EDUC 881                                                                                EDRS 822

     We began by drawing our framework for how we believed policy was made.  The professor saved our drawings and we reviewed them and our updated ideas at the end of the class.  It was a valuable exercise to see how our ideas changed as we learned more and an excellent teaching strategy for a course like this.

     The requirements for this class included three major projects:  We had to teach a one hour lesson on a syllabus topic.  We had to choose a policy issue and collect and analyze data .  And, for our final project we had to design a workshop for policy makers or practitioners on one of the syllabus topics.

     In addition to the seminar sessions that the students led, we had guest speakers on policy from the Virginia State legislature.  They talked about how they look at the proposals and the communications that come their way in order to decide what to consider seriously.  It was an eye-opener for policy neophytes like me that format is more important than content.  Short is good.  Shorter is better.  The bottom line from this session is that if one really wants to influence policy, make sure that the proposal summery is no more than one paragraph and that it includes a catch phrase that lends itself to a sound bite! 

       One highlight of this course was the visit of Jim Crawford, the author of one of our textbooks for the course. (Bilingual education: History, politics, theory and practice.)  He addressed our class and other invited classes.  Afterwards, he joined us for coffee and conversation for another hour.  I also had the privilege of driving him to the metro station closest to my home (a 35 minute one-on-one conversation in my car!)  I felt that my courses, especially EDUC 894 and EDUC 881 had prepared me to carry on an intelligent conversation with someone I consider as extremely well informed on the topic of bilingual education.  And I kept my mind on the driving as well!  The evening was memorable.

      For the field project I tried to trace the evolution of a dual language program from the first mention of it at the school board to implementation.  I used Wirt & Kirst's framework to look at the decisions that influenced the establishment of the program.  (There are decision making charts that did not import when I put the paper into the portfolio.) (Field project) The field project gave me background information on who actually came up with the idea for the dual language program. The program is looked upon as a way to get the more affluent residents around the school to use the public school rather than putting their children in private school or moving away when the children are school age.  But, the idea for a dual language program was started by a community advocacy group that wanted to use a research based way to bring up the test scores for minority and language minority children. 

     As the final project, I used the information that I had gained from the first two projects to make a workshop that addressed what a dual language program was, its goals and how it should be designed.  I designed it to be used to inform teachers and it can be adapted for parents.  The workshop has a number of components, including a Powerpoint presentation based on the focus session one.  It also has small group activities and team building.

   In retrospect, this course was very valuable and it is definitely one that should be taken by anyone interested in bilingual education and how policy is made in education.
 
 

      In EDRS 812 I felt very comfortable with the methodology of qualitative research.  I wanted to learn more.  Since there was no mixed-methods course offered, I chose to take this course on advanced qualitative methods.  It was a good choice.  The course was organized into modules.  The first module dealt with paradigms in qualitative research. I had not thought about looking at research in terms of 'where the researcher was coming from' in his/her philosophy.  We read binders-full of articles and discussed the paradigms represented.  We wrote about our own approach as we understood it. (Module 1)

     We looked briefly at action research (which I would like to know more about) and practitioner research.  For each topic we read a number of studies that took that approach.  It got to be so much reading that the professor issued a new syllabus with the number of readings cut considerably.  I did find reading qualitative studies very interesting because I like to know the context of the studies:  knowing about the subjects interests me more than facts and figures.

     We looked at research design and tried out conceptual frameworks.  Dr. Maxwell tried to get us to see what was bad design. I'm still not sure that I can recognize it but I am trying.  Conceptual frameworks was and still is a challenge. I like to think of it as concept mapping but am not sure if it is what I think I will find or what I need to do (the roadmap) to where I would like to go).  We looked at computer programs that promise to do it all for us! (Module 2) One of the articles gave us a road map for the kind of questions to ask when thinking of investing in qualitative software.

     The part I really enjoyed and would like to pursue is narrative analysis.  We took the interview material that we had collected in EDRS 812 and analyzed whether we could use any part for a narrative analysis. (Module 3)  I found that one of the teachers I'd interviewed spoke in narratives.  I did an oral presentation of how she told her life story.

     In Module 4 we looked at the issue of validity again.  I found that I was fighting my judgmental attitude by analyzing what I wrote and my word choice when something came up that I did not approve of or I thought was wrong.  I have seen that more and more as I looked over the papers that I wrote before my first portfolio review.  My word choice in many cases reflects a negative or judgmental attitude.

     That part I enjoyed the most was the section on cases, vignettes and life histories.   I feel that my writing style lends itself to writing a life history or a vignette.  I envision whatever I do to be filled with vignettes out of the lives of the people I study.  That is what makes reading research interesting to me (and I'm sure that I'm not the only one).

     This was a rigorous and stimulating course that has greatly helped me to focus on mapping my research question in order to organize my research and to make sure that I don't leave anything important out.  Finding what is important and what is not important is where I still am.