Thursday, November 10, 2011

wow. The last three months have been a blur. All that I can say is that this has been the hardest school year of my life so far and it has nothing at all whatsoever to do with this dissertation. It mostly has to do with the fact that hurricane Irene flooded our building and now we are in a much less suitable space. I am really only now able to focus on writing again. I am also making music again in my new church and starting an exercise regime. Those things really help. I am taking a couple of courses to keep me going academically.

So my thoughts on the dissertation are that I want to interview two students at ECA who went to BHS. They have become pretty close to me and want to spend more time with me. I want to bring them to a focus group interview once or twice. I have to get IRB approval to do that, however. But it will really bring this whole research full circle. My next move is to contact GT, DD, and MG to arrange a few visits to observe them.

Ever onward.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

A new addition

Yesterday I ended up recording a classroom session from MG and interviewing him about his personal background. I love this. it is so very intriguing. I want to do at least one more focus group may be two. Last year's were amazing and I only did two. One at the beginning of the year and one towards the end. I think with the remaining month of the summer I will listen to all I have so far and look at the genocide writings to see if I can create some focus group questions for next year. I also have to look at Henry A. Giroux, Irving Goffman and Foucault. I owe to research papers and I need to get those done before school starts. I was thinking that Morell and I need to create a library schedule so we can both succeed. We need an exercise schedule, too. I'll work on that over the next couple of weeks. I think what has been difficult for me is coming to terms with the realization that this is a dual effort. I have to figure out how to include Morell because he has really sacrificed greatly so that I can do this.

So interesting. I felt like I was meeting MG for the first time. The would-be historian who became an Earth Science teacher. His dad was a mathematician who watched the calculus problems on the Rutgers channel on Saturday mornings. So math and its acceptable cousin, science was a more acceptable pursuit. He was most influenced by his high school history teacher. I really saw that influence in his teaching when I observed him. I also saw how his teaching style was influenced by his college education in science. Good stuff.

Monday, August 1, 2011

I'm starting to understand who they are

I am listening to the interviews and I am getting an idea of who DD and GT are as people and as educators. GT wants his students to ask questions and wants to push his students to do some work outside of class. He identifies with the College Prep student who has not yet come into his or her own yet and has a fear of failure and a fear of success. He remembers sharing that identity with those students as a teenager. But seeing as how GT went on to acquire a PhD in pharmacology, he came to understand that he needed to do some work to get there. I relate his experiences with his Dad to the spark that propelled him to succeed. His father's identity influence GT greatly. And yet his is experiencing success in getting students to read and study outside of class, because he has made that his main focus. He sees that discourse is increasing because in his words"they now have something to talk about because they have done the reading.

DD on the other hand came from the working poor class. He has stated how greatly that influence him as he was growing up and what a wonderful childhood he felt he had in spite of the economic challenges. Dan relates to the lower level student and feels he has street cred because he lives on the South Side of town where many of the less wealthy students live. DD is much more aware of racial statistics in the school. Listening to his life story I found that DD was deeply influenced my MLK and the racial issues of the 50s and 60s when he was growing up. DD wants his students to be open about their thoughts and questions and to feel comfortable and enthusiastic about his class. He wants them to perceive him as an ok guy who is not so different from them. He sees his students as potential friends in the future.

What is a bit saddening is that neither DD or GT or FR thought that there was much room for true discourse in their classes due to a number of issues. The acknowledged that there was pretty much exclusively fact giving and clarification. But both GT and DD acknowledged that they allow students to go off into tangents if they will only ask questions. I need to observe them for myself to try to capture some of these tangents. They feel that very little critical thinking and synthesis takes place, but some students are thinking if they are willing to ask questions that they have come up with on their own. I am beginning to understand what is coming out of these data. But at the same time, I need to see for myself what is going on in their classrooms. Since there can be no video recording, I have to just take some days off next year and sit and observe.

Now, to rope in MG. He agreed to participate! Woo Hoo!

Sunday, July 31, 2011

So what will this book look like?

I was just thinking while listening to DD's interview that I want to start from the interviews. Of course after I do the required review of literature and framework and methodology sections, I'll depart with discussions about the teachers as individuals. From there I think I will discuss their perceptions of how their identity influences their interactions with their students and their perceptions of discourse. Those interviews were so interesting, that it will immediately grab the reader's attention. After that, I will tie in some of the theories with their discussions about their perceptions of how identity influences discourse. The focus groups will be the next chapter, and again I'll start with a discussion of how they are perceiving themselves and the state of education. I'll talk about how all of this influences discourse identity. I think some of the literature we read in Alan's class will become useful at this point.

The next chapter will be about the classroom sessions. What I am realizing is that I want to sit in and observe the teachers myself. Not even so much to code the sessions, but just to see if there is evidence of how their beliefs match up with what they are saying int he focus groups and individual interviews.

I'll end with analysis and conclusions. I had the idea the other day to contact Jeff to see if he wants to come to ECA and talk to me about how to use those data and also about how to code and analyze the other data I have. That might be a really good idea. I'll get in touch with him towards the end of August.

Friday, July 29, 2011

Listening to the Interviews and Writing Grants

I have officially begun spending time with these interviews. I have listened to a couple of focus groups and the beginning of Dan's one on one interview. I really tackled some difficult matters. I am very proud of myself. I have to give Matt his recorder first thing on Monday. I really want to observe him. I can do that during my prep. I need to observe Dan and Gary as well. I will arrange to do that in the fall. And I would like to have one more focus group with Dan, Gary and Matt.

My school district does not seem to be committed to providing the materials I need so I have to apply for as many grants as possible. Luckily I had a pep talk during the ASM camp. I think I am really ready to start going for it. I need the experience. I have applied for one already this summer. It was for Biotechnology equipment and we did not get it, but this time I will give myself more time and really put thought into the goals and budget.

I have the goal this weekend of listening to Dan and Gary's personal interviews and finishing memos on the focus groups for this school year. I think it is doable. I was thinking that I am not that interested in using transana for video since I can't video record the classroom sessions. The video recordings of the focus groups are almost unnecessary, the audio is really sufficient. It would be the classroom recordings that I am most interested in. I need permission to video tape. And I think I can get that permission at ECA. As I suspected, the epilogue might end up being much more interesting than the rest of the dissertation. If that is the case I have to start working on that and contact IRB with the materials they requested as soon as possible.

In any case. I just have to chip, chip, chip away at all of this. One day at a time. Today I listen to interviews. Today I work on a grant a little bit. Today I build that model rocket.

Friday, July 22, 2011

NOYCE and the beginning of coding

KJ and MT are teaching full time now. MT will be tenured next year. I also have the opportunity to present at a NOYCE regional conference. I should take a look at the data I collected from them way back and interview them again in the Fall. It would be interesting to discuss their views on discourse identity. It would be very cool to see how they have changed over the years or if their teaching experience has influenced their thinking in any way.

I listened to my last focus group interview and there were so many interesting ideas. I only got through 30 minutes out of two hours, but it was pretty amazing. According to my proposal defense, I need to finish identifying what is analytically interesting according to my research questions and write memos about what is interesting about those ideas.

Off we go!

Next week should be interesting at work. I get to do some teacher training on using graphing calculators for data collection on a physiology of zebra fish experiment. I also have great ideas for rocket science for the consortium students. I am brushing up on exponential and logarithmic functions. I need to brush up on my trigonometric functions as well. Looking forward to it! Kepler's Laws here I come!

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Listening and Crafting the Vision

SO what is the goal here anyway? I think the goal is to finish by May so that I can either apply to a University or apply for a job as an assistant principal. Is alternative education now a focus? If so, where in the process do I want to be? School administration? Post-doc and researching many schools? Teaching teachers?

Here's what I think. I think I want to work with practicing teachers. I think I want to receive grants to provide teachers with experiences that inspire. I think I want to increase the quality of STEM education in alternative schools and detention centers. I think I want to train teachers to educate themselves about jobs and opportunities for job training for their students. I think maybe if I were a principal who was effective at creating a STEM - focused school, that would be very fulfilling. I think If I were a professor who obtained grants for research experiences for teachers, that would be even better. Courses for pre-service, newly inducted, and practicing teachers in which they bring the research experience into the classroom and take the students out of the classroom on a regular basis to conduct investigations. I think I would like to teach a course on discourse analysis for teachers. I think I would like to teach a course on developing research and publication skills in high school students. I think I would like to offer college courses to high school students in alternative school environments.

That may be the vision.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Motivating the Last Hurdle

I need to start fleshing out my vision and purpose and perhaps even some specific goals for the school or program I want to create after I graduate. I was just noting that what motivated me to begin this PhD program is very different than what is motivating me to finish. I thought I wanted a charter school for a really long time. That may still be true, but my goals are very different now. I know I still have a whole lot to experience, but last year taught me more than all previous years combined. So these summer months will be great in that i can deal with some seriously neglected areas of my life and start fleshing out the dream.

Any way, I pulled out all of the discourse analysis books. I think Deena is right about starting with the data. I think I'll start coding this week for at least 2-3 hours per day and see where it takes me.

But right now I have to go to the consortium and get these dissections started.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Summer 2011

I have three major goals. That is to revise my first two chapters, do a bunch of coding and really fine-tune my coding scheme, and finish up my lit review. I also want to speak to Matt Giordano next week to see if he will allow me to record him during the Consortium. I know he'll do it. That is going to be phenomenal because I know this group is challenging. I am back from NASA and fired up! I plan to begin a group of high school junior and seniors that are involved in airborne research. I will contact everyone about that next week. The principal of ECA wants to hold a three day professional development to get on board for school next year. I really want to attend but I have already missed two days of the summer program to go to NASA. Well, I am sure it will all work out.

Good things are happening. But I need to make a schedule for my three dissertation goals and e-mail them to Arthur.

A nice thing happened just yesterday, though. I found out that I passed the School Leadership Exam!

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

One more focus group

I think next week will be the last focus group. I want to ask some questions about cultural genocide. I am thinking to ask about the most underprivileged students and simply explain the effects of cultural genocide with out using the term and ask if DD and GT see any of those things in their students. I may even completely remove race from the issue initially. Just ask about the effects of cultural genocide and ask if they see those effects and in whom and why they think that is happening. I'll actually explain what cultural genocide is at the end of our discussion and ask about whether or not they think that it is possible that this has effected some of their students. I had a really good idea to play back recordings of CDR's class which we all taught actually and have a nice long discussion about what DD and GT think about that whole situation. Now THAT would be interesting because I know that a bunch of those students have exactly the issues I have been pondering. I could use that as a reason to ask about that population specifically and have GT and DD reflect on how they have handled situations like that and what they attribute all of it to. I think I should revisit those recordings on Saturday and put together some questions that get at the cultural genocide issue. That may lead me to some ideas about how to code those data.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

New Direction Same Old Problems

Yesterday's meeting was really helpful. I'm glad I recorded it with my livescribe. I have decided to incorporate cultural genocide as a lens to really bring things together for me conceptually. I have to think of it in terms of coding. So I think over the next two weeks I will meet with Alex and get him to help me with making the connection between cultural genocide and discursive identity. It seems intuitive to me. But I know I need to explain it really well. I might want to double back and revisit Bernstein. Bloomfield definitely has the students I want to write about, but I have to schedule some classroom visitations I think. I need to sit in the back of the room in their worst classes and record. I think that is all I am missing thus far. I'm going to have a closer listen at what I've got and talk to GT about whether he has any really challenged students. I think I have an idea of who I want to observe. I have two more teachers to talk to. I may be able to observe one of them over the summer! Woo hoo. We're working at a summer program together. I actually think I'll start with my recordings and Dan's. This Saturday I'll drive out to New Brunswick and get started. I still have readings to complete in genocide studies. If I can complete those before Saturday and print out my lit review, I would be off to a good start. Off we go...

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

How "Bird" helped me find my wings

I was watching the movie "Bird" yesterday, supposedly for my son...but he never came into the living room to watch with me. I'm not mad...he played the melody to blue monk yesterday and put a hurting on it. So, he practiced and he secretly loves the music. How can he help himself? I was pondering my current situation and how smothered I was feeling as a science educator. I am exactly where I need to be, and I would love to take a crack at the other two schools, especially the detention enter. But I am so constrained in what I can do. I am forcing myself how to learn to COEXIST. I have to try to touch the spirits of the other teachers and aids. I have to let them in to my mind and spirit if we are going to truly be of any good use to these young people. And it is amazingly difficult. So many boundaries have to be crossed, so many egos have to be put aside, but I am so much more prepared than ever before for this work, and it shows. The problem is that the detention-center style of running our school is hard for me to swallow, and since this is a blog, I can't say anything else about that. I am not crazy, I am not getting too close to my students, I am historically, culturally, and socially aware. I think I am going to have to find a way to be outside and inside at the same time to be useful. Enter Charlie "Yardbird" Parker. Thankfully, I will not have to take any legal or illegal depressants to survive this phase of my life. But he said something that got me thinking. Something about figuring out how to extend the harmony and play outside and inside of it simultaneously. Something about it happening before Christmas and changing his life. There was this scene where he was experimenting with it and the drummer threw a cymbal at him and gonged him off the stage. I can see clearly what needs to be done. Our system of education was designed to function like a machine, where youth proceed from one place to the next in an orderly fashion. In the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing. But what happens when the world outside of that institution does not function that way at all? What foolishness propels us to believe that we can undo a lifetime of disorder by simply setting up an orderly structure. And even if we condition our youth to function within this system while they are with us, without addressing any of the chaos outside of the school building, what has been accomplished? Why do we replicate detention centers and prison structure instead of creating something else. Why can we signify on everything else and not this? Take the harmony, take the form, and play something entirely different. This is what we do so well that others can only learn from us or try to emulate. The classroom is too small, but the university is too far removed. Got to create a different space. And expect somebody to throw a cymbal at me and laugh in my face. I've already been asked if I'm feeling ok...chuckle. No, sir, I am not feeling ok. Not at all.

Monday, April 25, 2011

More thoughts on hostility

I have been considering doing some recordings of TB and I teaching a lesson together. I want to ask Gary and Dan if they see any displays of anger at BHS. In my current environment I often see students exhibiting outbursts of anger during teaching. I am thinking of AM and JP who simply do not want to be guided in any way - no, that is not true. I am trying to capture this clearly. AM does not take a liking to one on one instruction and becomes hostile if it is imposed upon him. Anything beyond copying things down seems to anger and frustrate him. He seems to demand freedom to roam about and experiment as he pleases. A very interesting case, indeed. I think I will use my live scribe to record some interactions with this student. The anger seems to be at the resistance toward having things explained. These are people that have apparently been in charge of most aspects of their lives and are resisting being guided or led. There is a need for tactile lessons. It would be interesting to see if a physics bases approach in which the student roams around performing experiments and asking questions as they arise would lead to a discursive exchange. And the question that interests me most is would there be a hostility towards being made to memorize and utilize certain unfamiliar vocabulary.

Anyhow, this hostility seems to stem from identity conflict. These new words , but more importantly the practice of insisting that they are used, seem to take on a very negative meaning for some. Now, in the case of KW, there is no hostility against whites or whiteness as he seems to be very attracted and curious about dating a white girl. He talk about his often. And yet in spite of his very high degree of mathematical and logical abilities, he resists using scientific terminology. He often became hostile, but that was not a reaction to talking about science. His anger stemmed from any number of outside forces, mostly gang affiliated issues, and other social problems with other students. And the resistance to using the scientific terms most likely would have been overcome with time, because KW seemed to embrace the science. What I have learned more clearly than ever before is that race and cultural sensitivity matter a great deal to many students. They have an internal radar that immediately seems to search for recognition of what is familiar to them, upon finding it, they slowly - even if enshrouded in a cacophony of swear words and hostile sentiments - will come around and start talking science with you, and can be persuaded over time to use scientific terminology.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Genocide and my new teaching assignment

It is most important for me now to flesh out how everything comes together with my "new lens." I have been given the task of developing a power point in which I describe the necessity of using cultural genocide as a lens and how it connects with my research. Why is this lens even necessary. I wanted to get these ideas out before I lost them. I would not have seen this clearly had I not began working at ECA.

Mr. Botch (math) and I (science) experience a great deal of hostility. I find that overall the students like being active in science, but they become hostile at times when forced to adapt their language. I experience less hostility because I am an Afro-American female, of this I can be certain. Botch sees this. Although I suspect that the kids resentment toward his whiteness is a smaller issue than his cultural disconnect from them. But that must be handled at a later date. Right now my challenge is to put in writing the anger and how it plays out in the classroom. I'll speak of KW who was more mathematically talented than the rest although much more psychologically and emotionally challenged. KW would often use curse words to replace the science vocabulary. This was a passive aggressive way of rejecting the cultural aspect of chemistry that did not match his and that he saw as unnecessary. I saw this with other students as well. Yesterday was a wonderful example. My freshman students were outraged because I refused to finish playing a movie that I had begun. After establishing that I was choosing the curriculum and lesson plans, and sometimes they would just have to accept my decisions although I am often open to their suggestions. They retaliated by saying they would refuse to learn that day. I of course ignored them and began by discussion about evolution and sought to present two new words to them - genotype and phenotype. Again, there was some buy-in from students who were willing to explain the meaning of the terms to me, but extreme resistance to actually speaking the terms with two exceptions. HJ who said he was too high from the night before to really concentrate, but was still trying to hang in there. Also another new student DA who said he had heard these terms before, but was still resistant towards attempting to describe their meanings.

So I have to think about why words alone would create resistance and hostility. Why did FM storm out of the room when I said that birds struggle to survive in their environment, and have a harder time making it than he does? Why replace vocabulary with curse words? The most important question for me is why is it important to look at this through the lens of cultural genocide? How does it help us to view things differently?

I realize that this environment draws things out that other would not. Here, students have been cast out of their regular schools. Rejected because they didn't have what it takes or were so out of control behaviorally that they needed a special environment to get through school. Like a prison, or detention center, which many of them rotate into and out of, they seek to establish pecking order of toughness. Even within the classroom, using big scientific words for many of them is completely unnecessary and does not represent who they see themselves as. No amount of posters and discussions about Afro-American scientists and mathematicians seems to be able to change that. Those people are not from "my hood" and do not understand "my reality" is the common sentiment. So, it really does boil down to presenting enough examples of people from the reality that they are most familiar with who do embrace these strange new words and most importantly - seem to be economically prosperous as a result.

So back to the subject at hand, being cultural genocide. These very intelligent young people know that they have not been exposed to scientific thinking and language that is being imposed upon them. They also know that they can communicate the information without using those words, although not in such a way that other studying the same thing might be open to or can even understand, unless they wanted to really work at understanding. Which gets at the crux of the necessity for the cultural genocide lens. Victims of genocide, when deprived and cut off from the majority, create their own language and cultural norms. And in the words of Lemkin, what is lost (in terms of their ancestral language and norms) is lost forever. From my perception the hostility arises from being failed over and over because of the refusal to engage in certain cultural aspects of science, although the propensity to do science and understand science and even communicate science is fully intact. With the lens of cultural genocide, we can at least begin to look towards viewing the rejection and hostility and part of an age-old process. Since we know and accept genocide as an unfortunate and timeless occurrence, and we can see the same sorts of anger, hostility, and resentment in other victims of genocide, we can look towards Afro-American male students in a completely different way. Not as a social ill, or some sort of stigma to be erased, or unidentifiable problem to be solved. But as victims as a process that has been well charted throughout history, and the very same reactions we see amongst Afro-American males can be seen amongst other groups who have been victims of genocide. Now on to explaining how cultural genocide acts to create this deep anger and resentment. In a nutshell, the victims are cut off from society and their ancestral ties. As they become more and more disenfranchised they find it increasingly difficult to acquire the language and cultural norms necessary to support themselves economically. Over time, when the understanding that they will not be permitted to participate in the larger society because they are ill equipped to so do, genocidal victims turn to illegal activities and substance abuse. There is a historical basis to the use of ensuring that drugs and alcohol are readily available to the victims of genocide, and gambling, etc. are prominent. So according to genocide scholarship, there is a pattern amongst victims of genocide in which they essentially lose the will to live. As a matter of fact, they lose respect and reverence for life in general. All that matters is the immediate survival and struggle to attain as much materially as possible for the present.

Now with his lens, the replacement of science terms with curse words means something different. On a personal note, it does not mean that the teacher does not encourage the use of the proper terms. However, it does mean that in the absence of connecting those terms with something that is immediately meaningful for disenfranchised students, they cannot be expected to embrace them. Which is why the project based learning model is exciting when tied with community activism, jobs, and internships. But the practical message is - teach the science first and let students experience the success and exhilaration of achievement first - curse words, inappropriate behavior and all. If they can predict the products of a reaction and balance the chemical equations - but they are using curse words to explain what is going on, who cares? After they've nailed it - they will come around to using the proper terms.

Monday, January 3, 2011

Problem Statement, Specific Aim Research Questions

The discursive identities of three tenured teachers at Bloomfield High School in New Jersey will be explored. Bloomfield is a suburban community that boarders one major city, Newark, and several other suburbs, Montlclair, and Glen Ridge. The school is relatively large, with a population just under 2,000 for the past 5 years. Bloomfield High offers several tracks including level1(not college-bound students), college prep, honors, special education, and advanced placement science classes. I will conduct an ethnographic study of three tenured science teachers in the following subject areas: biology/anatomy and physiology, chemistry, and physics/physical science. The aim of this investigation is to examine whether or not students who were taught by tenured science teachers who either had very similar discursive identities to theirs or were extremely effective at communicating verbally and nonverbally in a manner that is familiar to them experience an easier transition to adopting the language and culture of science.
My aim has not changed. I am looking at three older, Caucasian gentlemen and leading them to examine how much scientific discourse is happening between them and their students. I am simultaneously providing them with reading material and discussion points that teach them about discourse identity and how it can play an important role in how much students talk during class and what becomes of the discursive exchanges. We are putting the classroom conversations under the microscope to see how much talk is happening, what kind of talk it is, and whether or not students seem to be responding positively to the exchanges. What has been interesting is how other environmental factors have come into the conversations. So, although my aim has not changed – I am still chiefly concerned with whether or not the exchange in dialogue is taking place in the classroom and how the teacher and student identities come into play – I am also acutely aware of the other pedagogical, cultural, and disciplinary issues that are also really influencing this whole dynamic.
This investigation will examine the cultural conflict between students’ identity and the discursive practices of science as well as conflict that may arise due to differences in the discursive identity of teachers and cultural identity of their students.
This is still very much true. There is still a struggle to help students deal with the abundance of unfamiliar terms (especially in the case of biological science) and ways of mathematical and analytical reasoning (especially in the case of physics) that are in direct opposition to many of the students way of thinking and doing. This conflict is still at the center of this investigation. Not to mention that the teachers continue to note that they feel like they are from a very different place and time in terms of their approach to learning. They are very much convinced that there has been a cultural shift and it has not been a positive shift.
Research Questions:
The current project is guided by five primary research questions:

1. How do tenured science teachers perceive the use of science- specific classroom discourse by their students? The focus groups are giving me great information about this. While observing the tapes of the focus group interviews and listening to the audio recordings of the classroom episodes, it will be interesting to see if the teacher’s beliefs seem to influence how they address the students. I wonder if I need to develop some sort of code for tying teacher statements about their students’ discourse to what happens in the classroom that seems to be related?
2. How do tenured science teachers recognize the use of science-specific classroom discourse as framing issues of access for students of traditionally underrepresented cultures? I think this is coming up as well in the focus groups. I think I focused more on whether we sort of pigeon-hole the students and then let that drive how we talk to them.
3. How do tenured science teachers identify differences between discursive practices of teachers and their students? I am getting plenty on this. Especially about the difference in the cultural aspect of family life and educational practices when they were high school students and how they have perceived the change in that culture that has taken place.
4. How do tenured science teachers perceive that a difference between their discursive practices and that of their students will affect students’ identities and their use of discourse in science classrooms? We have not really gotten to this. Actually, the teachers seem to believe that their experiences as young adults are helping them to connect with their students. Even though they believe themselves to have come up in a very different time and had a very different view and approach to their education when they were teens.
5. To what extent do tenured science teachers perceive the effect of their past educational experiences on their ability to facilitate discourse in their mathematics classrooms? We need to spend more time on this in the last two focus groups. But overall they think that their background has a huge impact on who they are as teachers and how they relate to their students. What we need to really zoom in on is how this affects their conversation.
This involves the following specific objectives:

1. To document evidence of the tenured teachers' perception of tension between academic and personal identity of minority students of science in a large suburban school public school. To explore how engaging in the cultural practices of science, including the discursive practices of science classrooms, can initiate cultural conflict for marginalized students. This involves conducting focus group interviews with tenured teachers of varied educational and cultural backgrounds and capturing their perceptions of tensions that arise during discourse in their science classes.
2. To explore and document tenured science teachers’ discursive identities and document their perceptions of their students’ cultural identities. This will be accomplished by conducting individual interviews.
3. To document the similarities or differences between the cultural practices and discourse identities of tenured science teachers and those of their students. This will entail the audiotaping of classes facilitated by the tenured science teachers. This will be followed by the generation of transcripts from those videotapes. A review of the transcripts will lead to the development of key theoretical domains that serve to effectively characterize the range of responses provided by teachers and students.

New Calendar for completeion of Dissertation

Calendar

Problem Statement, Specific Aim, Research Questions – January 15th

Literature Review – January 29th

Theoretical and Conceptual Framework – October 30th

Methods – February 12th

Analysis of Focus Group Interviews – February 26th

Analysis of Individual Interviews – March 12th

Analysis of Video – March 26th

Appendix and Discussion – April 30th

First Draft of Dissertation Submitted – May 28th

Defense Date – October 2011

Commencement – December 2011

Addressing suggestions made during proposal defense

1. CW: Mention that you have IRB approval under the Noyce.
Thankfully, I ended up submitting everything to Rutgers IRB now that I am doing this research at Bloomfield High School. I am exempt - thank you, God. I need to stay on top of Arthur about filling out his part of the form. That is really all that is left to do with that - so I will make it a goal to finish that up this week.

2. What about urban?
Really good question, although I don;t know that I am emphasizing the urban aspect now that I am doing the research in Bloomfield, NJ.

3. Use of the word “minority students”? Use another term since the students within their setting are not minority students? Well, they are now since I switched from Newark to Bloomfield.

4. More demographic information on your participants. Really good point. I have to complete my individual interviews and make sure I ask those questions when I do it. I will make it a goal this week to revisit my individual interview protocol and schedule those interviews for sometime this month.

5. How do your codes facilitate your ability to address your research question?
They didn't. And now that I am focusing on Science educators I have to come up with some new codes. So...my goal for this week is to look at at least two focus group interviews and start developing new codes.