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(Action Research- A, Literature Review/Proposal-B, Curriculum Revision- C)

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Describe your specific topic and inquiry interest. 

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Describe your specific topic and inquiry interest. 

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What is the main problem or question driving your inquiry?

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What theoretical lenses are guiding your inquiry? (Constructivism, post-structuralism, critical pedagogy, feminist theory, critical race theory, disability studies, etc.)

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What roadblocks or difficulties are you encountering with this inquiry? (Scholarly Literature, Data Collection, Sharing Implications). Explain!

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When you finish your section, please peruse the board and give your classmates feedback/advice/praises.

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I am pursuing Option C for my inquiry (critiquing and suggesting improvements for NC's Economics and Personal Finance Course).

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I will dive deeper into the North Carolina standards (and unpacked objectives) for EPF. First, I will fully describe the current curriculum standards and objectives. Second, I will critique and redesign the curriculum based on critical scholarly literature. While the class already contains valuable information, it also can be taught in a rote, traditional manner where students are expected to absorb “helpful” economic and financial information. I have often considered how the class perpetuates normative values and the conventional view of  “success” without challenging social systems. While the curriculum has some strong points, many aspects could be restructured regarding content (less self-centered, individualistic/more liberatory), student inquiry skills, and centering place/community as the natural starting point for the course.

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I am primarily using a constructivist lens for my inquiry. Although labeled as "personal finance," the EPF course still heavily relies on transmitting facts in an autocratic, standardized manner (ex., defining investing strategies, economic systems, fiscal/monetary policy, etc.) My reformation of the standards will focus on inquiry skills that value prior knowledge, active/experiential learning, student curiosity, and authentic connections to the local Cary community.

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I am confident in my ability to describe and then critique the curriculum. However, I am still searching for specific journals/articles that analyze Economic and Personal Finance education through a critical lens. Many articles we've read throughout the semester already relate to my topic (Dewey, Smith & Sobel, Freire) more broadly. In the next three weeks, I am committing to acquire 3-4 new articles per week for my literature review.

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I will be working on option C, curriculum revision.

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I am writing a proposal for a research study that could be conducted with the elementary undergraduate students I teach, investigating how they conceptualize inquiry instruction and apply it in their teaching. Theory -> Practice

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Cognitive retention rates of digital game based instruction as compared to traditional methods.

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I have selected the literature review/proposal option (and am hopeful some of this can be used to guide me in my dissertation!)

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For my final project, I hope to contribute to a growing body of research that aims to highlight the need for active inquiry and student agency in the history classroom. I am opting to conduct a literature review and research proposal. I aim to explore both practitioner and student perceptions of the history classroom and historical inquiry. Based on an initial review of relevant literature, there is a growing consensus that students internalize many aspects of the collective memory approach to history. I hope to gain insight into how students internalize history classrooms' hidden curriculum through a web-based survey.

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My main question is: how does an undergraduate course focused on science inquiry instruction support preservice teachers (PSTs) in applying inquiry practices in the classroom. This research will focus on how teachers apply their understanding of inquiry in their lesson planning and also in their enactment of those lesson plans to better understand what aspects of inquiry PSTs are applying in their practice and what areas may need further support in the undergraduate program.

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The main problem or issue driving my inquiry...

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The main problem or issue driving my inquiry...

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History has often been unfairly maligned as a dry and irrelevant subject by many students. This unfortunate reputation is primarily due to the structure and epistemological framework of history classrooms. Most history educators lean heavily on skills associated with storytelling to present a passive experience for students that replicates a consumer experience. Research indicates that the typical experiences within the history classroom are not indicative of the experiences and skills associated with historical research. Students are taught in a passive manner, which does not equip them with the appropriate skills for historical inquiry. For many students, history is a static, pre-established set of facts and figures- a discipline that does not invite inquiry or investigation.

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This study is rooted in the theoretical framework of critical pedagogy. Critical pedagogy is a perspective in which critical theory is applied to the fundamental understanding of education (Sandars, 2016). It is often employed by researchers to “examine the various ways in which classrooms too often function as modes of social, political, and cultural reproduction” (Giroux, 2011, p. 5).

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Describe your specific topic and inquiry interest. 

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Describe your specific topic and inquiry interest. 

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I want to look at a current literacy curriculum being used in ELA classrooms, in order to see how teachers are/can use students’ cultural backgrounds, personal experiences, and beliefs as assets in interpreting texts. By examining and redesigning a literacy curriculum through these lenses, I aim to address gaps in current practices and develop strategies that empower students to connect meaningfully with texts and their peers while challenging biases and stereotypes that grapple multilingual learners.

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I am having issues with narrowing down my research questions. I also am currently learning survey methods, so I am having to refine my methods section as I learn more about validity in surveys.

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Constructivism has been a foundation in a lot of the work I do and also supports this project. Students in the ELM program at NC State are given opportunities to construct knowledge through weekly courses, application in the classroom setting, and reflection on those experiences. Throughout the courses I teach, we talk about how we are continually building our skills as teachers and it takes students playing an active role in their learning which is often different from some courses they've taken previously where they may have been able to "sit and get" the information they needed.

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I want to explore an intersection between the principles of Transactional theory (reader response) and Culturally Responsive Pedagogy.

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Inquiry Topic - Action Research + Classroom Deliberation

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Inquiry Topic - Action Research + Classroom Deliberation

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I will be writing a proposal for an action research project where I engage in reflexive practice alongside pre-service teachers to evaluate how I teach about classroom deliberation in a middle school social studies methods course. My problem statement is: In times of heightened polarization, many educators are apprehensive to engage students in classroom discussions about controversy (think politics, current events). Structured deliberation is often lauded as an antidote to teachers' fears in this regard. My main question I want to explore, however, is: How does my own teaching impact pre-service teachers' perspectives on classroom discussion and their intentions to use it? How can I improve my teaching about deliberation so that my students are better set up for success once they are in classrooms of their own?

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Some of the questions that I am looking at are through the CRT lens. How do digital games portray race culture and identity. What impact does this have on learners from different back grounds...

How do games affect student sense of identity, and belonging. How do these things impact the educational efficacy on historically marginalized groups?

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My initial roadblock has been trying to decide how to narrow my project down to something attainable but impactful. I also am struggling to decide whether I should use an existing rubric for inquiry instruction when measuring student application of inquiry (lesson observation) or if I should make a rubric that mimics the topics we have covered in class in order to more directly make ties between how the course is impacting their teaching practice.

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One of the work that impacted me the most this semester was Nel Noddings'  “An Ethic of Caring and Its Implications for Instructional Arrangements.” One idea expressed by Noddings that I believe cannot go unnoticed and will impact any work I do in the future is to remember that, “Research for teaching would not treat teachers as interchangeable parts in instructional procedures, but, rather, as professionals capable of making informed choices among proffered alternatives. Research for teaching would address itself to the needs of teachers…[and] ask teachers what they need to engage in [their] work comfortably” (p. 227).

Research in education that does not strive to meet the needs of teachers is not research I want to participate in. This is the backbone of what will inform my inquiry. I will look for opportunities that provide educators with practical ways to enhance their practice, while also ensuring that results from such work are easily accessible to those in classrooms where the results can have a direct impact on student learning. Teachers often have little (if any) say about their own professional development and each individual teacher is judged on their student test scores in the end, so whether they “learn” the information or not seems irrelevant. If a teacher’s lived experience is in the classroom while working with a team of other professionals in a building, why are these lived experiences not being utilized to drive research and professional development? I believe that since communities of practice play such important roles in our work, that they must also play important roles in our learning. We must change the way traditional professional development works by allowing communities of practice to connect with academia and with each other in order to build communities of learning that benefit students, teachers, and researchers. I will be working on a literature review of the connections being made between researcher and practitioner. How often do researchers and teachers work together to improve educational outcomes?

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I think my main issue at this point is to figure out which curriculum to use. My experience is within the Pakistani-British school system (as a student and as a teacher) and I also would like to bring in my international perspective in this redesign.

However, I might have more access to curriculums within NC.

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For cognitive retention research the main road blocks are time. Ultimately though there are only a few dgbl programs that are appropriate for my question which also makes this question challenging.

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I approach my work through a constructivist worldview. Constructivism rejects monolithic assumptions of a knowable world and instead views the world, people, and processes as socially constructed. I believe that each student who walks into my classroom is deeply impacted by their lived experiences - and we especially carry these experiences into our political lives, which impacts our approaches to classroom discussions of controversial topics (both as a student and as a teacher).

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1) Action research is relatively new to me, so I have been doing a lot of preliminary reading before writing my actual final. But I have been given great resources.

2) I am trying to maintain my focus and not get too lost in the weeds. For example, there are critiques of deliberation - whether or not it is equitable - and I want to acknowledge and attend to those concerns, but I could write an entire literature review on that alone, so I am figuring how to include things such as this without letting my inquiry go off track.

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B. Literature Review and Research Proposal

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Describe your specific topic and inquiry interest

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Describe your specific topic and inquiry interest

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What does translanguaging look like in a South Asian context?

I am interested in culturally responsive pedagogy and multilingual education, and have been able to explore these academically but only in an American context. I wish to review practices in South Asia (that's where I am from, and wish to practice in future), and understand if translanguaging as a practice can be exported there. What will it look like? What will be the challenges? Future possibilities?

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Culturally responsive pedagogy

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A lot of scholarly material and advances in multilingual education focus on North America. Finding relevant studies/papers set in a South Asian context can be hard to find, but I am making some headway. I initially wanted to focus only on Pakistan, but found some good papers from other South Asian countries, and due to similarities within the region, I decided to expand the scope (to South Asia, and not just Pakistan).

My research proposal also aims to address this gap, and propose a study to be undertaken in Pakistan.