Scientific-basedEdResearchPart4
From LiteracyTentWiki
Message Thirty-Eight
2-7-05
Colleagues--
I guess I better follow up on what I said previously.
Quantitative research is a subheading of qualitative research Debbie is describing qualitative research.
In teaching, the quality of the relationship between teacher and student is what counts. Maybe this could be measured by "happy classroom," v "unhappy classroom," but maybe not. The teacher is the instrument, as in any qualitative research project, where the researcher is the instrument. Debbie knows she is doing the right thing because the student tells her, in many ways. If she is "off-course," she will make a course correction.
The best example I know of this process is described in the works of Vivian Paley., but be careful, she teaches young children.
I was reading last night some Washington documents put together by people who had never taught...and it showed. I don't like to be trampled on, professionally, by people who don't know what they are talking about, it hurts to much, so I have to speak up. And I really do thank Debbie for speaking up as she did.
Andrea
Message Thirty-Nine
2-14-05
(Posted directly to this page, not to the AAACE-NLA list)
Research Also Can Shape Policy Decisions Which Then Affect Classroom Environment and Instruction
One recent use I have found for the research is in passing it along to others who make policy which affect what happens in my classroom (namely the county wide GED Taskforce -- whose, in my view, mistaken goal for employment opportunities in our county is 100% of all county residents who don't have a HS diploma will get their GEDs -- and the social workers who keep sending clients reading at a fourth grade level over to get their GEDs in a month). I recently took the study done in Iowa that correlated CASAs scores to the liklihood people would pass the GED test to a meeting of social workers who really had no idea what the CASAs scores they recieved meant. This was very helpful. I had been telling them for months that people weren't ready to take the GED with CASAs scores of 109 in mathematics, but, for some reason, they didn't believe my teacher "widsom." However, when I took the article published by CASAs to them and explained it, there was a collective "Oh, I see..." (It didn't hurt either that I took a copy of the practice GED to show them so that they could see that most of them couldn't pass the mathematics section on the first try).
The other occasion I had to use research was with this county wide GED task force. They are part of the WIB for our county and I think are looking for some grant money from somewhere. But given the research briefs at NCSALL about how much GED graduates actually make over others (about $1000, which still puts them below the poverty line) and the fact that these same gains weren't seen in the research for men of color -- you kind of wonder about the premise that everyone having a GED will solve the employment problem in our county. (Not to mention that many of these students have IQ issues and learning disabilities that we are not addressing in our county). So again, the research added credence to something I "knew" --namely that the GED will not be an appropriate educational goal for all students-- but it gave more credence to why I believed it.
As for practice within the classroom, I think that it is wrong to see teachers going to the research first and then changing classroom practices. What is really effective is for teachers to identify a problem they are encountering in their classroom and then looking for the research that can help them solve the problem. The research gives you one part of the picture. Then you need to decide what is best educational practice and to experiment with it. This has helped me not have to "reinvent the wheel" when trying to decide how to teach something more effectively. I used to look to curriculum to solve this problem, thinking if I just had better curriculum, it would solve my problems. Now I more often look to research -- both with adults and also in K-12 resources -- to see what others have done that I might try. Then, you look for the materials and resources that can help you implement what will work, not just materials that the publisher tells you will work.
For example, John Commings presentation on learner persistence has caused me to be less stingy in lending out my books and videos (all of which have been returned) and to post the times of PBS Nova programs and other science programs for my students to watch at home. A small change, but the students like to take things to study at home. They ask to borrow other books, and they listen to what others are borrowing. I would like to have students begin a rating system of the books so they could see which books and materials were helpful to others. I don't think I would have tried this if I hadn't seen his research about how adults learn things.
This has made me question how I will use my program dollars next year. I will probably buy a bunch of blank videos and use them to make copies of the videos I have so they can go out to people, rather than buy more books that do the same thing as books I already have.
Michele Craig
ABE/GED Teacher
Woodland Adult School
Woodland, CA
Go back to Scientific-basedEdResearchPart2, Scientific-basedEdResearchPart3 or to the beginning of the discussion Scientific-basedEdResearch .
