Week 15, May 1st, 07 Grow up as a Professional

Agenda for today, the last class  Making effective professional presentation  Writing for funding and for conferences  Research critique  House keeping (final submission & final presentation)

Making Effective Professional Presentations What makes a good presentation?

Presentations: bad ones  PowerPoint presentations: the good, the bad, and the uglythe good, the bad, and the ugly  Performing arts (group work) Recall the presentations you made or you attended – imitate/perform (could be in an exaggerating way) a very bad – if not the worst, presentation.

Presentations: good ones  10 rules for keeping your audience awake

What is in a Title? Be creative – have fun with titles - pique the curiosity of readers; Cathy opening and a colon: ‘Come to My Web (Site)’, said the spider to the fly: Reflections on the life of a virtual professor P184  It’s memorable!  It provides a focus

Final Presentation – how to get a full score?  Title of the study (& your name);  Study purpose in a nutshell;  Major research questions;  Research site & participants in brief (how many classes/students/teachers/parents? How are you related to them - for instance, do you teach there or substitute or else?);  Data sources to answer your research questions - highlight one of the sources to answer one of your questions;  How will you increase the validity, reliability and credibility of your study? What critical ethical issues could there be (or not)?  Show one of your instruments from appendix and explain, for instance, did you design the instrument? Is it valid - can it answer your question?  Timeline and justify your timeline (only focus on the total length of data collection process);  Significance – what will you learn from doing this research? How will this improve (or not) your teaching?

Writing for funding and for conferences

Take a chance  If you don’t ask for funds, you will never receive it – this is the most important funding principles.

Rituals and Writing  Establish a writing routine P173-4

Geoff’s Tips for Being Able to Avoid Writing  Think about all the things at school that I need to do before tomorrow.  Scan my desk to see if someone has left me a note about a meeting, sports practices, birthday party that I need to go NOW.  Check my voice mail  Check my  Check my checkbook to see if it is balanced.  Call my wife/husband/child/friend/enemy to see what they are doing.  Walk down the hallway to see if I can find someone to talk to.  Dream about winning a lottery.  Make an appointment to see my dentist

Proposal Format for funding  Purpose and significance of the study, including the research questions itself and why this is an important teaching question.  A short exploration of the topic – literature review.  Method, which explains what data will be collected and how it will be analyzed.  The feasibility – timeline.  Dissemination plan- who do you intend to do with the results of this study.  A budget with justification.  Letters of support. An example: _FRPproposal.pdf

Grant resources for teacher - researchers  Teacher As Researcher Grant – Interntional Reading Association arch_teacher_as_researcher.html Download application guidelines Download cover sheet Download application form  Many local and state Writing Project sites, as well as local and state affiliates of NCTE and IRA offer small grants to fund teacher research. I suggest checking your local site for further information.

Conferences  NCTE: National Council of Teachers of English, Annual Conference:  Action Research Special Interest Group (SIG) of American Educational Research Association (AERA):  New York State Art Teachers Association Annual Conference:  More conferences, see list compiled by Shi and the Research and Technology Committee.

Journals  Networks: An Online Journal for Teacher Research  Action Research International  Others English Quarterly Journal of Research in Science Teaching International Journal of Science Education The Journal of the Learning Sciences New Directions for Teaching and Learning

Action Research Resources  Teacher Research Resources: grant grant  Educating as Inquiry – A Teacher Action Research Site  Reflections on Teaching (The National Writing Projects) s.csp

Grow as a Professional with a Critical Mind Research Critique

 Understanding and evaluating published research articles;  Relate the evaluation guidelines to your own research.