Response to Weston's Question

Although you may not have many examples of communication in your ethnography, your research on the observed site should be able to fill the gap that it leaves. I would suggest that you compensate for the lack of communication by providing more elements of descriptive narration in your paper. By doing this, you will give your ethnography perspective, which is the purpose of dialogue in an ethnography.

plan

I analyzed my fieldwork note once again. I found out my original claim has not much to do with my field note. Therefore, I reworked my claim again and it turned out to totally different thing. My new claim: There is an issue about group forming between Chinese students and American students in the history class. Moreover, The group forming causes negative effect on communication between the two nationalities students.

I found 4 sources to use for my essay from the UW Madison online database. All of them are relate to the cultural boundary and communication. The first one is about a study of cultural discontinuities. There are three different types of cultural discontinuities, which are universal, primary and secondary. I am only going to use the concept of the primary and secondary discontinuities on my essay. I found out there are two type of Chinese students in class (active talking and quiet). The older students (who stayed in the U.S. longer and those who grow up in the U.S tend to be more active than the news) I believe it is not only because they master better English, but also they gathered more American culture. The other three sources are basically about cultural boundary. The first one is going to be primary.  

challenge: It is difficult to find out the source I want from the online database. I think using the right keyword is the most important on doing online research. 

Ethnography Plan

I will be focusing on organization and how it influences education at my ethnography site at firefighter station 1. There are a few examples I will be able to use in my ethnography paper. Some patterns I observe at the site are fire fighters wearing uniforms. Everything in the station is pretty much spotless. For example, the kitchen is immaculate, the bedrooms are tidy, the truck compartments are neatly organized. This makes their jobs a little easier when they are called upon to help others. Organization also serves as a valuable form of communication. For example, communication takes place daily through organization and structure at the station. There are many examples I can give that support this observation. Since Dewey strongly focuses on communication as being an essential component to education, I will be able to relate to his article. I can also relate this topic to the Wisconsin Idea, because working in the fire service involves giving back to the community in a number of ways. Firefighters travel around to local schools for fire safety month and teach others about fire safety and what it's all about. My plan is to use examples such as these to show how organization contributes to learning. I would like to do some more secondary research regarding this topic to see if I can find any further information on how organization is used in education.

Question: This might be a stretch, but I think my claim is going to be something along the lines of: organization is an essential tool that, in some way or another, serves as an essential tool and is used in all forms of education (for example, from elementary to college). Organization is seen when considering how different classes are required to fulfill a major, or how students are separated into different grade levels in high school (9-12). My question for you guys is, is there any situation that you can think of where organization is not a component used within education?

ethnography process

So far I have observed not only several times at the Children's museum, but also at the Stem Cell learning lab. After having spent time at the Children's museum during a science experiment night recently, I decided I want to focus on science-education in youth. Specifically, I will be looking at different approaches and methods that are tailored for different age groups. The children's museum offered several exhibits and I had a chance to chat with some of the volunteers, and their thoughts on how effective each of their exhibits were in providing a stimulating learning environment. The Stem Cell Learning Lab provided a unique, realistic laboratory where youth (usually middleschool aged) can conduct researchers as those would on campus. Through detailing out their lessons, one can specifically see how the learning lab is tailored for the group. I am conducting additional research on other science outreach programs on campus, including WiCell and workshops at WID. I will focus on these methods in science education in relation to theories of Friere's banking method, the Wisconsin Idea, and psychologist, Jean Piaget’s learning theories. It is worth noting that some Piagetian principles for teaching and learning discuss the important of learning as an active process in a meaningful, authentic fashion. They also discuss the role of the teacher in encouraging students to become active constructors of their own knowledge in a rich environment for exploration. These are some of my fundamental aspects that I will talk about in my ethnography, yet I still have much more research to conduct and may find other theories that I would like to include in the paper. Moreover, I still have yet to completely chisel down my main claim, which, thus far, is to discuss the methods and approaches applied in several science outreach programs at UW and at the Children’s museum, representing science education (my observations and additional research on programs) in their relation to several educational/learning theories, including that of Friere’s problem-posing/banking method and that of Piaget (perhaps WI Idea too). I feel that during my research and digging through my observations, I will hone my claim and be able to develop my paper more thoroughly.

I am not sure whether I should discuss science education in comparison to other educational focuses for youth (such as writing, math, ect), or comparing science education at different levels (elementary vs collegiate – may discuss problem-posing/banking methods, for example). Do you think these would be important in creating a more dynamic discussion in my paper?

Ethnography Plan

I plan to focus on efficient communication in chemistry tutoring in the residential halls. People learning chemistry claim that they are learning a new language. That is how I get the idea for this project.

During my visits, I noticed both tutors and tutees talked to each other directly in scientific terms. I wonder how much the two parties understand this specific language and how well they use the vocabulary to convey complex ideas. I listened to their conversation and picked out some misunderstanding about certain concepts, but this is just normal misconceptions in the learning process. Most of the time, the tutee were inured to this type of talking -- they accepted the term regardless. On the other hand, the tutor made effort to show the tutee how to apply the term both in conveying thoughts and in solving problems. This reminded me of Friere's critique on the banking methods and Derek's justification of the same method -- the use of such approach in science teaching is most efficient.

In the light of this, I paid more attention to the daily language they used and there was no indication of the power hierarchy implied by Friere. The tutor and the students were equal and the student challenged the tutor whenever he or she did not agree on the topic. (You may argue that because they are both students. Upon that, I may use the example of writing center to demonstrate the equality, since the writing fellow is a representative of a higher level.) Based on that, I propose that there exist a "personalized" banking method and information transition is important and inevitable in lower level learning, namely the knowledge accumulation stage. The tutor switched his teaching style -- by drawing diagrams, using models or reading the text with the students, etc. -- to suit the students' need. This would reexamine the value of the banking method.

Further research would be on conceptual understanding in chemistry education. Both the tutor and the tutees mentioned it helped if they understand the readings before doing homework. So I would like to look into it and see what I would find. There may be new ideas I have never thought of or heard about before.

Question: I worry that I may overlook something in technical talking. What are the other aspects you would suggest me to pay more attention to? How about other aspects on educational communication? Or merely language and daily communication? Thanks.

Ethnography Plan

I have been observing a martial arts class in Aikido for my ethnography.  There are usually only four to six students in a class and there is hardly any talking so I spend most of my time observing their actions.  The instructor of the class never gives any formal verbal or written instruction to the class so I am planning on writing a claim about different learning/teaching styles.  I am not sure exactly what my claim will be yet, but it will have something to do with learning by doing and by observation and if the style of teaching is effective compared to other styles.  I have found some sources on the general background and history of Aikido that will help me to understand what I have been observing so far and help make my analysis more complete.  I want to find more sources on different teaching and learning styles that could help focus my claim more.  I also still need to do one more session of field notes, which will give me a chance to do an interview and get a better understanding of the culture of the club.

Question: I am worried about the fact that there isn't much verbal communication at my site. Do you think I can still write an effective ethnography if a lot of my information comes from research instead of observation?  

Ethnography Planning

For my ethnography, I've been observing an elementary Spanish class at West High School. I've spent time focusing specifically on students and different time focusing specifically on the teacher and TA. I also recorded quite a bit of observation regarding the appearance and layout of the school, classroom, library media center. I am generally familiar with the school because I spent a semester tutoring there during my freshman year. Although high school is a familiar place to me, West can still be quite foreign to me--I constantly find myself comparing it with my own high school experience. Notable differences include how the students interact as a community, students' motivation to achieve, and more obvious things including population, location, and layout. Some things have also stood out during my observations: the most disruptive student also seeks the teacher's approval and praise the most, the teacher makes a speech about foreign language being important to a successful future, a focus on appearance (including racial segregation, a lesson on adjectives and an exercise where the students use the vocab words to describe themselves, comments and questions from students during class), how the teacher keeps students on task and also how they respond to different styles of teaching. During my research, so far I have been looking into behavioral patterns, leadership characteristics in students and teachers, foreign language learning, and methods that address problems in the classroom. I'm still struggling to commit to a claim and hope to make that step tonight as I plan an outline. Questions: Does anyone have an interesting approach to forming a claim about behavior in the classroom (not exclusively bad behavior...)?