Week 14, Nov. 21, 06 Grow up as a Professional

Agenda for today, the last class  Writing for funding and for conferences  Research critique  Making effective professional presentation  Methodology – issues and comments (ethical issues/consent forms)  Hot Topic: Home Schooling  House keeping (individual meeting and final presentation)

Individual Meeting & Final Presentation

Individual Meeting  A two-way conversation: strive for doing better: I give you feedback and you give me feedback Questions/confusions you have about your research in general? Questions about your proposal? Feedback on the learning experiences from taking this course:  what are some of the things about this course that you really like  what are some of the things that you think we could improve?

Final Presentation – how to get a good score?  Study purpose in a nutshell  Research questions  Research site & participants in brief (where, how many classes/students)  Data sources to answer each of your research questions  How will you increase the validity, reliability and credibility of your study? What about ethical issues?  Show one of your instruments from your appendix and justify (explain how you made/found this and what data/research question(s) will this instrument help you get/answer?  Timeline and justify your timeline.  Significance – what will you learn from doing this research? How does this research relate to/irrelevant to your teaching? How will this improve (or not) your teaching?

Hot Topic Is home schooling a danger to the American Society? Discussants: Kevin; Amy & Tim

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

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 of 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

What is in a Title? Chapter 8 & Chapter 9 P185  It’s memorable!  It provides a focus

Making Effective Professional Presentations Grow up as a Professional (Cont.)

10 Rules to keep your audience awake  PowerPoint presentations: the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Recall all the presentations you made or you attended – give a list of suggestions pointers/reminders/things to avoid

Week 14, Nov. 21, 06 Grow up as a Professional

Week 14, Nov. 21, 06 Grow up as a Professional