given me a way to write about the problem in my FAR, demonstrating my proactivity to student needs.
• Collaboration with another COE colleague who also teaches this course. It is good to have a friend in it with me!
• Getting IRB for the whole course 4 semesters and 2 summers means lots of artifact data to examine.
• Taking our early learning on the road at conferences allowed others to ask us good questions, clarify our thinking and our approaches. Also proved others are interested.
• Applying for and winning a bit of award money keeps me accountable to write about my learning and publish eventually.
WHAT IS NEXT FOR THE INVESTIGATION?
• After first test-driving inviting students for personal appointments and the optional completion of a check-in questionnaire for two years, this semester, I will require and collect surveys from all students.
• I will analyze the responses using discourse analysis (Gee, 2000; Gee, 2008).
• I will write a proposal to share my initial findings at a teacher education research conference in January.
• I will convert my presentation to a scholarly manuscript for publication.
• BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY I will also take my learning into the next ED398 section I teach.
UNEXPECTED BENEFITS OF PAYING SUSTAINED ATTENTIONI noticed components of the course that were obstacles.Example: spring sections always were more problematic. Why?
Spring schedule: once per week 4:30-7PM. Students HATED this time, punished me for it. We changed it.
Spring section is always a larger section, usually is over the limit. Why? There is only 1 section. This is under consideration for future change.
More males and non-licensure students enroll in the spring course. Perhaps some function of the grid, or of athletics. Might be beyond my control.
I probably would have missed these things if I were not focusing my attention on questions, rather than simply thinking about how I felt.
CONCLUSION: RESEARCH ON TEACHING IS A WIN-WIN!• Improve your teaching outcomes.
• Improve your evaluation scores.
•Open new areas of scholarly interest for yourself.
•Change the discourse of your professional learning community.
•Develop a new partnership with a colleague.
• Submit a proposal to present your findings at the 2015 INTESOL Conference. It is fun and then you will be,
• FAMOUS!
.
WHAT DOES A PROPOSAL REQUIRE? • A great title! This year’s favorite: “Flip it! Flip it good!”
• A short description of your session for the conference program (usually 50 words or less)
• A clear, concise outline of the session’s content and procedures, how you will use the time allotted (200 words or less)
• An indication of who will likely be most interested in your session (K-12 teachers, EFL, adult education, school administrators, university researchers, preservice teachers, etc.)
MY 2013 PROPOSALTITLE: TAKE ON THE TABOO! TAKING UP RACE WITH ESL TEACHERS PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
(50 WORDS OR LESS)
To interrupt the systemic perpetuation of white privilege, teachers must be conscious of their own racialized presence in the classroom. Must ELLs relinquish their ethnic identities and “whiten up” for school success? Together we will examine the impact of teacher racial identity on ELL school achievement in K-12 schools.
SESSION DESCRIPTIONIn a recent graduate cultural competency course, a Latino ESL teacher became conscious of his role as a “raced” teacher of non-white immigrant ESL students in his majority minority and racially diverse urban school district. To his own shock and surprise, he realized that his own academic and professional success have largely come about as a result of relinquishing his own ethnic and racial identity as he took on perspectives, stances and behaviors more closely aligned with white, middle class mainstream culture. In this session, the ESL teacher and his university professor will begin by setting the scene for how this new awareness has created both a personal identity crisis and a questioning of his own pedagogical assumptions and practices in his ESL classroom. Following this opening discussion, participants will work in triads to process provocative prompts in personal writing and small group sharing to surface assumptions and to explore the implications of unconsciously asking ESL students to “whiten up” for school success.
Note: The presenters of this session have been invited to present this session at the 2014 TESOL K-12 Dream Day in Portland.
