Plan A
In collaboration with my classmate Renee, I have identified a research site and acquired the informed consent of all seven participants. The site is a hybrid course in emergent literacy that meets face-to-face on Saturday mornings five times this semester. Renee is the instructor of record for the class; she is teaching for Dr. Anne McGill-Franzen, who is on sabbatical. As TA, I provide technical support to the instructor and students, mainly through BlackBoard.
The course, REED 529, is generally populated with practicing classroom teachers and recent college graduates seeking additional endorsement as K-12 reading specialists and/or MS degrees in reading education. Because the course is a hybrid, students must demonstrate competency with a variety of information and communication technologies in order to participate, interact, and represent what they have learned. Students write weekly blog reflections, build knowledge bases within wikis, and use the course management site to upload and submit written work and to communicate with the instructor. The final project is a written case study accompanied by an enhanced slide presentation for which the students must capture, edit, and embed video documenting their assessments of and instructional interventions with emergent readers.
Because the class was scheduled to meet twice in August and then not again until late September, we hit the ground running and began capturing audio on the first day, which was August 20. We have since recorded more than five hours of audio, but I cannot say that any of it is particularly useful or relevant to my personal research agenda, which would be how teachers take up and talk about digital technologies. Over the last two Saturdays, I have listened to and participated in snippets of conversation about technology in the course, but so far there has not been a single, 30-minute segment of natural, uninterrupted conversation on the subject of technology.
It has always been the case in the past that I have offered technology help sessions to the 529 students, with them taking the initiative insofar as accessing that support. Over the next six weeks, students will be engaged in their first big project of digital content creation, the wiki. So, I am currently in a holding pattern as I wait to see how -- if at all -- they want to talk about, problem-solve, or troubleshoot this assignment between themselves or with me.
As far as collecting a document or text to analyze, I was thinking of two things: 1) the course syllabus, or 2) an actual digital artifact created by one of the students for the course. But, if I use a piece of student-generated content, I am wondering what additional permissions I might have to secure??
Plan B
I was recently invited to sit in on weekly collaborative team meetings at a local high school, and I am currently in the process of securing permission from the building-level principal to record these sessions. Then, of course, I would have to acquire the informed consent of the team, which numbers about eight teachers and administrators. The meetings occur every Thursday morning around 10:15 and last for at least 30 to 45 minutes. On the plus side, the frequency and duration suggests to me that this might me a good back-up plan, assuming the gatekeeper grants access. I’m also sure the team will generate a substantial trail of documentation, some of which I can add to my data mix.
On the minus side, I wonder if I will be a little handicapped, analytically speaking, because of my six-year absence from the public school context? I will discuss this issue of context in my reflection on Mercer, chapters 5-7.
RE: Plan A, you could just ask the students if it is okay to look at their artifacts for your course assignment for this class. The syllabus would work, too. (Remind me, do you have actual IRB approval for this?) for Plan B, I think you'll have plenty of contextual knowledge and the distance may be good for you from a researcher perspective (as opposed to the class you are helping teach). Since this is for a class, if you get gatekeeper permission and signature you may not need every single person to sign a form, though it would be good if they did..we can talk more about this if you want to go this route.
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