Three

Ok, so as I said last week, qualitative seems to be the best route for me and my topic. I am very interested in interviews. (And not the video kind!) So far, I’m thinking of interviewing both teachers and their students. I would ask teachers questions to figure out if they consciously manipulate time and plan to be either rigid or flexible in their daily use of it. I plan to ask students if they prefer teachers who are rigid or flexible in their routines. I would also be interested in knowing if they think those teachers who appear to be flexible have a plan or not.

In addition to interviewing teachers and students, I would also like to use an observation component. After today’s exercise, I realized that the naturalistic approach works best for me but that a Flanders Interaction grid like we did today would be practical too. I’m curious to find out if those categories are specific or if I could tailor them to fit my study better. I like the ones about the lecturing, asking questions and dead time. I would like to add some about “housekeeping” time, review time, and independent study, for example.

I also liked what Dr. McCoy said today about there being a specific culture in the classroom. I think that a teacher’s use of time can contribute to this idea of a class-by-class culture. Each teacher may have specific uses for time on a daily basis that can contribute to a culture that the students understand and predict. I’m thinking of this as when then students walk in everyday, for example, they know to complete the bell-ringer on the board, turn in homework in a specific box, or work on some independent reading. Dr. McCoy, can you please comment on who you said wrote quite a bit on this idea?