(Re)Developing the Project

Ch.1 of Cresswell is all about developing the framework of the study. Clearly we have a qualitative study on our hands, and clearly this is classroom research that is longitudinal and cross-institutional. This much we had already established from the beginning, but it doesn't hurt to say it again as we work to focus and refine the processes we put in place.

Crotty's questions, p. 4:

1. what epistemology informs the research?
* socially constructed knowledge claims are the ones we seem to be making. We believe that students come to the classroom with prior experiences that shape the types of knowledge they hold and the ways they encounter and respond to new knowledge. We believe that teachers and students together shape the knowledge building enterprise of a class. We are particularly interested, in studying reflection, in the social dynamics of knowledge creation in our classrooms, where we allow students to think about what they bring to the class and where we listen to their interests and concerns as we flexibly respond throughout the course.

Interestingly, though, I think we might also be engaging in some pragmatism in the sense that we will probably be looking into our reflection data for evidence of "what works" or what solves problems in the classroom environment.

2. What theoretical perspective lies behind the methodology?

I'm not quite ready to answer this question. I think I need to back up and list the overarching questions I think we can answer through this data and then decide theoretically what will best inform each one.

So, I'm backing up for a second, and these are questions I think we may answer through examination of our data:
* What kinds of reflective techniques do experienced teachers use as they engage in formative assessment and response?
* What kinds of reflective moves do students typically use when asked to think about their learning?
* What does reflective growth look like in students over the course of a semester?
* In what ways does positionality emerge in formative assessment and how might we productively respond to positional statements?
* How does affect emerge in formative assessment, both on the part of teachers and of students and what role does the formative assessment tool seem to play in addressing affective responses?
* What are the roles of regular response in the classroom (from teacher to student and student to teacher)? I'm suddenly struck by the letters Frye used to write to his students. I never thought of them as formative assessment, but in small ways they were like the CIQs but less anonymous.