Perhaps more than any other areas of growth, and there have been many over this past summer, the idea of developing character and teaching virtues has really caught my attention.  I believe it’s from the combination of having taught a year and feeling at an utter loss for how to help some students who seem to have ZERO sense of propriety or manners, and the reading and discussions I’ve had this summer for my Moral Issues in Education class.  A year ago, I would have dodged this topic altogether, saying that character development is for family and church and I am here to teach math.  Part of the reason for this stand would have been the sense of helplessness and lack of know how.  Where do I start? How do I teach high school kids who should know this already?  I now feel more hopeful because there are tools and guides, like Character Matters by Thomas Lickona.  Also, I recently attended Professional Development where one of the take-aways was “don’t take yourself so seriously!”  This is good advice for me, and I’ve decided to try this new area of teaching character development by just starting with simple conversations about manners in my class.

Hawthorne effect (p356)  the confounding effect on a study caused by subjects who behave differently because they believe they are being watched.  This can limit the generalizability of the study to those people who believe they are part of a study.

When I was being observed by my principal, the students thought they were the ones being observed, and behaved well.  The Hawthorne effect worked on them, while I was the one being judged.  Because of this, the principal did not get a “true” view of how my classroom behaved on a “normal” day.

Reflection:

I learned that there are a lot of interesting and informative studies that are not good research studies.  From doing the article critiques, I became aware of all the omissions the researchers made.  I found very informative and thorough studies that represented a lot of work, but because of vague or missing hypothesis, didn’t make any strong statements.  I am wondering if any study can be truly generalized with so many confounding variables.

Population validity (p353) the characteristics of the subjects of a study.  The study’s findings would be generalizable to a population with like characteristics.

In the discussion section of a research report, the authors discussed the population validity of their study.  Because they’d only tested male students, their findings could not be generalizable to a female population.

Reflection:

I learned that the subjects of a study need to be described in detail enough for a reader to evaluate the population validity of the study.  I learned that ecological validity is the term used to consider the conditions around the research, and this is also a limitation to the generalizability of a study.

Triangulation (p314) A mixed method design that simultaneously implements both quantitative and qualitative methods, collecting and analyzing data concurrently.

Triangulation designs let a researcher develop a thorough understanding of a phenomena. By using both quantitative and qualitative findings, a researcher can compare them to each other to get closer to a truth.

Reflection:

I learned that the mixed method design is a very powerful design, giving researchers a chance to take advantage of both the strength of numbers from the quantitative side and the strength of insight from the qualitative side.

In the second case study of the chapter, the direct instruction math lesson follows a different lesson with manipulatives and diagrams.   This makes sense that new concepts require more exploratory lessons.  The exploration’s learnings can be formalized into mathematical rules and direct instruction helps with the practice.  Direct instruction can be overly cognitively passive compared to other strategies that are higher up on Blooms taxonomy, such as concept attainment or the inductive model.  However, there’s no question that practice with a wide variety of problems helps students gain confidence and understanding.

Ethnography (p276) In depth involvement in a culture to describe naturally occurring behavior.

Margaret Mead did ethnographic qualitative studies in Samoa by living among the people and studying their ways.  By living among the Samoans, they shared information about themselves that they may not have shared to a distant observer.

Reflection:

Today I learned that most qualitative studies are made by people who have a social justice agenda, and it’s good to know what the researcher’s agenda is.  Qualitative studies can be done on one person, with great detail, and still be considered a research study.  Qualitative studies need 3 points of reference, so if someone tells you “something,” then the “something” that you heard should be told to you by 2 other sources for it to be considered usable for a qualitative study.

Level of significance (p254) probability of being wrong in rejecting the null hypothesis, usually indicated with the letter p.  The probability p tells what the chance of getting the results are by just chance.  For example, p < 5% means there was less than 5% chance that the results could be gotten by chance.

We found that too many extraneous variables led to p<6% and that caused us to go back and try the research again.

Reflection:

Today I learned that we always start out thinking that the null hypothesis is correct.  Then, by looking at the amount of overlap in the bell curves of the results (let’s say from 2 samples), if there’s very little overlap of the bell curves, then you can say that it’s clear there’s a difference because of the treatment and the null hypothesis in invalid.

I also learned about different types of tests, like the t-test.  The t test uses only two groups, the f test uses two or more groups. The “f” in f test stands for factorial.  Analysis of Variance is ANOVA  is short for ANalysis Of VAriance. The chi square is the other big test, which is non-parametric.

Diffusion of treatment (p224) Threat from treatment effect on one group affecting other groups.

The experiment was compromised because the class that was not supposed to hear the additional details of the intervention had in fact a recess in common with the class that did get the additional details of the intervention and the students shared information with each other.

Reflection:

Today I learned that in experimental designs have to consider internal validity and external validity.  Internal validity has to do with minimizing extraneous factors, to try to ensure that the independent variable is in fact the cause for the difference in the dependent variable.  This means ensuring what we think is supposed to happen is happening because of the reason that we think is causing it.  External validity has to do with generalizability, which looks at whether the cause-effect from the research could apply to a different situation.  A user of a study needs to understand the population and other considerations of the study before coming to the conclusion of whether a similar intervention would yield a similar effect on the user’s population.  External validity is determined by evaluating it to each new situation.

Longitudinal survey (p207) same or similar subjects are surveyed over time.

A longitudinal survey could track how many kids went to college that had music classes in early elementary classes. I recall reading that many longitudinal studies are done on nuns, because it’s easy to minimize variables and they tend to stay in the same place. (What’s the difference between a nunnery and a convent?)

Reflection:

Today I clarified a few ideas that I wasn’t quite sure about.  One is that the causal-comparative type of non-experimental quantitative design is like a comparative type, except for the characteristics of the samples are very closely matched.  I also clarified that the ex post facto is a type of comparative type of research.  Also, pretesting does not require that the test be exactly the same as the post test.  The tests do need to be comparable.

On a side note, I really thought the skit we did in class the other day to demonstrate the different types of correlation was highly engaging.  I’m going to have my students do a skit on the first days of school to demonstrate good classroom behavior and what we do when we need to change to get to good behavior.