Friday, June 6, 2008
My beginning...
In attempting to brainstorm a potential topic for my research, I have found myself spending a considerable amount of time reflecting on my four years of teaching. The opportunity to associate myself with this program is meant to be a chance for me to grow as an individual and professional. I want to choose a topic that interests me, but I find myself coming back to one question: How much will this benefit my students when I return to the classroom? Doing an in-depth study on gender in the history classroom may be of interest, and would no doubt have an impact on my teaching methods; but I question to what degree? I keep coming back to my arch nemesis, my Brutus—the EOC (End of Course) test. What could I evaluate that would help all teachers—not just me—improve their EOC scores? (Please understand, “teaching to the test” is a loaded statement with many negative connotations. I encourage you to discuss this sometime with me in class.) This year in my classroom I’ve toyed with the idea (and even some implementation) of emphasis non-content and specific content related vocabulary, as well as using various remediation tools for all students throughout the course. Both of these ideas seem ripe for research. It seems, however, that both of these ideas, as well as many other would require a certain level of experimentation, which would be a difficult and unlikely route for this particular assignment. I’m struggling to determine what factors already present in a classroom I could evaluate. Most of my colleagues are winding down and are therefore less interested in helping me brainstorm. I look forward to class to hear other ideas and potentially bounce ideas off my new peers.
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5 comments:
Sarah, your teaching experience is an excellent source of research ideas. I know the EOC is a biggie. It seems that any teaching technique that would improve achievement would positively impact the EOC. I think that "teaching to the test" often means "teaching to the curriculum" so it is not all bad. It would be good to focus on some specific teaching technique, and ask teachers and/or students if it improves their attitude and achievement. The trick is to define the technique....
Thank you very much for your comment. I completely agree about "teaching to the test" as it relates to the curriculum. My problems with the EOC start when the test does not measure the curriculum. A great topic to bring up with history teachers, but only if you are available for a long discussion.
Sarah,
Ahh...the end of course test. One approach could be to look at a specific teaching method or construct (such as reading, writing, vocabulary) and study the extent to which teachers use this method and their views of it in relation to the EOC. I wrote an article (from my dissertation) that looks at this, from the point of view of digital primary sources, which may be helpful: http://www.citejournal.org/vol6/iss3/socialstudies/article1.cfm
http://www.citejournal.org/vol6/
iss3/socialstudies/article1.cfm
Sarah,
I completely know how your feel in terms of EOC woes. I am currently going through my own end of grade testing in Virginia. I am feeling stressed and anxious as the test is not only a representation of the academic ability of the students but also an indication of “how I teach”. I know from my experience in Virginia the teachers feel so much stress from the administration to have passing scores and thus the teachers pass on the stress to the students. Testing is such a controversial issue that I think it presents some wonderful possibilities for research. Dr. McCoy and Dr. Friedman have a good point about picking out one technique that teachers feel have positivity impacted their test preparation. The good news is that testing is a topic that many have already researched. It might be helpful to see what is out there to help start the thought process of what you want to do.
I know for me, I wish that I had collected data this whole year as it would make this process a bit easier. I have thought about the end of grade testing and have been interested in doing a comparative study between social studies testing in a county in Virginia vs. a county in North Carolina. I know this would be too broad but I find it extremely fascinating. Maybe at the least we could just talk about it..haha.
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