Cean Colcord's Blog

Teaching Reflections

2011-11-11T20:56:00.000-08:00

At times, I felt like I did not know what I was doing. I am still a novice when it comes to qualitative research, yet here I am co-teaching a graduate course of qualitative research to my colleagues. I felt that I was prepared. I went back through the textbooks, the journal articles, the blogs, and wiki’s and I thought that I was ready to teach this course. However, the first problem was that my own understanding of coding and deriving themes from codes was cloudy and this weakness became visible as I began to discuss and demonstrate with the graduate students. Second, I felt that all of my misunderstandings were tossed out into the classroom for my colleagues to sift through. Although they were all very nice in their feedback to me, it was clear that I still have a long way to go before I am ready to teach this type of a course. One of the good things that emerged as a result of my misinterpretations of qualitative research methods was that I broadened my own understanding of the constant comparative method as well as many other important aspects of this type of research.

Qualitative Reflections II

2011-10-30T14:03:00.000-07:00

I am incredibly impressed with my colleagues. As I read their work and examine how they view phenomenon through their own eyes, I am amazed at the level of sophistication and intellectual acumen that they possess. Reading their work has strengthened my own understanding of qualitative research.
As I read their blog and wiki entries, their biases statements, fieldnotes, and conceptual frameworks, I realize that their work has added to my own learning. I am able to examine concepts and critiques through multiple lenses, but I am also beginning to see how people construct their own understanding of each of these assignments within the context of this class. This led me to ask the following questions, in what ways do graduate students contribute to and construct their professors own understanding of concepts taught in graduate courses? Do professors learn from their students as much as graduate students learn from their professors? In what ways do learning communities construct knowledge?
As I read my colleagues work and attempted to grade their papers and contributions based on their understanding of the objectives from each assignment, I found myself questioning the very nature of grades. Because each of my colleagues is steadfast in their critiques of the scholarly qualitative research that we have read this semester and their points on each of these have added new dimensions to my own understanding of qualitative research, I wondered if instead they should be grading me.

Observing and recording fieldnotes.

2011-10-16T22:04:00.001-07:00

I am amazed at the quality of fieldnotes that most of the students are producing. Although many of the graduate students have chosen everyday places such as coffee shops, city parks, and classrooms, they are recording what they see with extreme clarity and many of them have begun to make connections with what they are seeing to theories they have been reading about and discussing in their classes. It has taught me a lot about how to observe and record fieldnotes and how to begin to think about analyzing everyday phenomenon.

Online Learning

2011-10-08T20:25:00.001-07:00

I am amazed to see how students learn together and socially construct knowledge in online learning environments. The use of blogs and wikis really seem to enhance their understanding of the assigned course readings. I need to make sure that I keep up on the readings as well so that I know what I am talking about during our online and face to face classes. Another aspect of the class that I am really finding interesting is that it is really preparing me to teach classes using a variety of teaching methods. Our face to face classes are rich in conversation and analysis of qualitative research and help us all build a better understanding of how research questions drive methods, but our online classes are framed around the concepts, methods, and vocabulary used in qualitative research and it is all student led. I am also starting to learn more the different ways that people learn and a big part of this is the social construction of knowledge and how it reaffirms or informs student understanding of content.

Qualitative Reflections

2011-09-03T21:04:00.000-07:00

After building the Blackboard shell for the Fall Qualitative Research course for most of the summer, the day had finally come when we could unveil it to our students, yippee! I think that one of the reasons that the first class went so well was because we spent many weeks over the summer working on the course. Working on the course throughout the summer and early fall semesters was also nice because it gave me an opportunity to revisit many of the qualitative research methodologies and I think this also made me much more familiar with the content of the course.

Thinking back, I also think that our first face-to-face class went really well and since I started the class, I felt confident working with students, organizing ice breaking activities and guiding introductions. I also thought that I managed to guide the class through the PowerPoint presentation fairly well, even though I kind of lost it on a few of the examples that the class pulled from the Wolcott article. Also, once the class got a little deeper into some of the theoretical perspectives, I felt that I could have thought a little more about my responses and not been so eager to pass the question on to Dr. K. These are things I think that I will try to improve on for next time.