Musings and Feedback
Things have been a little slow around here lately. I took off blogging the week of Thanksgiving, and the week after I was in San Diego at the Literacy Research Association’s annual conference. I used the conference as a place to test out some of the ideas I have discussed here and get feedback and reactions. What I found was that people either are very intrigued and excited about what I am proposing to do, particularly in the second year, or they are confused or possibly think it’s a bad idea but won’t explictly tell me.
There’s no one single thing about my project that garners a love/hate (or love/confused) reaction from people because really, this project is messy and not following regular rules in pretty much every capacity. The fact that I’m willing to let my definition of disruptive instruction bend and change over the course of the spring perplexed some people. Others were confused as to why I would even consider letting teachers or students analyze data gathered in Year 2. Not having a comprehension assessment, or really any standardized form of assessment, did not always make sense to everyone. Some people embraced the idea recognizing that these assessments are limited and that while they can have a place in educational research, that does not mean have to include them in every single study. The idea of a museum or performance exhibit raised a few eyebrows. People were either super excited about the possibilities or super confused about why I would do this and what benefit it would offer.
I did get one piece of excellent feedback. Someone suggested that I have students document the making of an artifact in Year 2. This person thought that seeing the actual process would be very interesting. I think she might be right. I could see asking teachers to do this for one or two artifacts. Maybe more if we could figure out how to make it work well. I’m going to file that away and return to it in May.
For the people who were confused or perhaps put off by my ideas, I don’t blame them. I’m not trying to suggest I’m some innovative radical, but the ideas I have been blogging about are not the norm. If you’re a researcher who has been very successful at following the rules, then my ideas may not even seem like “real” research. To be fair, I have been very successful at following the rules. By that, I mean I have done things that are largely considered normal and acceptable in how I design my research and how I present my findings. I have not been the person who gets large grants. I have done my work through small, mostly internal, grants. For the most part, it’s the people who have garnered large grants that give me sideways looks. I can’t say why that is for sure. I’m simply noting it for future reference.
On a side note, is anybody getting bored with how research is being presented at conferences and in publications? Is anybody else tired of sitting through powerpoints and reading work that pretty much follows a written formula? To some extent, I am. I wonder, is anybody paying attention to what it is we’re all saying to each other? Or have we just grown so accustomed to the format of how we share our work that our eyes and brains have glossed over?
Educational Disruptions 