Month7 CBR Blog Entry
Challenge Based Research Reflection Blog Entry
How is your AR cycle 1 unfolding for you?
Currently I am having much of my difficulty with prompt responses and feedback from participants trying to get feedback from the participants in the initial phase. The essential question at this stage is how to get my respondents to involve themselves and regularly correspond without making myself a bit of a pest about my research data.
I am down a teacher (4) and still am having concerns with my educators responding timely with my feedback. i have done a Viddler video and attached to an email to the teacher to update them on what the CBR is and what it entails so that I might discourage any further bow outs by outlining the scope and assuring that this isn’t just taking their time to do surveys.
I am thinking of spreading out to Atlantic coast a bit more as the majority of my participants are from Drop Back In Academy (DBIA) and the feedback I am missing is coming from there.
What has been a surprise with your results?
I’ve found that the enthusiasm and regular feedback tends to come from the those who are already involved with technology (in this case, my technology instructor from Atlantic Coast, who is the only of the respondents who isn’t from DBIA. My desire to make things “low impact” for the educators has made me fall off my research timeline schedule
Another thing that is “unusual” but not surprising per se is that some of my participants, when faced with the challenge of investing more time into implementing a new concept have confirmed at this stage the assumption that time is a bigger factor. Fiances have ben mentioned in the surveys, yet with DBIA, which is where most of my participants teach, time takes on a more significant role as obstacle, as many of the sites, which ideally have 2 teachers and a parapro, are down a teacher. and are being more guarded with their time.
What tweaks are you making for your next cycle of research?
I am thinking that a bit more face to face dialog may be necessary for me to reinforce the importance of the research and my need to establish and maintain regular dialogue with the participants. I do believe some video interviews may be necessary. I may have more time nailing them down to do this, but it would provide an instantaneous response and actual data would be made available at that time which wouldn’t require me to wait for educators to “get back with me”
What is the overall participant’s response?
I have 5 of my 10 potential participants who have responded to my initial surveys and one that is in regular dialogue with me without prompting. I have found the level of desire to assist very promising initially, but the follow through has not been as promising. Since I have been using email as the preferred contact and the requested email of the respective educator, I can speculate as to why the response to inquires is not that consistent.
1. How is your CBR team measuring the results of the assessment tools? The measurement is based on Quantitative and Qualitative research and which one utilized was determined based on the type of research that each of us has been planning to do, the size of our anticipated target audience and the constructive feedback we have received from our academic instructors to this point. (Specifically speaking I am utilizing Qualitative research as my audience is much smaller and the “quantity” of feedback would be smaller.) Qualitative feedback for this stage was based on the significance of the shared “Rich Media” contribution to the work environment, and level of contribution to the learning, usage and workplace integration we could determine occurring.
Quantitative would be determined by measurable Quantity of audience members sharing “Rich Media” contributed to the work environment, and number of contributing to the learning, usage and workplace integration with said Media.
2.How did your group utilize individual talents?
In this stage of education and studies, it is understood that we all know our strengths and deficits well and talents dictated duties in that the type of collaborative work that each volunteer for and where appropriate, took the lead on was largely dictated by talent or skill, and in some cases a desire to cultivate or strengthen a talent. Regarding a lead role, this position wasn’t jumped at, but still volunteered for, which was a talent in and of itself in that it shown self awareness of a potential talent (leader)
3. What have you learned about collaboration?
Collaboration is based as much on the level of participation, as it is on what you contribute. It is influenced just as much on what time you have to invest, as it is on what you actually make time for. It is in a sense a symbiotic relationship between you and those you collaborate with in that it affects your work and their work equally.
4. How can you use music in you next research cycle? Or, give a compelling reason why the use of music is not appropriate for your research.
At this stage in the research, music use isn’t appropriate for my current audience as the majority of the educators involved with my research are located at an computer based alternative education program which has no real arts and humanities curriculum and has not made any strides or shown any interest in this subject area. Based on the minimal response level of participants for Phase one successful completion of Phase two will most like require a change of target audience educators, and once I have achieved that a revaluation of Music usage would be appropriate.
In the current status of my CBR, I have only planned for the minimal usage of music in the research cycle, and It will most likely take the form of original material created in GarageBand to accent the my presentations used for the target audience. If I approach an educator who actually teaches Music or does significant music related studies, I will reevaluate the level of music usage accordingly.
Monday, February 14, 2011
3 Comments
Marsona
You know John, something that you might not have thought about is what frame of thinking are the teacher in right now. I would like to know what grade level are your teachers. I know that high school teachers are not as likely to respond. Middle school will try and support you and elementary will be most helpful.There are a lot of factor plaguing educators now with the current state our country is in and all the buzz about schools shutting down and layoffs. Now would be a great time to do some research on the thought patterns of educators today and how all the layoffs and school closings is affected teachers now and how they perceive our students are going to be affected. But anyway, don’t give up and don’t hesitate to send them the email again with as a reminder. You never know they may respond.
Saturday, February 19, 2011 – 12:50 AM
Ishia Granger
Marsona is right about the level of response teachers give by grade level. I am a high school teacher find prompt responses to requests a bit challenging. I believe that there are teachers who would be receptive to your efforts. Start at home with your son’s teachers. They have two friends and they have two friends and so on and so on… (You get the picture.) You might also look at the colleges in your area. Students studying to become teachers are very eager and idealistic about education. If you’re in Florida, Teach for America has some considerable influence. You might be able to look there as well.That being said, you don’t have to minimally apply what you see as valuable tool. You’re creative and I believe that if your colleagues and administrators see the result of what you could do with music and all the other inexpendable expendables, they might reconsider.
Saturday, February 19, 2011 – 09:49 PM
Roxanne De Leon
Great feedback from your team, collaboration at its best. You will work this out and expanding your target audience may be the solution. The participants who respond will be your target audience. Do not worry about the ones who do not respond, perhaps they will join phase 2 implementation
Monday, February 21, 2011 – 11:03 AM
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