Sarah Lovejoy, I figured it out.

All you have to do is click on the little picture icon that says “Add a Picture” in the screen where you enter your text. It’s right above the text box, next to the
“spell check” icon—you can’t miss it. ;) FYI, my picture has nothing to do with this post. I just thought we could all use a laugh.

As far as my research goes, I’m seriously thinking about running with this smiling idea. I think I will probably have to make it a broader topic, as Dr. McCoy suggested, and maybe talk about “positivity” in general or something similar, but this one really interests me. And I think that’s pretty important. My biggest worry is that I won’t be able to find enough related literature…but we’ll see how that pans out.

In trying to think of this study qualitatively, I could definitely conduct teacher interviews or surveys to see how much they think they use positivity in the classroom. Combined with observation and possibly student surveys or interviews, it would be interesting to see if there is any significant disparity between the teachers’ and the students’ responses. For example, do teachers think they are very positive while students do not perceive them as such? Honestly, though (and I know this may shock you, Dr. McCoy), when I first started thinking about this study, I thought of it mostly in terms of data that would end up looking rather quantitative. I thought about just making a modified version of something like the Flander’s analysis we did in class—making tic marks for each time the teacher smiles and for each time that a teacher's smile elicits a “positive” bodily response (e.g. a smile, a laugh, a nod, etc.). Or something like that. Anyhow, I will welcome any comments or suggestions with open arms—and a warm, fuzzy smile, of course. ;)