Week 3 (25 - 31 Jan, 2021) : Practical tools for exploratory research
Welcome to Week 3!
The focus this week is on how to gather evidence to answer your research questions. Your main task is to write about this in Edmodo (see Activity 1 below) or in the Facebook group.
Objectives of the week
Focusing on how to gather evidence to answer your research questions, we will mainly consider how to explore a situation before attempting to bring about a change in your classroom.
This entails:
- stepping back from the situation
- making clear what your exploratory research questions are (review of last week)
- considering possible sources of information
- designing appropriate ways of gathering information
- actually engaging in the research
Because some of you are not able to carry out the research with students at the moment, we will also consider what you could do explore the practical question 'What can I change?' by asking fellow community members or other colleagues.
Our main goals are for you to:
* think some more about your research questions
* identify what information you will need to gather in order to understand the situation better and perhaps change it
* decide how to gather this information.
By carrying out Activity 1 (the main task) below, you will get feedback from mentors and from other participants.
Focusing on how to gather evidence to answer your research questions, we will mainly consider how to explore a situation before attempting to bring about a change in your classroom.
This entails:
- stepping back from the situation
- making clear what your exploratory research questions are (review of last week)
- considering possible sources of information
- designing appropriate ways of gathering information
- actually engaging in the research
Because some of you are not able to carry out the research with students at the moment, we will also consider what you could do explore the practical question 'What can I change?' by asking fellow community members or other colleagues.
Our main goals are for you to:
* think some more about your research questions
* identify what information you will need to gather in order to understand the situation better and perhaps change it
* decide how to gather this information.
By carrying out Activity 1 (the main task) below, you will get feedback from mentors and from other participants.
Activity 1 (your main task this week): Write notes for an exploratory research plan!
Answer the following in canvas.instructure.com/courses/2456252 under What Will I Explore, What Evidence Will I Gather, and When?'
Based on your overall concern / question as expressed last week, answer the following;
1) What are my exploratory research questions?
2) What evidence will I gather, and how?
2) When will I start?
You may also find it useful to watch the following from 2018 webinar:
Making research questions more exploratory (5 mins.)
You could also consult Chapter 5 in the recently published book – A Handbook for Exploratory Action Research by Richard Smith and Paula Rebolledo (British Council)
If you are going to start your research soon, you can, if you wish, write in more detail about tools you will use, so that you can get feedback from fellow EVO participants and mentors.
Please try to actually collect some classroom evidence in relation to your research questions and be prepared to report on what you discover in week 5.
If you are not teaching at the present time or cannot do classroom-based research yet, why not try the alternative exploratory task (Activity 3) below?
Activity 2: Ethical issues
Here are three questions to ask yourself in relation to teacher-research
Answer the three main questions for yourself in canvas.instructure.com/courses/2456252 under "Ethical Considerations"
1) Whose permission or consent do you need?
2) Who will be affected by the research?
3) Who should be told about the research when it's completed?
Answer the three main questions for yourself in canvas.instructure.com/courses/2456252 under "Ethical Considerations"
1) Whose permission or consent do you need?
2) Who will be affected by the research?
3) Who should be told about the research when it's completed?
Activity 3: 'How can I ...?' – Gathering practical answers from other teachers
To answer the question 'How can I ...[improve a certain aspect in my teaching]?' we are recommending that you first explore the situation carefully. One reason is that this will help ensure that any ideas you then put into practice (for example, for action research) will be suitable for your context. Also, during your exploration, some good practical ideas might emerge (e.g. from students' suggestions).
Other sources for good ideas can include: (1) reading, e.g. internet sources and (2) colleagues who are familiar with the same kind of teaching situation as you (this helps solve the problem that not many reading sources are written specifically for 'difficult circumstances', e.g. large classes - though one good internet source is TELCnet (the Teaching English in Large Classes network) - for example, here).
Here we'd like to encourage you to try out gathering ideas from colleagues.
One of your exploratory research questions could be 'What practical ideas can I find which seem appropriate to my situation and which will help bring about the change I want?'
Ask colleagues who know your situation or who can understand it well. First, describe to them the situation you would like to change, and then ask them what they would do in such a situation. Your specific research question in this case is 'What do other teachers (who understand my context) think I should do to change the situation?'
Other sources for good ideas can include: (1) reading, e.g. internet sources and (2) colleagues who are familiar with the same kind of teaching situation as you (this helps solve the problem that not many reading sources are written specifically for 'difficult circumstances', e.g. large classes - though one good internet source is TELCnet (the Teaching English in Large Classes network) - for example, here).
Here we'd like to encourage you to try out gathering ideas from colleagues.
One of your exploratory research questions could be 'What practical ideas can I find which seem appropriate to my situation and which will help bring about the change I want?'
Ask colleagues who know your situation or who can understand it well. First, describe to them the situation you would like to change, and then ask them what they would do in such a situation. Your specific research question in this case is 'What do other teachers (who understand my context) think I should do to change the situation?'
In the workshop they ran together in Kathmandu, Amol Padwad and Richard Smith encouraged participants to share their practical questions about how to improve a situation with other teachers in low-resource classrooms who were in the workshop, then encouraged them to gather insights from those other teachers. Watch this video-recording of two teachers - Joya and Babita from Assam, India - who report back on what their group found when they elicited answers to their research question from other teachers. This is to show that colleagues - inside your school or outside it - can be a good source of ideas relating to your context.
To read more, see Part Two of the freely downloadable book: Teaching in Low-resource Classrooms: Voices of Experience, edited by Richard Smith, Amol Padwad and Deborah Bullock (British Council, 2017).
To read more, see Part Two of the freely downloadable book: Teaching in Low-resource Classrooms: Voices of Experience, edited by Richard Smith, Amol Padwad and Deborah Bullock (British Council, 2017).
If you are not teaching at the moment (and are therefore unable to do research with students), why not try interviewing colleagues - or gaining ideas for your practice from colleagues in Edmodo or Facebook groups? You could post your question asking for help / advice from other participants either in Edmodo canvas.instructure.com/courses/2456252 under 'Requests for Help: How Can I ...?' or as a new discussion topic in our Facebook group. Try to get ideas which relate to your topic from up to 5 colleagues and be prepared to summarize the ideas in week 5.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
A good way to start this week's work and interactions is by watching the recordings of the previous webinars which focused on the focus of Week 3.
Paula and Richard explained the distinction between action research and exploratory research, identified different tools for exploratory research, and guided you to identify the sources of evidence you might use in your research. Here are the webinar powerpoints.
Here are the sources of evidence / types of data that they discussed:
Summary: hoped-for achievements
By the end of this week (week 3) we hope that you have:
- Decided on exploratory research questions, as a step towards answering your overall research question.
- Gained an overview of different possible sources of evidence in classroom-based research.
- Made some decisions about how you will gather information to answer your questions.
- Considered the ethical dimensions of your research.
- Shared your tools for collecting information, for feedback from mentors and other participants (optional).