Week 3 (Jan 26- FEb. 1, 2020) : Practical tools for exploratory research
The focus this week is on how to gather evidence to answer your research questions. Your main task is to write about this in Google+ (see Activity 1 below).
To get an overview, watch the recording of the Week 3 webinar here
and/or look at the presentation slides here
In this webinar, Paula and Richard clarified distinctions between action research and exploratory research, identified different tools for exploratory research, and guided you to develop your own.
Here are the sources of evidence / tools for collecting information they discussed:
To get an overview, watch the recording of the Week 3 webinar here
and/or look at the presentation slides here
In this webinar, Paula and Richard clarified distinctions between action research and exploratory research, identified different tools for exploratory research, and guided you to develop your own.
Here are the sources of evidence / tools for collecting information they discussed:
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 https://groups.io/g/Classroom-based-research. 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?
Here is the explanation of this task by Paula and Richard, from the webinar.
You may also find it useful to watch the following from the webinar (again):
Making research questions more exploratory (5 mins.)
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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
Watch this 1-minute video (click hereNO FUNCIONA) by Anne Burns about ethical concerns in action research.
Answer her three main questions for yourself in our https://groups.io/g/Classroom-based-research. Ethical consdierations.
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 her three main questions for yourself in our https://groups.io/g/Classroom-based-research. Ethical consdierations.
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 first exploring the situation carefully. Partly, this is because doing so will help you ensure that any ideas you then put into practice (for example, for action research) will be suitable for your context. It might also be the case 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 solves the problem involved in (1) that not many sources are written specifically for 'difficult circumstances', e.g. large classes).
This is one good source, though> TELCnet (the Teaching English in Large Classes network) - for example, here and here.
Here we'd like to encourage you to try out gathering ideas from colleagues.
One of your exploratory research questions could be 'What ideas can I find which seem appropriate to my situation and which will help bring about the change I want?'
Ask colleagues who know or can understand your situation 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 and Richard 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 they gathered 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.
:
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 our Google+ or Facebook groups? You could post your question asking for help / advice from other participants either in https://groups.io/g/Classroom-based-research Request for help. How can I ...? or as a new discussion topic in our Facebook group or in the TELCnet 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.
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 our Google+ or Facebook groups? You could post your question asking for help / advice from other participants either in https://groups.io/g/Classroom-based-research Request for help. How can I ...? or as a new discussion topic in our Facebook group or in the TELCnet 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: Classroom-Based Research EVO 2016: "Data collection tools for research" by Kenan Dikilitas & Asli Lidice Gokturk Saglam
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)