1: Critical Action Research
Action Research—the thing all my coworkers did at the end of their masters program through IWU.
I’m a little late to this masters thing. Or really, I’m just doing a different program. I started one semester later. And I didn’t go to Beijing for three weeks each summer for two consecutive summers to knock out 12 credits. So while many of my friends did their action research in Spring 2012, I’m only taking this class now. And my actual action research project, that will be Spring 2015.
My understanding of action research involves problematizing, researching, implementing something, recording results, and analyzing. A reflective process. If I am honest, it seems silly to make it a thing. Shouldn’t all teaching be like this? We look critically to identify needs, we investigate solutions, we make changes, and we reflect on if it helped. Then we start the cycle again. But life gets in the way and the best intentions aren’t always enough and focused attention and set-aside time can work wonders. Plus, it is helpful to expand my ideas about types of data and how to use them. Formalize what might be natural. Approach areas of weakness with strategic, intentional plans.
How about you? What is something that stands out from your past teaching that would have benefited from an action-research approach?
My other questions for you are—who are you? And where are you? Do we have an intro assignment anywhere?
I haven’t been in the MPS classes since Fall 2012 so maybe you were together in some classes in 2013. Or maybe you were in AED 811 or AED 812 with me. This is me. And this is me. Mostly. Except for the part where I say I'm not anxious to leave anytime soon. Because I am! I am so incredibly anxious. Because this is me.
On a related note, this statement scares the pants off of me.
Action research often involves artmaking, which can surface deeply held emotional associations to traumatic experiences. For socially responsible ethical action consider what is necessary to reveal about the focus of the study and to whom.
In this next phase of my life, I will be working with some of the most vulnerable. Orphaned (illegal) refugees. My love is huge but my training is limited. Proceed with caution.
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The white board. I uploaded this screenshot of my object because it is already plastered around pinterest (though never trending or incredibly popular) and yet I can upload it freely because it is my writing and my shading on my (classroom) whiteboard.
As I visualized, it wasn’t hard. What is harder is to keep my mind here. I was immediately taken back to the jungles in the hill country on the Thai-Burma border. I know the place. I was there four weeks ago. My feet still bear the marks from fire ant bites. We sit on the floor and color with crayons. We sit around the table and make designs with my multicolor pen. And there’s this new space, where the flooded river knocked down a few walls last rainy season. That terrace. I want to transform the space. To make it an outdoor classroom. And I want a whiteboard.
The whiteboard. It is me. Apart from my pasty white skin, separating me from their rich brown tones, I want them to draw all over me. With excitement. And then erase. Draw some more. And with different colors. Stick things up with magnets. Rearrange. Wash, clean, repeat. And as they work, I want them to catch their reflection in the shiny white surface. Get glimpses of themselves as we interact. Over time, I’ll get scratched. Dirty. Not everything will wash off. I might even get dented. But I’ll be well-loved, and it will be about the process, not an end product. The day to day and the participation where they are free to explore, not handicapped by permanency. Where they can dare to dream big and erase as needed.
I love my girls. I know they’ve seen a lot. Am I ready to see it with them? To hold up a mirror, to allow them to peek into their past? This home, this Blessed Home, is a haven. We can run around and smile and giggle as if nothing existed before and nothing exists beyond. Frolic through the field, jump into the river, and pretend that war is not ravaging their homeland on the other side. But to really love them, I must allow them to process, and even give them opportunities, encourage them to reflect. It will come out in their artwork. At least, it usually does. So as the whiteboard catches the sun and shines in their eyes, it can be a little painful. What will it illumine? Am I prepared to go there with them? My heart breaks. They shouldn’t have to know this. But they do. So we will have joy in the art and we’ll embrace tears as they come and we’ll go deeper than we thought only to reveal a new layer later in the journey but we’ll walk through it together.
With a little action research guiding our way, at least next spring.
Action research--Shouldn’t all teaching be like this?
Yes, hopefully, but we know it is not but those who do action research are more conscious of the process of reflecting on teaching, tackling one area to change with a plan and then implementing, and studying what happened and then another cycle. And as you state, "But life gets in the way and the best intentions aren’t always enough and focused attention and set-aside time can work wonders." So sometimes it is for a course or degree that motivates full and focused engagement with action research.
In responding to the visualization, this is the introduction to each other. As are the other entries from the visualization, yours is a vivid and deep introduction of you to others in the class and to me.
This note of caution and awareness is VERY important.
Action research often involves artmaking, which can surface deeply held emotional associations to traumatic experiences. For socially responsible ethical action consider what is necessary to reveal about the focus of the study and to whom.
Prior to doing a study that involves humans, the Penn State Institution Review Board will need to approve your proposal. No researcher, no matter how seasoned, can decided if appropriate but rather the IRB does. The information about the IRB are sub sections in the first exploration. See
https://elearning.psu.edu/courses/aed815/ethics-confidentiality-irb
The other subsection is research role at https://elearning.psu.edu/courses/aed815/researcher-roles
The whiteboard metaphor suggests to me that processes that enable memories to be released through making visual and then erasure may be a direction but also to research what others (artists, organizations, and researchers) have done that supports or changes approaches you plan to implement. There are considerable resources on bridging sensory memories and narrative through art in the literature of trauma-informed expressive arts therapy. This focus identified in your whiteboard metaphor begins to direct your literature review. Below are some works may be relevant to you that I have also included in the course's group bibliography using Zotero (see next assignment at https://elearning.psu.edu/courses/aed815/2-arts-based-research ).
CHILDREN ARTS OF EL SALVADOR IN NEW YORK - The Art Inspiring Project
http://www.lightmillennium.org/gallery/index.php/CHILDREN-ARTS-OF-EL-SALVADOR-IN-NEW-YORK---The-Art-Inspiring-Project
Walls of Hope / School of Art and Open Studio in Perquin, El Salvador http://wallsofhope.org/
Help Heal a War-Torn Community with the Arts http://barefootatlas.com/volunteer/centro-arte-para-la-paz-el-salvador/
Malchiodi, C. (2008). Creative interventions with traumatized children. New York: Guilford Press.
Malchiodi, C. (2011). Trauma informed art therapy with sexually abused children. In Paris Goodyear-Brown (Ed.), Handbook of Child Sexual Abuse: Prevention, Assessment, and Treatment. New York: Wiley.
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (2010). Trauma informed care. Retrieved September 12, 2010 from http://mentalhealth.samhsa.gov/nctic/trauma.asp
From http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-healing-arts/201203/trauma-informed-expressive-arts-therapy
Five Components of Trauma-Informed Art Therapy and Trauma-Informed Expressive Arts Therapy®
1. Uses a "neurosequential approach" via expressive arts therapies to stabilize the body's responses.
2. Identifies of the body's reactions to stressful events and memories through trauma-informed evaluation and sensory-based activities using expressive arts.
3. Responds to the body's reactions to traumatic events through somatic and sensory approaches to self-regulation.
4. Reinforces a sense of safety through reconnection with positive attachment and self-soothing.
5. Builds strengths by using the arts to normalize and enhance resilience.
For more information, you can also visit the Trauma-Informed Practices and Expressive Arts Institute [http://www.trauma-informedpractice.com
Karen
I absolutely agree with your statement that action research shouldn't really be a thing because we should be intrinsically doing this throughout our teaching careers! However, grading papers, lesson planning, discipline issues, schedule changes, and life in general tend to get in the way of our best intentions in the classroom. I find personally that I do a better job of making mental notes of things gone wrong throughout each school year and then I process over the summer to find a new approach or attempt something new the following year. I do this though without tangible data, just a thought or an experience to go on. I like the idea of action research because it actually takes you through the steps on a more conscious level.
As for your intro, wow. You have had some amazing experiences! Are you in the States now or still abroad?
It sounds like you are in an amazing place and are doing amazing work.
Stephanie, we have had a class in the past and I look forward to working with you again! I envy you and the experiences you have had thus far...how wonderful for you as well as your students!
Your whiteboard metaphor reminded me of the reading on action research where one in intentional with their actions (the creative drawing/writing), fosters a change (the need to be creative) and the erasing and drawing again would be the reflection, analyzing and continues to take action.
Being new to the profession, I still have a lot to learn. This course is sure to prove that. Your question on where action research could be implemented, I am eager to find that out this semester. The quote "Be the change you want to see" (Keifer-Boyd, p. 9) sends a very powerful message and one I want to keep with me as I travel this new path.
Deb - I thought we were in a previous course together! But since this is my 5th MPS course and my 7th World Campus course, it starts to blur together.
Danna - I am currently in the Philippines, but only for a vacation. I'm still teaching at an international school in Qingdao, China and we have two weeks off for Chinese New Year. I'm here in the Philippines now with some colleagues for a week of scuba diving and beach relaxing, then a week in a friend's hometown for more relaxing and doing a little relief work. Not sure how much we'll be able to physically help, but even our spending of money in his hometown helps their economic rebound. Hiring fishermen to take us out to a nearby island or buying food at a restaurant--it all helps them start making money again and get back on their feet.