693-08JS

 =Jeremy's Action Research Page= Spring 2008, CCT 693, UMass-Boston group listserv: email cct693@googlegroups.com

[|Syllabus] | Notes on Teaching and Learning | Class Refreshment | Schedule | Wiki Instructions | My Assignment Checklist | My Clippings |My Wiki Sandbox | Notes from Selected Readings | Process Review  My Reflective Practioner's Portfolio test | My Public Page | Update page

//Other pages related to course work:// Link - Notes on Research and Planning Link - Summaries of Readings

Class Reflections and Notes
 As our last Action Research class session focused much on the process of evaluation, I was led to think back to my own experiences with course evaluation, in particular in my experience as a trainer in a corporate environment. I recall that the general form of the evaluation happened on a "narrow scale", where class participants filled out a brief survey at the end of the course, including a sliding-scale rating section for evaluating the benefit of different aspects of the class, and a section for open-ended comments about suggestions for the curriculum, training room, or instructor/participant interactions. In that case, I and my colleagues simply scrutinized the evaluations for "areas of improvement", discussed briefly, and then decided if and how to make any changes. I call this the "narrow" view because we really only looked at evaluations within this closed world - we did not see them quite so clearly as bigger opportunities and rarely reflected upon the validity of their design. Participants never received any feedback that directly addressed their comments or suggested how changes might be made. Because of this overall setup, I found that it was too easy to use the evaluations very selectively, such that I could choose the "easy" items to change and disregard the "difficult" ones, excusing myself by deciding that there was not enough time, that the participant had not committed to the coursework enough to make a useful statement, or various other assumptions. Without a more thoughtful design of the evaluation and plan to update it and treat it thoroughly and seriously, the evaluation simply became a way to satisfy the administration of my workplace and less of a way to actually give myself a systematic crutch for self-improvement and personal and professional challenge.
 * Class 13 Reflections and Notes - 5/9/08**

If I choose to take an alternative point of view, then I at least see that there is a great opportunity for both learning and risk-taking through the process of evaluation. The risk-taking might take the form of actively seeking what is most inadequate, confusing, or difficult in my work. One form of evaluation might be to "focus on the negative", not to encourage a criticism of people or situations but rather as a real chance to draw out areas for improvement or change in a highly exaggerated way. What would happen if I solicited an evaluation of my work where I specifically asked for the most "useless", "silly", "problematic", or "offensive" possibilities about what I was trying to do? Maybe by directly seeking this kind of feedback and establishing a safe environment where people were more comfortable doing so, this might expose deeper reasons for comments created by people through the evaluation process.

Once again, I have found that our class engagement in Dialogue has reminded me about a few issues that have been in mind over the course of my project. First, I noticed that in the Myles Horton video segment concerning his lifelong work and the challenges faced by the Highlander center, there was a mention of what it means to "love people" and an account of the persistence that was required to establish and maintain the Center through struggle with opposition. I am reminded that sometimes, one's life's work can be much more than the integration of employing tools and relationships to engage people in developing change through inquiry, decision, planning, action, and evaluation. Although these things compose the interventions that create the change, a person's most deeply held values and attitudes are part of what allows that person to live in a fulfilling way when the change does not happen or faces some other barrier. Horton mentioned that he was able to laugh when the doors of the Center were padlocked, since it wasn't really a building, but a "state of mind". This reminds me that even within my action research work and beyond, finding the ways to live in the "state of mind" of my work means something different than actually doing my work. It occurs to me that this is a significant part of my interest in collaborative play, which perhaps helps to maintain fulfillment in my work during the times when it is difficult, tedious, or there are otherwise no great strides of progress being made. At a point of highest optimism, I might imagine that my work is influencing and catalyzing a change for the better, but maybe there simply will be many moments when my attention to my work is simply to maintain a baseline of activity even though real progress has been suspended. Even in the face of cynicism from others, my work might not always serve to create that change that is desired but rather set the stage for change that might be addressed by others as well.
 * Class 12 Reflections and Notes - 5/5/08**

Another reminder from the Dialogue session in class is that simply learning a tool represents only one way and one phase of using it successfully. In some of the tools more than others, I have noticed that my attitude has transformed over the course of time. For example, while taking the Dialogue course, I felt a progression between a few different attitudes: first, I was skeptical of the broad application of Dialogue but enjoyed it and felt personally rewarded by it; later, I developed a deeper appreciation for it and found interest in it to the point that I wanted to seek out more opportunities for it later. In the Action Research course, I have moved from that stage to appreciating it to that point that not only did I want to engage in it further myself, but also I started to want to introduce it to others and eventually be able to facilitate the Dialogue process. I have felt a similar progression for tools such as the Critical Incident Questionnaire and the Evaluation Clock. To a lesser degree, I feel the same appreciation for the KAQF framework, although relatively, I feel somewhat less comfortable with having the sensitivity to understand exactly which situations might call for it and which might be better addressed with another tool or activity.

Just as in the case of the first group of work-in-progress presentations, the process of presenting my own material and listening to others has highlighted some areas of importance in an unexpected way. Throughout much of the process of action research, a particular challenge for me is to manage the instinct to develop more areas of thought and expectation, to continue expanding beyond my initial questions, to find new complexity and seek to understand how to account for it within my action research plans and reflections. As much as this helps to drive me into new ways of thinking and rethinking, it also seems to establish a tension between the layers of complexity in a project. My own presentation in the last week seemed to have inspired me to develop a new appreciation and acceptance of simplicity in the action research of developing collaborative play in my workplace environment with respect to collaborative teacher planning. Because I sought to clarify ideas for others and create a concise formulation of my project, I was forced to examine the essence of my plans. This helped me to see more thoroughly that I could make my work simple for myself in terms of focusing on a manageable number of variables, actions, and factors, which makes it more realistic for me to carry through on the research. While I had been in the "expansive" stage earlier, finding new complexities and connections between ideas actually pushed me farther away from engaging fully with my project, because those elements reached into the more abstract world of possibilities and predictions. By refocusing and simplifying what I hoped to do through my AR planning and implementation, I found that I had regained my full enthusiasm for the project because carrying out the actions became reasonable once again.
 * Class 11 Reflections and Notes - 4/28/08**

I recognize now that in my previous years involved in other types of teaching responsibilities, I have touched on the action research process but have not been aware that I might find systems of support to keep it going. Also in those situations, I probably directed my attention more to gaining new knowledge that would improve my teaching capacity, but I did not always take the time to reflect upon how my own educational beliefs and attitudes were being translated into my teaching practices. The process of this course has helped me to consider action research as a "way of thinking" - I notice that I now see opportunities for action research in several areas of my work, life, and practice, and that it helps me to remind myself that "answers" or "conclusions" are phantoms. They imply that there is a need for closing off my inquiry once they are found, but I am just starting to become more comfortable with the idea that the cycles of change, reflection, and action and reaction are not milestones but rather continuous processes, perhaps ones that might even stall once in a while but need not vanish completely.

From the use of the Jigsaw method described in our recent class session, I have considered that this tool encapsulates a strategy for interacting that seems to relate to my own planning for action research on a few levels. First, the methodology itself reflects a use of collaborative learning and suggests how actions might be structured. For example, in the kind of teacher planning in which I am involved, the jigsaw method provides a clear way for each person in a group to have a designated time as an "expert", while the others are listeners. Because the expert has to convey the expertise to the others, this not only helps the others to have better understanding, but also it helps the expert clarify what is really known to himself or herself. In the two stages of the activity, I found that this applied equally well. In the first stage, I challenged myself to get my understanding "straight", with a goal of making sure that I described the most important elements of the article to my partner. Because there was another "expert" in this stage, not only was I able to observe that I had missed certain useful points made in the article, but also I was actually able to find out what I had missed and add it back into memory. In the second stage, my role as an "expert" caused me to again communicate my understanding, but this time, I was prepared in a different way because I knew that I would possibly need to answer questions and clarify overall purpose and meaning, including addressing issues that had not been discussed in the article. As a tool in collaborative play, the jigsaw method might be used similarly. With a particular lesson that might be introduced for a preschool class during teacher planning, multiple teachers could be assigned to develop an idea for a type of lesson; e.g., suppose the focus was to teach preschool students to learn how to plant a seed in a flower pot. Another teacher and myself might read a single suggested teacher lesson plan about presenting this idea, and then during teacher planning, we might share our understanding about different approaches and also share any ideas for lessons that we had developed ourselves. In the second stage, we might not only "tell" the other teachers about our understanding but also actually try to "teach" the other teachers the lesson in short form. The idea of play might be useful in the form of role-play of students' reactions/understandings of the activity or in the form of a challenge of teachers to invent a way to experiment with different kinds of seeds or soil, for example.
 * Class 10 Reflections and Notes - 4/14/08**

I had also observed that there might be some relationship to be made between the jigsaw process itself and in the dicussion of political forces that influence how, when, and why change happens. In my initial reading of the article, I observed that I naturally focused on certain elements and points in the article, internalizing them as they related to my own experience. In that case, there must have been other points that did not capture my attention quite so strongly, even though I read the article carefully and with the intention of full comprehension. In the first phase of the jigsaw method, I noticed that I was likely mentioning more often those points on which I focused, so my interpretation had already been skewed. Discussing the article with a partner then certainly balanced my perspective by reminding me of additional points and areas of importance. Discussing the article with the extended group in the second phase again involved my explanation which was perhaps more balanced now but also more narrow, since I found myself trying to be concise. The questions from the group then helped to balance my explanation by helping me to know which ideas might be expanded even more. This reminded me how a dimension of political interaction relates to exchange of information. A person or group has access to some amount of information or "knowledge" but then must select a subset of this to present to others in order to make a case or be convincing. Without a series of balancing counterforces throughout this process to shape the point of view of the person or group in power, it seems that this subset of information might eventually become the whole "reality" of the situation. In any political situation, of course it might be useful to be aware of bias of the holder of power, but it also might be useful to know which counterforces had been encountered along and more actively seek out their perspective. Back to top

By using the Dialogue process in a number of recent scenarios, I have already begun to appreciate ways in which it may be useful not only as a communication tool but also one of self-discovery. Through the experience of Allyn Bradford's Dialogue course this past winter, I was able to think about such expression in a few new ways. First of all, I noticed that the process helped me to consider how I might strip down my own speech in a way that allowed me to find the essence of ideas more directly. Because of the turn-taking structure of Dialogue, I found that I neither need to rush into conclusions without telling a story in anticipation of being interrupted to early, nor do I need to have a complete though fully worked out and perfectly coherent every time, since Dialogue allows the exposure of "thoughts in process", and I am more aware of the connection with other participants in the sense that my own comments may simply be a bridge between those of others or provide a prompt to myself to clarify a specific idea further. The ethic of the kind of behavior in the Dialogue process in that course further inspired me to develop a series of "[|Elements of Transformation in Adult Learning]", which serve to help me keep oriented toward ideals that I wish to pursue in all of my adult learning experiences.
 * Class 9 Reflections and Notes - 4/7/08**

Our experience in class helped to reinforce these ideas, and I consider now that in my own action research, introducing the Dialogue concept may be one way to engage in meaningful discussion with constituents, both primary and peripheral participants. Regarding Dialogue in the teacher planning process toward the use of collaborative play, one use might be to introduce it as a way to discuss certain philosophical topics, such as "what are useful ways in which adults may play?" It seems like the Dialogue process may help to reinforce the fact that ideas about play need not be convincing to everyone but rather that different views may be allowed to coexist without final definition when it comes to a topic like this that is perceived to be vague. Because the collaborative teacher planning process often seeks to converge toward decisions and action steps, the Dialogue process might also be useful as a way of preparing for future planning sessions by exploring attitudes, doubts, and expectations (since these rarely actually happen during the planning itself, which tends to be quite task-focused). Another insight from this week's Dialogue process is that it is a methodology for a particular way that I actually want to be able to hold discussions, particularly in reference to my hopes and exploration of adult learning. In some ways, Dialogue seems to be a complement to the Focused Conversation. Where Focused Conversation moves from impressions to more tangible decisions and actions, Dialogue instead seems to start with surface level details and move toward deeply-held beliefs, expectations, and perceptions of self and world. Practically, it also can slow down discussion and allow for thought during silences, as well as create a relatively "fair" system of turn-taking. I appreciate how the process further helps groups of collaborators to consider a kind of "filtering" protocol of conversation when turning thoughts into vocalizations: "does this comment need to be said?", "does this comment need to be said by me?", and "does this comment need to be said by me, right now?". Back to top

This week's class seems to bring a special relevance to my interest in collaborative play, since in many ways, I'm considering that this will involve some of the same conditions that we experienced in class. One condition is the allowance of a fairly limited amount of time to form a conclusion and extract what is most needed from the experience. I imagine that in many instances of group work where mutual learning needs to take place, some time limitation is imposed, and the use of collaborative play might be perceived as a hindrance, completely separate from the resistance that might be observed to engage in play in the first place. This has caused me to consider how a compromise might be created between the need in group work to "get things done" and the need in collaborative play to be free of some constraints, which may include time. One possibility that I have considered is that in my area of concern involving collaborative planning for education, teachers/learners might need to become accustomed to play outside of their dedicated planning time. If collaborative play is introduced explicitly into planning, it may be perceived to throw off the momentum of planning. This helped me to consider that if I am to develop possible actions that might allow collaborative play to happen, I might first focus on providing opportunities for group members to engage in place during more idle times. This might include developing some "primers" for play. For example, if I am aware that collaborative planning will take place in one week from now, I might present each group member today with an educational "experiment" to try independently before then. This helps to respect the time of the other group members as it allows them to play with the idea before that planning, and then when the planning time does arrive, the experiment that I posed might seem a more natural and familiar part of the planning process, allowing all group members to now play together with the same idea.
 * Class 8 Reflections and Notes - 3/31/08**

One key insight from the past class and few days is that I have been allowing my own definition of "play" to expand beyond what might be obvious from common understanding of the word. In preparing for the class, for example, I redrew Calhoun's AR cycle diagram in my own notes and did so with the intention of recreating it as accurately as possible while also not repeating the specific visual design used in the book. I found myself quite interested and engaged in doing this, causing me to think that I was actually involved in play at that moment, even though this might not be observed by someone else. What seemed to allow this to be defined by play were the following ideas: that I could "start over" if dissatisfied with my diagram, that I did not have to start and finish the diagram in a fixed period of time, and that I would not have to justify the outcome to someone else (since this diagram was meant for me and would not "have" to be used to explain the Calhoun model to another person, although it might have had the potential to be used in that way). For the first time in our action research process, I really noticed and recognized the importance of this last item. During play, the need to justify one's behavior can be fatal to the play process, since it does suggest some need to develop the descriptive language and sense-making of the behavior. Perhaps one element of collaborative play is that group members might have some freedom from explaining their specific play behaviors to others, or that some sort of unexpressed "social contract" is formed that establishes the "right to play" in some form. Back to top

The process of preparing for and giving a class presentation has helped me to clarify some of the purpose of my action research. From my current idea of performing action research in my own teaching as a way to learn more about how I may work with other teachers in a youth program, I am starting to shift back into the broader focus at which I started, but this time I believe with a better direction and desired outcome of the collaborative play. Most recently, I have been considering how collaborative play can be used in my teacher planning as a catalyst for allowing myself and other teachers to learn more about each other's intentions for creating lesson plans for the youth classes, and I supposed that collaborative play could be encouraged if I could find an appropriate combination of actions to take. A few important shifts have occurred. First, I see now a greater importance that I first actually find ways to play with respect to my own planning and classroom preparation. Second, I now see that the role of collaborative play might serve to more generally be useful in any type of collaborative planning between teachers. If, through action research, a goal of a learning setting is that overall student learning becomes more cohesive, it seems that this may be improved if different teachers are able to appreciate the knowledge, teaching styles, and intentions of each other in their course planning. If they develop lesson plans, classroom activities, and curriculum with respect to those of other teachers instead of in isolation, it seems that common ground might be found between different learning topics, and students might be more able to find continuity between what they are learning. My instinct is that through collaborative play, groups of teachers may be able to more effectively work together to create such learning.
 * Class 7 Reflections and Notes - 3/24/08**

I consider that collaborative play in teacher planning groups might be beneficial. First, it may provide a safe foundation upon which teachers expose their unique knowledge and perspective of teaching relative to their intended subject matter. Because the goal of play is to experiment with ideas and recognize the value of serendipitous discoveries, collaborative play does not require that teachers evaluate or judge each others' methods on the spot. Instead, it may allow teachers to feel that they have a supportive forum for working out ideas that do not have to be thought out completely and learn from each other. Second, collaborative play may allow teachers to develop more creative activities and lesson plans, since playing together might involve trying out ideas that are formed from the combined contributions of several people and that might have not been conceived by a single individual. Not only could these combinations manifest into more creative learning activities, but also they might more greatly assure teachers that the learning activities will be fun and engaging for students, since the teachers themselves will have experienced play and enjoyment in the process of developing and testing them.

In the language of our action research, I am starting to see that an initial evaluation might more specifically focus on the outcomes of teaching planning that include how lesson plans are created, how well they account for the diverse approaches of different teachers to create lessons with continuity and similar standards for students, and the professional development achievement of the teachers themselves through learning about each other and getting to express ideas about which no one would otherwise have the opportunity to appreciate. I see collaborative play in teacher planning as a better alternative to what is now a pool of "teaching ideas", such as lists of activities, lessons, and topics that is so easily found in curriculum design books and online teaching resources. The planning process of the action research might involve how to actually use collaborative play and encourage teachers to work together to experiment with their knowledge rather than typical "brainstorm-analyze-reduce-decide" planning discussions. Even in situations where teacher planning has been achieved through top-down requirements which are then addressed in isolation by teachers, collaborative play might serve as way to help the teachers become more personally engaged with the subject matter and with each other. Back to top

At this point, I am using as the focal point of my research my work with a youth education program in which my role is to help teachers develop educational materials for students and provide learning experiences for the students that involve multimedia and computer resources. Because my action research plan describes how I might create an explicit plan for allowing play into learning settings, using this particular environment has allowed for a more clear perspective on what it means to develop action research toward change. More directly, I would like to consider what actions I can take before, during, and after group interactions with the teachers such that we use play in our collaborative planning.
 * Class 6 Reflections and Notes - 3/10/08**

One of the issues that has arisen is that in planning between myself and other youth teachers, we are actually engaged in two types of experiences: "learning", and "planning". The learning need comes from the fact that the teachers know the educational outcomes and goals for the students, and I know about the multimedia resources. We must learn from each other in order to create lesson plans and activities for the students that integrate both. Therefore, our interactions involve a collaborative learning to help us find and agree upon the same vision. This has been a great challenge, largely due to the lack of dedicated time for planning that we have allowed. The second experience, "planning", involves the actual development of the logistics that are necessary to create cohesive activities for the students. For the most part, this has consisted of the use of general discussion, in the form of discussing the target subject matter that the teachers will be using in upcoming weeks, listing the multimedia resources that are available, and talking about how a specific item from the "topic" group might be connected with a specific item from the "multimedia resource" group. Mainly, this has led to a sort of quasi-brainstorming that (I feel) produces integrated plans that are somewhat "sterile", appearing clean and organized in the moment, but lacking robustness when actually implemented in the classroom.

In one example, a recent lesson plan of the teachers involved discussing science/the natural world and the diversity of animals. At a level appropriate to the students, one goal of the teachers was to inspire the students to think about why different physical features would benefit an animal (a bird's beak, a tiger's claws). A possible activity that was decided was to use a series of animal photographs that helped to indicate these variations in physical features, and then have the students.guess about functions of them. In the classroom, this appeared to work as intended, such that the students were able to make successful guesses and seem to understand the idea. At the same time, the students did not particularly seem to be as personally engaged in the topic or express any excitement.

In my action research, I'm seeing one emerging possibility for change in the way that I might introduce collaborative play into the initial teacher interactions. Because the activities of the students might be very naturally seen to involve play, the prior collaboration of the teachers may as well. If the teachers directly engage in play ahead of time, I believe that this might help us to improve the "learning" experience as described above, since we will be able to point out important information to each other in real-time that is directly applicable to the way that we are trying to play. Additionally, we may improve the "planning" experience, since we will need to play together to generate our own excitement and will allow ourselves the freedom to experiment with uncertainty rather than simply generate ideas and choose the best one, as usually happens in the discussion-based planning. As a quantitative measurement, using collaborative play might mean that a count of certain metrics might change. I consider that these would include the sheer number of interactions that I have with other teachers and the time spent, the number of specific activities that we actually develop for the upcoming weeks, and the number of ideas that myself and teachers generate independently between our formal interactions. Back to top

While considering the use of the evaluation clock, I started off thinking of it as merely a useful tool for clarifying and defining ways that connections occur between evaluation, inquiry, reflection, and implementation. In the process of using the abridged evaluation clock in considering my own project, I was reminded that action research will ultimately mean not only working with broader ideas of change but also working with the individual tasks that make up the foundation for practical progress. When considering how to use the evaluation clock for a more specific part of my research, I considered some subquestions:
 * Class 5 Reflections and Notes - 3/3/08**
 * whether or not planned collaborative play causes learners to look to each other for support in certain ways that otherwise are not happening
 * in cases where I am a teacher, does explicit planning for collaborative play improve the satisfaction and interaction of students?
 * does use of role-playing increase awareness of multiple points of view in learning situations where brainstorming/ambiguous issues are considered?
 * does discussing my support for collaborative play with other teacher colleagues promote an increase in the number of curriculum ideas that they offer?
 * does the use of collaborative play encourage learners to increase their requests/feedback about what they want to learn, and how that should happen?

In much of my progress so far, I have often most naturally thought about the topic of collaborative play within adult learning as a top-down process. By starting with the "big idea", I have used that to develop subquestions and subtasks that seem to lead there. I found that the evaluation clock has provided an interesting way to consider a bottom-up approach. I started by considering some of the questions above within the eval. clock framework, and I found that in many cases the questions themselves or my intentions were still a little general, and therefore the methods of evaluation and measurement required what seems to be more abstract approaches. I found that by reducing the main issue to a more concrete statement and subgoal, this caused me to "tune" my answers to the evaluation clock questions in a way that seems to make my own actions and steps more manageable. In other words, the evaluation clock might be an appropriate tool in which action steps are nebulous because the goals and intentions have not been clarified. Further, the evaluation clock might be useful when the action steps needed seem overwhelming or lofty - the clock provides a way to identify steps that are reasonable and that have a clear starting point and clear ending point upon which it becomes clear that an action has been completed. Back to top

Class 4 Reflections and Notes - 2/25/08 At this point in the course, I feel that I am in a period of "reducing" and "narrowing", a process that even started in the previous semester's work through Processes of Research and Engagement. I'm starting to find that it is becoming more useful (and rewarding) to start to view the breadth of my interest in a more defined way and make decisions about some specific elements of past "big" ideas. For example, I was previously considering how a theater-methodology perspective might shed some light on how adults may learn in collaborative ways to develop skills needed to engage in social change. Ultimately, I'm still looking to use those guidelines in the navigation of my work, but now, I'm starting to consider more carefully and deeply exactly which parts I care about within those elements. I feel now that it might be less satisfying to continue considering theater as a whole. What seems most useful now is attention to two specific principles.

First, by learning and practicing how to take on identities of people other than the self during learning, we can take on points of view that allow us to recognize the complexity of issues and appreciate the way that others might see a topic, I believe that this is important because it opens the door for the kinds of inquiry that allow us to consider how different subsets of the raw facts might lead to new insight and understanding. In a given topic,there can be so many facts and bits of knowledge that this becomes overwhelming. I believe that real understanding may be helped by having a sensitivity to ways of focusing on certain groups of facts/knowledge at a time and temporarily disregarding others, in order to make sense and meaning out of the topic. I believe further that iterating over this process several times is helps to consider a wide variety of permutations of knowledge bits. By using the concept of "character" that is so critical to theater performance, I believe that people can put themselves in many alternate states of mind that lead to noticing subsets of the knowledge bits more easily. "Character" can be practiced in many direct ways - by altering the voice and physical posture, by developing backstories and personalities for fictional people, by engaging in dialogue as if you were someone else that you know and finding out where it may lead, which may be different that where you may end up if engaging in dialogue "as yourself".

Second, theater involves a type of a "game" - the "game" is a concept used to describe the fact that different actors are engaged in the same fantasy and also in complete agreement about what this fantasy is. If a script requires two actors to be characters who are long-time friends, sitting on a sailboat and discussing their high school geometry class, the actors do this without question, without acting as if there is anything strange about this experience, even if they are actually on a stage and have no close relationship to each other. The "game" is the idea that both actors willingly and temporarily accept this fantasy situation and behave and speak "as if" it were completely true. In learning, I believe that this kind of perspective can be used to with respect to imagining situations and allowing people to play in learning, through the bizarre, silly, humorous, or dramatic. Fun may be involved in these situations, since there is an understanding that the game will eventually end, that there is no actual danger in the situation, and that the learners are "not really themselves" and therefore are not bound by normal rules of etiquette, social guidelines, or their own reputations or expected behavior. "If I act silly, or ridiculous, or unusual, it's ok, because it really wasn't me. I was experimenting with how things might be if //this// type of person were here." The Game is particularly useful in collaborative situations, since multiple people make equal committment to play and with continued respect for the other people involved.

The KAQ process helped me to start to develop a higher level of comfort with this idea, since it led me to continue to ask what I cared about most. Through this process, I noticed the questions and knowledge bits that were personal to me as well as general concerning adult learning. I might use this tool as a teacher when helping other learners to gain perspective on a certain thread of questioning. By moving from knowledge and questions to actions and research intentions, this framework can help to lead to more useful research. I think that students might sometimes tend to search for information without a specific question in mind and therefore might be led to believe that the information that is found first or that appears to be most prominent holds the implications of what is important. The role of questioning in KAQ seems particularly useful because it helps to eliminate information that maybe is not relevant now and that might actually be distracting one from taking most direct action. Back to top

In my own process of working on the strategic personal planning, I am finding that some themes are starting to emerge, but I am still struggling a little with how to consider my own action research design. I'm participating in the U. of Exeter cohort project this semester with some others from the Synthesis class and have found some natural connections with my work in action research. One difficulty in considering my interest comes from my recent bias toward allowing learning to be a collaborative effort through practices that help people to "learn together". I have consistently been thinking about this in the frame of how to structure learning environments and situations for adult learners such that collaboration happens more naturally and enjoyable ways, and I have been keeping in mind the methodologies of the theater arts as a way to inspire adults to forsake what may be their own fixed learning habits to allow the mind to accept other realities. To this end, I had developed the following statement of interest for the Exeter cohort project:
 * Class 3 Reflections and Notes - 2/11/08**

//My interest concerns the ways in which principles of theater arts may be used to develop learning experiences that are more rewarding, enjoyable, and collaborative. Specifically, I would like to explore how the processes of character development create a foundation of empathy, imagination, and point-of-view. While these qualities may be used by actors to create believable performance in theater, I wish to understand how they may instead be applied to the classroom, and how they may allow student interaction to become a foundation of the learning experience, establish a tone of fun through play and experimentation with alternative frames of mind, and encourage students to appreciate diverse perspectives, especially when addressing topics that have social implications.//
 * //Developing Collaborative Learning Experiences Through a Theater Arts Perspective with a Focus on Social Change//**

For the Action Research project, I feel that I want to capture the spirit of this idea but perhaps think about my own action research in a more personal way. Partially, this is because I feel that it is a step worth taking as a way of experimenting with my own journey as an adult learner. In another way, I feel that I need a sort of "change of pace" in my own work - perhaps in a way that is less my usual style of academic and philosophical and more directed toward finding rewarding experiences for myself.

In our mini strategic personal planning activity, I have developed the following themes/categories based on the "post-it" items below:
 * Balancing Forces** (activities that allow me to find ways to balance different types of growth to maintain my enjoyment in learning)
 * involve myself with music more
 * give proper attention to body as well as mind
 * find ways to observe children at my workplace more systematically
 * express myself more with images as well as words
 * take the risk of creating humor
 * Expanding Ideas** (areas that are important but require additional reflection and clarification)
 * find common threads in life, work, school
 * relearning the lessons of childhood
 * new visions and purposes of my wiki
 * develop my learning laboratory/sandbox
 * Organizing Resources and Behavior** (areas of logical organization that keep me on time and unhurried)
 * index-making and cross-referencing my notes
 * improve my use of desk space
 * synchronized files and resources
 * prioritizing tiny tasks
 * highlights of CCT past work
 * create my personal bibliography and review for ideas
 * find small milestones quickly
 * Opening My Head** (areas involving how I open myself to the help of others)
 * local and global people support
 * allowing more time for self and others
 * organize my socializing in new ways
 * making my work public and accessible

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 * Learning Ideals** (considerations of what is important and most satisfying to me in my learning experiences)
 * noticing group needs beyond own needs
 * learning without teachers
 * safe group learning
 * theater without Theater
 * instantaneous reflection
 * collaborative learning and informal dialogue
 * from observing to participating
 * empathy and pretending

As we complete our compressed action research today, I'm thinking more about my interests and not only what they mean to me, but how they fit in with what this class can provide. Once again, I enter the class with a state of mind that is starting to become representative of my CCT experience and was not noticed in any previous academic situations. Rather than think of the course as a specific learning experience within a series that happen during the CCT program, I am thinking more of the CCT program as a whole and what opportunities it provides that I should be watching for. The Action Research class, then, seems that it could be viewed as an opportunity to use the CCT program to reach new understanding, motivation, and support to continue my work in adult education. There is also a very strong feeling that I cannot shake but feel that I must. When I consider adult learning, I sometimes think that there is some idea out there, some great insight, that is available to me but just beyond my understanding. If only I were to become aware of it, it would start to become an encapsulated starting point of a my future work, such that I could form a plan, implement it, and then "know the meaning" of my life's work from that point on. By thinking about our AR model though, I'm starting to suspect that this idea of the "insight just out of reach" is perhaps more harmful than beneficial to my progress. My new thought is that there is no such idea. In fact, I feel that I have already experienced a number of these "insights" throughout my various levels of participation in adult education, and I did do the work to plan them, implement, evaluate, and reflect. Because I have always had the experience of thinking, "that's great, but it's not quite what will actually create change", I may have fooled myself into thinking that there actually is some grand unified concept of lifelong learning that is yet to be discovered. Instead, it appears to me now that what is most important is hardly finding some great and new insight but rather doing the work that I find rewarding so that I remain inside the plan/implement/evaluate/reflect spiral. Maybe the only great insight worth recognizing is the very act of my own participation in this spiral over time, not a particular milestone within it. Back to top
 * Class 2 Reflections and Notes - 2/4/08**

Today in class, we worked with an example of action research as a compressed form. This seems like a very useful idea so far, since we focused on the idea of refreshments in class, and this helped my focus to be given to the process rather than to the content of our area of inquiry. Already though, I'm starting to think about my own ideas for my action research project in the course and struggling with that a little so far. It seems that the mechanics of the action research cycles and epicycles are clear, so I hope to really pay attention to how I am seeing myself positioned in the cycle at a particular point in time. I think that some struggles at this point come from a collection of cooperative/conflicting questions and needs that I perceive for my project. How can I allow my recent experience in the Processes of Research and Engagement course flow naturally into my work in this course? What are the fundamental questions in which I am interested, and how do I see myself most directly involved in those? What do I actually care about? What is going to have meaning beyond my experience in the CCT program? What are the areas within, connected to, or outside of my research in the previous course that are both relevant to action research and rewarding to me? In the course of finding new meaning and purpose for myself, does anyone else care? Also, I have found that by doing this compressed action research, I am starting to notice some of the "intangibles" - those observations which may not structurally part of the AR cycles but that seem to be inevitable factors that influence our class and our process. One of these is that there appears to be some tension between the idea that we are in a confined, scheduled class and the idea that AR obviously really takes place in ways that are more unbounded, outside of classroom walls and without a safety net. I feel that I can continue to reflect on these intangibles and find ways to describe them in words. Back to top 
 * Class 1 Reflections and Notes - 1/28/08**

Clippings
This article discusses a perspective that claims that adults playing with their young children is actually a modern concept that only appears in wealthier countries and is even viewed as unnatural in many cultures. This suggests a possibility that adults have the capacity to play but that different points of view exist that adult play is unnecessary/incompatible/disruptive to the play of children. || This article discusses the distinction of adult work and play and suggests that there are overlaps between the two, perhaps involving the use of artifacts outside of their intended purposes. Other concepts of "play" involve how it relates to research activity as well as the role of "purpose" in playful action. || Update on the use of video games by adults and the growth of the industry in terms of financial success, widespread popularity, and countless hours of participation. One insight about play that might relate to video games is the way that "challenge" is established in such a game - a "right amount" of challenge is sought by designers so that they are difficult enough to allow for engagement but not so difficult as to cause frustration. In order for a video game to work, there needs to be some realistic hope of advancing beyond/completing a challenge that is not immediately easy. || Still need to find full-text article. || This article describes the process for giving serious treatment to the creation of a play workshop for adults, including how this can support the natural creativity of adults. Of particular interest to my project because there are practical guidelines and suggestions for structured play that still maintains the spirit of openness, curiosity, and freedom of expression, while adding an element of reflective consideration to one's own tendencies to play. || This is the web site of a person who teaches a "playshop", which is a structured model for engaging people in play with children or with other adults in personal or professional settings as a way to establish and strengthen collaborative relationships. This represents a more concrete structure for play in practice. || This organization creates playful interactive experiences for groups, often for university students. This fits with my project because I participated in a event created by this company in 1992 as part of my undergraduate university freshman orientation, so this represents some personal experience that I've had with this form of play. || From the perspective of a school that allows for the freedom of play, this article discusses the importance of play and reinforces the idea that it is a natural part of learning in the sense that play is how people use it as a main way to test theories about new environments as well as express creativity. || These speeches are accounts of alumni of the Sudbury Valley School, who often discuss how the use of play and the freedom to direct their own learning paths helped them to discover a way to other achievements in life. || This is a researcher who has developed a more formal study of play and specifically children's toys and is the author of "Smart Play, Smart Toys: How to Raise a Child with a High PQ". Some interesting material with respect to the idea that she has developed for herself a more structured discipline related to play. || This is particularly interesting to me because it is a reminder that it is often adults who actually design the play spaces for children, and I wonder about the implications. Does this mean that the adult designers are particularly good at observing the play of children, or that they are in tune with their own play? If children's play spaces have been traditionally designed by adults, do children then grow to accept that these are the representations of play that are most natural when they become adults? || I worked at an internship at the CCAE program office for a while a few years ago and developed a sense of the process of developing new adult classes that were enjoyable, as I was exposed to the review/interview process for potential teachers and classes. I'm not sure that this "Fun and Games" section is particularly meaningful yet to my own work, but I'm intrigued by the fact that this is categorized this way, which I believe is a relatively new development in the way that their courses are labeled. What does this imply about courses that are in the category, and what does it imply about courses that are not in this category? || Back to top 
 * **Link** || **Description** ||
 * [|Link] || //Boston Globe article, "Leave Those Kids Alone"//
 * [|Link] || //Article on adult play from the Exploratorium, the "Museum of Science, Art, and Human Perception.//
 * [|Link] || //News story about increase of adults playing (first-person) video games//
 * [|Link] || //Paper presented at the National Convention of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (Minneapolis, 1983).//
 * [|Link] || //Example of a 'play' workshop for adults//
 * [|Link] || //Example of 'play' workshops that involve adults with kids//
 * [|Link] || //Organization that creates play workshops for adults and college students//
 * [|Link] || //Article on play in learning within a perspective from the Sudbury Valley School model//
 * [|Link] || //Short video clips of Sudbury Valley School graduates - note speech of Wendy Maiorana (exploration of theater arts in education for teaching of other areas//
 * [|Link] || Need to review further - how might the Center for the Improvement of Teaching at UMB be a resource or support system for understanding collaborative learning? ||
 * [|Link] || //Web site of Stevanne Auerbach, "Dr. Toy".//
 * [|Link] || //Article about a project to build play spaces for children in New York City//
 * [|Link] || //Link to the online catalogue of the Cambridge Center for Adult Education classes, the "Fun and Games" section//

**Process Review**
There are two primary ways that I developed the process for my work in the action research class. The first way is that I tried to organize the course materials themselves into a physical notebook so that I could find ways to clarify assignments, references, and my own progress. This also helped me to separate these materials from my returned assignments + peer/instructor comments, and from various research articles that I read over the course of the semester. My three physical products then are: course organization workbook (available for review – divides the various worksheets into sections based on class number, so that I could easily review all items that would be discussed/referenced in each upcoming class; also includes my assignment checklist, the syllabus, and the notes on teaching/learning interactions), course assignment workbook (a binder simply containing my returned assignments and comments), and reference workbook (a binder containing printouts of journal articles and articles leading from the links on my wiki page.

Another primary way that I developed my process for the course was a consistent updating of my wiki page. One that I would show to others would be my weekly wiki page journal entries, including ideas for use of tools presented in the course and other reflections on my project as a whole. At the beginning of the course, I was a bit self-conscious about how to write in an effective way when I knew that people might peruse the page, but in later stages I found that I was being more open and unrestricted in my writing because I actually did hope that others would view the page and be better able to offer guidance and support. Another use of the wiki itself is that I think it helped me to organize my work and thoughts in the first place – because the wiki provided the space for future thoughts and representations of progress, this prompted me to “fill in” the various sections in a timely way.

Some other items (also on the wiki) show some of the milestones of my progress in the course. One wiki page lists some of my earlier assignments that expose my early thinking and motivation for my project, as well as questions that I had formed. (http://cct.wikispaces.com/693AR08JS). This includes my overall project statement. Also, my entries which added summaries on the readings show some of my thinking that connects other research with my own project – in each case, I organized my thoughts on the research to summarize the article itself but also consider new insights, additional questions, and (at times) specific tie-ins to my own projects, as well as responses to other summaries of that same article (http://cct.wikispaces.com/693).

One other particular item that demonstrates how my progress has affected my work is a series of proposals that I have developed as part of my participation in the CCT-Exeter project (cohort project “experiment” that has been worked in to the Synthesis course). This series of proposals indicates how my shaping of my CCT work has involved and was directly influenced by my attempt to bond the interests of the Action Research course to the directions of my upcoming Synthesis. An early draft of this proposal is included on my Notes wiki page (http://cct.wikispaces.com/693AR08JS). (Others to be posted – I’m currently working on the fourth version). Because of my work in the Action Research class, I was led to improve these proposals over time such that they less represented theoretical hopes and ideas and more represented actual work that I hope to do, feel is realistic, and find personally and deeply rewarding, in more tangible form. Back to top



**Assignment Checklist**
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 * Assignment || Due Date || Submitted || OK/RNR ||
 * 1. 1st Reflection as Novice Action Researcher || 2/11/08 || 2/11/08 || 2/25/08 ||
 * 2. Initial Paragraph Overview of Project || 2/25/08 || 2/25/08 || 3/9/08 ||
 * 3. KAQ || 3/3/08 || 3/3/08 || 3/9/08 ||
 * 4. Evaluation Clock, Part A || 3/10/08 || 3/10/08 || 4/28/08 ||
 * 4. Evaluation Clock, Part B || 3/31/08 || 3/31/08 || 4/28/08 ||
 * 5. Notes on research and planning (wiki) || 3/24/08 || 3/24/08 || 3/24/08 ||
 * 6. Work in-progress presentations || 3/24/08 || 3/24/08 || 3/24/08 ||
 * 6. Work in-progress presentations (update) || 4/28/08 || 4/28/08 || 4/28/08 ||
 * 7. Narrative outline of project report || 4/14/08 || 4/14/08 || 4/28/08 ||
 * 8. Complete draft of report || 5/5/08 || 5/5/08 ||  ||
 * 9. Final revised report || 5/19/08 ||  ||   ||
 * B. Participation, attendance ||  || 5/5/08 || 5/5/08 ||
 * B2. Syllabus quiz || 2/11/08 || 2/25/08 || 3/3/08 ||
 * C. Reading summaries, posted on wiki (wks 9,10,12) || ongoing || 5/5/08 || 5/5/08 ||
 * D1. PD workbook perused at first conference || 2/25/08 || 2/25/08 || 2/25/08 ||
 * D2. PD workbook worksheet || 3/10/08 || 3/10/08 || 3/17/08 ||
 * D3. PD workbook perused at end of semester || 5/5/08 || 5/5/08 || 5/9/08 ||
 * D4. Annotated links to "Clippings" (2 items for 6 postings) || ongoing || 5/5/08 || 5/9/08 ||
 * D5. Process review on dev. of work (week 13) || 5/5/08 ||  || 5/15/08 ||
 * E. First conference || 3/13/08 || 2/25/08 || 2/25/08 ||
 * E. Second conference || 4/23/08 || 4/7/08 || 4/7/08 ||
 * F. Assignment checklist maintained and up-to-date || 5/5/08 || 5/5/08 || 5/9/08 ||
 * G. Peer commentary on another student's draft || 5/12/08 || 5/8/08 ||  ||



__Backer, T., J. Chang, A. Crawford, T. Ferraguto, D. Tioseco and N. Woodson (2002)., "Case study and analysis: The Center for the Improvement of Teaching, University of Massachusetts, Boston."__
-diversity as a strength in learning -advocates for different points of view -ongoing dialogues and including written records of progress -cycling in and out of leadership, over time -equilibrium between "visionary" and "practical" (or "strategic") attention -allowing time for new endeavors might mean dropping old responsibilities -tension between interests of the Humanities and interests of Sciences?
 * Main themes:**

-collaborative learning can take place outside of the classroom, and the classroom may not even be the main place where this happens -teachers should regard themselves as primary learners -change might mean volunteering outside of formal job descriptions, since one's formal job structure within working hours might necessarily mean continuing to do things in their existing form to get work done -leader as a "collaborator" rather than "authority" -when you don't know what to "do" next, focus on maintaining/improving a "nurturing environment" -pay attention to labeling of selves and others - consider jargon, connotation, and euphemism when discussing purpose -consider how perception of the CIT structure affects publicity: "Center for Improvement of Teaching" implies either a physical building or structured group - one is either in, or out of it. What if "CIT" was a philosophy, or state of mind, or intrinsic style of UMB, rather than a "center"? What if UMB as a whole labeled itself as "a CIT" school?
 * New insights:**

-Is it the case that "altruism" is automatically desired and should be rewarded? -Is it true that energy/enthusiasm/motivation are a substitute for "formal policies and structures"? -What exactly are the "freedoms" that are offered to faculty who join the efforts? -"People and organizations need each other." Is it useful to think of these two elements as separate things with some relationship? Or is one or the other an illusion in any way? -How to ensure administration is addressed responsibly? Collaborative groups imply a creative outlet for a central idea, but the sheer time to administer information processing, communication, and organization seems to often be underestimated. -How is "collective knowledge" captured? -What does "touchy-feely" really mean?
 * Remaining questions:**

-review www.cit.umb.edu -review "A Diversity Research Initiative: How Students Become Researchers, Change Agents, nd Members of a Research Community" -review "Achieving Against the Odds: How Academics Become Teachers of Diverse Students" -learn the lessons of how "goals" might not need to be emphasized all of the time, but rather a collaboration is a chance to experiment, work through issues, without any specific goals Back to top
 * Applications to own project:**

__Madison Metropolitan School District (2001). "Classroom Action Research.",__
-problem identification->plan of action->data collection->analysis of data->plan for future action (similarities to Calhoun's proactive AR description) -don't need to reinvent every element of the process - use pre-established idea-generators to help suggest questions for inquiry, next steps, and action plans -learning takes place when there is discrepancy between predictions and observations -in group work, be conscious of listening to help others and listening to help oneself; these may not both be happening with equal regard all of the time -AR as a pathway to learner-centered teaching
 * Main themes:**

-raising awareness of one's "personal theory" of teaching, both to oneself, and others -in AR, may need to find way to ask the same question in different ways -consider how Elbow's "Ways of responding to writing" might be adapted to whole AR projects (using colleague-allies to help interpret AR results and observations) -AR hopefully eventually becomes a "habit of mind" rather than simply a method for doing research; instead of saying, "how can I answer this question through action research?", I might ask, "at what stage of action research is my current teaching, and what is next?" -view AR projects as a way to tell a story - note instances of disbelief, surprise, humor, and drama experienced throughout the AR -be conscientious that any "change" might be an AR opportunity, not simply something "to do" or a problem to be solved straightaway - AR might mean resisting the temptation to find the shortest path to a solution
 * New insights:**

-If "hard science" researchers use AR in their classroom teaching, will it ultimately affect the way they do research? How might AR be viewed different by primary/secondary teachers and by university faculty? -What approaches can be used to make idea-tracking easier? In other words, if an AR idea becomes exposed that has to do with how to carry through any AR stage, how can I keep track of what happens to the idea? For example, if I have the idea to design a survey for students, to what extent should I keep track of where the idea originated, whether or not it was implemented, how it was implemented, why it was used again, or not, etc? -In situations with school-aged children, how can parents/households support AR, even indirectly?
 * Remaining questions:**

-find ways to let students know that action research is happening, in addition to performing it with them (when appropriate such that it does not bias the research) -consider constituencies that are not part of the actual institution in which research is taking place -need to continue to organize my "vessels" of data collection - how am I keeping records, photographs, and other items that show observation of collaborative play? -consider how AR might be approached as framed for a "learner" rather than a "teacher"; as a learner, how do I want to get the most out of learning? As a "learner", are there special considerations if I considering my own learning AR across my life learning opportunities, as opposed to all learning opportunities within a single institution? -consider how to give others as much choice as possible in my AR - let others accept "play" into our collaborative planning with respect to individual styles, although we all might still be playing at the same thing -my AR with collaborative play in teacher planning might lead to improvement of intangible issues such as teacher friendliness and extending trust to others -consider how to find an AR "partner" in CCT Back to top
 * Applications to own project:**

__Hitchcock & Hughes, Chapter 5, "Designing, Planning and Evaluating Research";__
-use of a continual "dialogue" cycle, both internally, and with others -be aware of "biases" in several standard computer-based research approaches (skewed toward North American research, resources that are lesser quality) -substantive,methodological,theoretical, key author types of lit. reviews -validity,reliability,representativeness - are these sufficiently appropriate for qualitative research, where small samples and personal interactions are important? -validity - match between measurements, what is reported to be measured (descriptive, explanatory, instrument) -reliability - can research results be replicated? -representativeness - has sampling been done appropriately and sufficiently? do the research participants represent the population? are participants archtypes of the population?
 * Main themes:**

-consider research question in terms of "fit" with research methology -refer to "Frame-work for a critique of a research paper (p.94) for a list of ways to evaluate own paper -give consideration to the eventual audience of the AR; what is helpful/useful/novel to the audience?
 * New insights:**

-What is a "Feminist" research design? -Tension: whether to collect data first in way that is unbiased as possible, or form theory along side of data collection as a way to improve both.
 * Remaining questions:**

-think about "levels" of reflection during own journaling and notetaking during my AR - am I reflecting on the process? on my feelings? on my assumptions? on my expectations? -in a small scale, consider that I am using a small sample size, and so the scope of interest may be small Back to top
 * Applications to own project:**

__Greenwood & Levin, Chap. 11, "Action Science and Organizational Learning";__
-action science seeks a way to balance the need of scientifically rigorous research of action with the spirit of action research -science of practice: how people design and implement action in relation to each other -espoused theory, theory in use, single-loop learning, double-loop learning, Model I and II -because human behavior often represents single-loop learning, failures often come from not changing the wider circumstances/context of our actions, and therefore changes to the actions themselves allow for less "real" change than we intend
 * Main themes:**

-action science, as a methodology of "intervention" might then necessarily slow down the way that things change and the way that actions take place; they serve as a type of bottleneck to the usual form of actions -Milgram experiment - action science can suggest ways to do something with knowledge that is recognized to be important and relevant, perhaps in the form of finding out more about causes of behavior -universities are unlikely to confront the theory-practice divide sufficiently, so they are not likely candidates to embrace action science
 * New insights:**

-What is the source of the perception in social science that those things most "relevant" are not subject to rigorous knowledge and research? Does this really exist? -What are the difficulties found in the core action science assumption that intervention is beneficial to human behavior? Can defensiveness to changing one's action be presented in such a way to make the change seem unreasonable?
 * Remaining questions:**

-consider espoused model in collaborative play - when people refer to "collaboration" or "play", are they reflecting upon their action in the same way that others would do so? If not, does this mean that collaboration might not actually be happening, or that there is a disconnect between people in establishing common intentions? -consider my own action research as a way to make the outcome of collaborative play MORE LIKELY, rather than discover that it simply does or does not happen - my actions might be about making it easier for others to take action, even in small ways -How can my actions reveal to myself and others ways to improve the use of collaborative play, rather than suggesting that this is what must be done? In other words, how can my action research present that the use of collaborative play might be useful in some circumstances and is a valid tool to be used, rather than present that it is an answer to a problem? -action science can help alleviate the "threat" of silences and "vacuums" in group processes - this can be useful in collaborative play situations which specifically and directly ask the participants to refrain from discussing certain elements of play or even play in silence; this might help to lift some of the self-consciousness of adult play
 * Applications to own project:**

__CEDAC (Community Economic Development Advisory Committee) (1995). Our Economy: Our Future, Final Report. York, Ontario: City of York.__
-community-operated strategic planning process for city of York, ON -direct effort to learn from the processes of simiar cities -phases: research, strategic planning, community consultation, ongoing implementation -single "entry point" workshop - all involved have built-in common ground for starting discussion -committee AR/planning process in initial form, followed by community AR in wider form (assisted by facilitators) -strategic planning workshops: Vision, Obstacles, Strategic Directions, Action Planning
 * Main themes:**

-use my action research not only as a way to enact change in my work/life/teaching situation, but also use it to enact change in the way that I notice how I go about my own life, uncover and address areas of personal improvement, and find new ways to develop relationships with people and ideas -sometimes, it helps to limit focus of a single meeting or event to a very narrow concept of interest - provides permission to participants to not try to solve every type of problem at the same time -AR might help to expose the issue that resources may not have been used effectively; at the least, this can help people to simply pay attention to the use of resources in a more critical way -even though AR might often been seen as a way to create change in an educational environment, it can be use for action researchers to develop their role as "publicists" as well as "educational scientists" - create the imagery, language, and exposure that allows an action research team to "toot one's own horn"
 * New insights:**

-Why does the education system so easily take the blame when a failure of communication/dissemination of information takes place? In which cases is it appropriate to delegate responsibility to "education" to keep people informed, and in which cases does this fall on individuals, businesses, and government? -How does one weigh the options when all strategic directions cannot be taken at once? If communitity development, or any action research, takes the form of a systems thinking problem, where one action can support the ability to take another action, but the other way around as well, what should be done first?
 * Remaining questions:**

-be prepared for skepticism at first; in fact, this may be a core idea, since the idea of collaborative play with adults may be one such area that is met with skepticism; consider how to work on that angle first before considering what it takes to get people to engage in collaborative play directly, themselves -in addition to "action", "planning", etc., it may help to develop a list of core principles that apply to my AR - what are the ideals that are supporting my motivation to continue and keep believing that collaborative play is important and worthwhile? -consider the meaning of "economy" in school-based action research - what are those things which are seen to have VALUE, and upon what conditions does a community begin to perceive itself as having WEALTH? -think of alternatives to framing AR as having a start and end; for clarity, use the idea of phases, but continue AR in small ways, even if a major portion of the specific intervention is complete (task force, online log/discussion, etc.) -continue to learn about/attempt/practice facilitation styles and methods Back to top
 * Applications to own project:**

Woodhead, M. (1988). "When psychology informs public policy." __American Psychologist__ 43(6): 443-454.
//Summary of key points, by section://

__Main themes:__ -Head Start as a successful model of early childhood education as a single reference point in support of future formation of public policy -dissemination of knowledge based on research may be focus of researchers, but more problematic issue may be need of researchers to validate their claims and clarify contexts which contributed to the strength of their research findings -strong data from the Consortium for Developmental Continuity (Con. for Longitudinal Studies) that supports benefit of early childhood intervention programs (particularly for socially disadvantaged) -strong, consistent results of several researchers engaging in well-planned and well-designed studies, along with follow-up data -study data has strengthened support for Head Start, etc.: cited in public debates about ECE, used in evidence for laws related to education for handicapped/preschoolers, used in "third world" countries as support for ed. changes there

__"Wider Context of Early Intervention Research"__ -CLS studies (in mid-60's, reported in late 70's/early 80') part of a longer-term push for ECE policy research, and many other projects in related areas show strong results -CLS projects uniquely target 2-4 year olds, generally applicable, designed to be directly useful for policy -possibly have been some flaws in methodology that detract from analysis of the CLS program effectiveness -CLS projects seen as needing less rigorous experimental design needed to implement programs and therefore are more effective; also, their long-term attention has added to their credibility

__"Political Status of Early Childhood Intervention"__ -ECE (Early Childhood Education) has not always received direct and independent attention as a social science topic, so researchers have made extra effort to get it recognized -ECE issues often subsumed under a broader polical issue, not recognized on their own (War on Poverty, etc.) -Head Start initiated by Pres. Johnson in 1965 -easy to tie to policy because program addressed highly political issues such as poverty and unemployment -given attention in media with dramatic headlines -Head Start budget greatly increased after study finding, even when other public spending was held back in the early 80's

Central questions that need to be posed against the supposed success of the programs: 1. What causal processes could have produced effects over such a long period? 2. What significance does an understanding of possible causal processes have for policy? 3. How valid are the implications that have commonly been inferred from the data?

__"Evidence of Long-Term Effects"__ -program group - higher high school completion rates (related to higher expectations of parents and students) -no direct effects on success in job market observed -David Weikart's study - did show significant employment gains, and clear (though diminishing) effects on school achievement, lower levels of crime/arrests, teen pregnancy --these real-life effects have been highly influential on policy

__"A Promise for Social Policy"__ -very limited academic review of the findings (challenge by Zigler) -researchers reluctant to challenge CLS studies because they have political appearance of doing much for children in poverty, but widespread acceptance of findings leads to overly simplistic interpretation going forward for future policy -may facilitate political expedience but may harm future decisions -also suggests that this particular intervention is globally applicable as time goes forward (starts to forget the context of the original study) -need to remember that some parts of scientific study may be difficult or impossible to reproduce accurately in future attempts at the program -creates risk of full political backlash if program does not succeed as intended

__"Constraints on Generalizability"__ -specific contexts of the children and program design of the original study needs to be considered -original children were "extremely disadvantaged", lowest social class, parents with limited education, majority of Black children -various programs in the study were themselves varied (initial child age, length of program, etc.) -success cannot be tied to a single strategy, no single curriculum model within the study determined to be superior -study suggests possibility that a wide range of strategies for ECE might be effective, but ALL may not be effective -study contexts included high involvement of parents, careful program designs, low child-to-adult ratios, etc.

__"Models of Early Intervention Effectiveness"__ -"direct effects" model - preschoolers are more effective in school because they are more capable and "smarter" through the experience of being in preschool -cognitive dev. only 1 of 7 goals of Head Start -difficult to tie long-term prog. effects - cog. ability higher through the next two years, but the effects still diminished during that time for the experimental group -IQ not strong foundation for determining long-term effects (unless some latency occurs) -key variables that offer evidence of long-term effects: "school competence" (retention of grade and referral to special education classes) => study group less likely to be held back or referred to special ed. -CLS suggested that program caused teacher intervention which started a cycle of positive support and reinforced children's competence - became a self-fulfilling prophecy -even though program group showed differences compared to control group, the program group still had relatively poor performance compared to broader school community - this effect could carry through even though cog. effects had diminished -labeling of children also a self-fulfilling prophecy - children live up to standards set for them -suggests that being held back/special ed. actually harmful by starting a long-term cycle of low achievement and low self-perception -suggestion from British 11+ study - program group more likely to benefit because the program prepared children with respect to putting them in a perspective of achievement relative to another type of evaluation, which had a long-term effect on them in real terms -this suggests that ECE intervention is more complex than realized -preschool affected children but also parents,teachers in direct and indirect ways -Bronfenbrenner's "ecological" framework - advocates social research in context

__"Policy Implications of Long-Term Effects"__ -"transactional" model of the CLS study more complex,less certain than a direct model, which would directly relate change to policy -transactional model long-term implications must consider other interactions that happen between parents and children, influence of culture, even specific experimental design differences between studies -social sciences require many more replication experiments compared to hard sciences, which still may not "prove" a case -must also consider that an absolute model should not simply be replaced with a culture-specific model in all cases, because some evidence may apply across cultures -need to further examine the path of students after the study - "unseen" factors may dampen or amplify the path to long-term achievement (Latin America study - low number of teachers, poverty, limited resources can dampen benefits of preschool such that they start to become insignificant compared to these other factors) -high-quality research of CLS study focused on child achievement but also might have provided evidence about the overall school structure and practices and helped to suggest strategies about how they could be improved as well -original goal of Head Start included simply getting federal funds to local communities, and partially to counteract negative influences in homelife of children and counteract deficiencies in the school system (Head Start employed for the "worst reasons") -CLS studies have taken place at a different time in history, so the reason for their relevance may be weakened by different/changing school climates -reasons to believe that family attitudes about preschool were particularly sensitive at the time of the CLS studies: during period of racial desegregation, civil rights legislation, MLK, new hope for education/children, optimism of the country -Zigler: argues that evidence has at times been misapplied in political terms to suggest blame for secondary school failure -Zigler (1983): emergence of "new roles for scientists and experts as advocates" -generally, overemphasis on "researched" study causes attention/recognition of "unresearched" areas (e.g. other context) to be lessed, but that does not mean those areas are not significant or crucial -this might actually undermine role of ECE programs, since times when they fail to achieve goals may also be blamed solely on the program, ignoring other factors of culture, family and school-wide issues Back to top