Prompt: You have begun to read through the literature that you have collected. Discuss your findings and preliminary thoughts on some or all of the following: Some perspectives you might share... Are there themes that have emerged that relate to your problem. Is there literature you found that will help you design your methodology or that point to the need for your study? What theories have been noted in the articles? Is there one person who stands out as an authority on your topic or a study that is “seminal”? Which ones are closest to your own evolving epistemologies about education? Remember about the tension between beliefs and truth and the influence of context.
Response: I started to have a loose form of where I wanted to go with my Essential Question ever since reading Brenda Dervin's seminal work on "Gap Bridging" last Semester. I found her claims fascinating: humans are constantly trying to bridge gaps in information. That's how we make sense of the world around us. What piqued my interest, though, was how she explained that we all have similar ways of bridging gaps(a sort of human nature of gap bridging). Though her work is dense, this was comforting for many reasons. A lot of it had to do with the fact that I just came out of my credentialing program where the emphasis was on differentiation, socioeconomic effects on students, culturally responsive teaching, etc. All things that sent me into a tailspin when it came to trying to figure out what to focus on for a Masters. If there are all these factors that play into a single student, how can I come up with some issue that has a generally universal answer?... I was confused and overwhelmed. But really, in retrospect, I was overthinking it and not truly understanding how all of those previously mentioned factors came into play. I ended up reading "A Whole New Mind" by Daniel Pink (which I highly recommend) and my focus took another slight shift. This time, I was looking into the importance of communication, creativity, and collaboration as skills. I tossed around a few ideas to focus my research on that combined that with my interest in the theories presented by Dervin, and eventually set off in the direction of Project Based Learning. PBL is a change that I just recently made since the beginning of this semester. What I have been doing since I have solidified my focus has been trying to fully understand PBL and how it is implemented in classrooms. Most recently, I stumbled upon an ARTICLE that focused on self efficacy and PBL. This article was interesting but went on to mention how much PBL has changed due to technological innovation. Going back and looking through previously read literature regarding PBL, I am seeing that some thoughts aren't as applicable anymore, or are “out of date” even though the articles are only 8-9 years old. I generally think this is because of how effected PBL has been by technology- not only in its implementation but in its scope of applicability.
3 Comments
9/23/2021 12:24:22 pm
Hi Grace,
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9/23/2021 05:35:06 pm
Hi Grace
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Dr. Redmond
9/23/2021 07:08:36 pm
Grace,
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AuthorGrace Ingersoll |