Wednesday, October 15

Yes, we covered a lot of material today. Glancing through your blogs I can see that you are starting to think about what kind of research you might do for the course. Keep working on this in Blog 11- add to your list of questions, do some brainstormy listing and associating - then write 3 short paragraphs - one for each of three different projects (they can be related). Hopefully this writing is going to open you up even more - though in today's class discussion you seemed to be thinking in some depth about particular projects.

The writing on how to develop research questions is there for you - if you get stuck (though most of you seem to have the idea)- or if you have problems with being objective or "sensitive". Keep your lists of assumptions and check back on it and add to it as you begin to gather ideas. Your assumptions shape what you see - and the better you get at stepping outside your assumptions the more you will see.

We looked (briefly) at the assignment sheet for your research project, and the IRB forms for collecting data. Read over the criteria for the research project, the sample research papers (posted here as well) and think about any questions you have about how to get started with your project.

For Monday:
Bring some writing to class - in case we have no students you can tutor one another. For later sessions we will have an "evaluation" form for students to complete - but for this session I think you have enough on your hands.
We will spend the first half hour going over how to set up data collection and reviewing how to take notes. For your first session - don't worry so much about writing "on your topic" as taking lots of descriptive notes that give the details of what happens. As presented in the reading assignment - your research question will take shape through your analysis of your data. Make sure you collect rich enough data to give open up your ideas. Regardless of the focus of your study you might want to do some reading/thinking about what kinds of student-tutor interactions indicate that a session is going "well" or "badly" as this information may be what you need to evaluate the focus of your study (e.g. how eye contact influences tutoring sessions).You will conduct sessions and take data from 10-11.

For Wednesday:
Read Murphy in McAndrew & Reigstad. This essay is short - and provides information about how students "feel" that should be relevant to many of your topics. It says on the calendar that we will look at some videos + code body language - but in class today we decided we would devote the first half of class (or as much as you need) to answering questions, filling in information you might be hazy on, and giving some clear direction for setting up your projects.

As I mentioned in class - my intention is to get back to your blogs - but I will be out of town this weekend and it will depend on whether I have an internet connection in my hotel. If I don't have feedback for you by Sunday night - you will have it by Wednesday.

Have a great weekend and see you in CAS on Monday.