Our textbook states that one way of selecting a research topic is to think about a question or area of interest that has resulted from personal experience. As I think back on my personal and professional experiences in education, several things of interest come to mind. First, I am always curious as to what factors, whether they be sociocultural, biological, etc... lead a student to prefer one subject over another. More specifically, what kind of commonalities are there in students who claim History as their favorite subject? Single-sex education is another broad topic that is of particular interest to me. I'm not sure that there are any single-sex classrooms in the local school system here, but I would be interested to research and compare possible discrepancies in achievement between student's in single-sex classrooms vs. co-ed classrooms. Also, given my personal experience in private and public high schools, I have always been intrigued by the differences between the two. A possible research topic here would be to compare curriculum or teaching in social studies classrooms at private and public schools.
I realize that the above topics are probably too broad and thus difficult to research, they just represent my general, broad interest. I have also been advised by former MTF students to focus your topic on something that will be of particular use to you as a teacher in your field instead of trying to conduct some kind of breakthrough in educational research. I want to make this experience as useful and smooth as possible! Therefore, I plan to research studies done in my field and try to come up with a topic that is not only of interest, but also practical and manageable.
5 comments:
Carl, you have some good ideas here. I would suggest that you turn them more inside the classroom. For example, your subject preference topic could be a survey to see what kinds of instructional activities history students prefer and what influences a positive attitude. There are private high schools in town, and a private single sex women's high school, but I don't think either of those is as good as something inside the classroom. This is a good beginning. Keep thinking about it!!
I agree...I would try to focus more on an instructional technique or something that happens inside the classroom walls, as that will be easier to research, and ultimately, more helpful in student teaching. It can be something such as how social studies teachers use writing or lecture, to how they use the Internet...
Carl,
I think your idea about comparing the curriculum and teaching styles in social studies classrooms in public vs. private schools is really interesting!
Here are some suggestions on how you could get into that - Is there a different focus or pace in private schools without the pressure of end of course tests? It would also be interesting to see how the guiding principles or values of the school affect the way curriculum is presented. For example, how does a civics teacher in a conservative, faith-based school present the idea of separation of church and state. Or how if at all does a history teacher in that same school present the Scopes Trial?
I see dr. mac's and dr. friedman's points on looking closely at technique, but I think you could do that in comparing the private and public schools. Besides, that may help you decide in which environment you would want to teach. I don't know what kind of relationship our program has with the private schools in the area, so that may be an issue to consider.
I think it might be possible to study single sex high schools if you look to the private schools. Perhaps you could compare how single sex boys schools and single sex girls schools confront similar topics. You could even go beyond achievement. I think studying the different approaches and any difference in content could be very interesting.
One concern I have is that I wonder how strong Wake's preexisting relationships with local single-sex private schools are. It might be harder to put something together, particularly in multiple schools, if that underlying relationship isn't strong.
I dont want to beat a dead horse, and I am kind of late on the comment train but I was, as most of us, having a difficult time honing in on a more specific topic. However, after reading the article we read for the Quiz, I think that in classroom teaching/learning techniques may be most beneficial to us in our upcoming years as you alluded to in your blog. One idea you raised that I didn't think of was what draws certain people to certain subjects? Because their good at it? Did they have a great teacher in that subject area? Was it a subject their parents enjoyed or practice? Perhaps you can find an in class study on that?--Just some suggestions!!
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