Day 12 – Between Waking Up at 3.30 am and Doing an Awful Lot of Writing, I am Forgetting Simple Words

EDUC 5410 (and a little 5400 at the end of this section)

Assessment as Research Project?  CHECK!

Rough Draft of Final Paper?  CHECK!

I am very happy that my project is done and am looking forward to presenting it tomorrow at breakneck speed.  I hope I get to the essence of my purpose and assessment tools in the ten-minute time allotment. 

Writing the final paper was an interesting process of reflection upon this summer’s learning through the lens of the last year.  While I wrote primarily about this summer, I also included a section near the end about how I feel assessment has moved to the forefront of my mind and that the language of assessment flows much easier than it ever has before.  I looked back at how this summer’s project seemed tightly aligned to the issues of validity, reliability, and fairness which only a year ago I new very little about.  What is occurring for me is that these items are now always in my mind as I design constructs, assessment tools and learning activities.  Perhaps this is because I relate them to faces and instances where they have not been in my practice; where the climate in my room was more hierarchical than one of collaboration.  This is highlighted best in the assessment tools I have designed for my project and that I am going to try to implement in my classroom setting in September.  If embraced by the students, the amount of self-regulation in their learning will increase substantially and I feel that suddenly learning has great potential to be something that we do together. 

There were times this year when I reworked old units, particularly in Social Studies, where the level of engagement and enjoyment were at levels I had never witnessed before.  This has occurred because of the studies I have embarked upon this last year.  I relish the time when a summative assessment was written rather than multiple-choice and, when the students wrote reflections for me afterwards, admitted they liked the old way better because it was easier.  But the most incredible part was that they admitted (grudgingly) that they had learned more.  I knew at that moment that I would never be able to go back to how things were before again.  Not that they were bad, just less engaging.

Thank you both for pushing me to expand my assessment practice and design.  I am sure my students would thank you as well.  Albeit a little grudgingly. 

EDUC 5400      

I admit that I am a little verbose both in speech and in writing.  (My wife would chuckle at the “little” part.)  I have never had much difficulty in writing lots of ideas down.  So when today I experienced writing a page-and-a-half in seven hours, you can imagine my shock and frustration!  This Research Proposal is going to challenge me every step of the way. 

I can’t say this is because it is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.  I think it is more because a) it is a new concept, b) it is a new way of writing, and c) I am so tired that I am forgetting simple words and thoughts. 

So far I would have to say that the most difficult part has been summarizing the literature.  I am much better at explaining the literature in far more words punctuated by quotations that back up my explanations.  I know I have a solid Purpose Statement and Research Question but it is getting there that I am struggling most with.  I know I will, and I am thankful for Creswell and a well laid out map of how to design research proposals. 

And now I am going to take my “ontologically-realistic-epistemologically-experiential-intersubjective-research-perspectived-pragmatically-paradigmed” (at least this time) brain to bed.