comps reading - Handbook of Research on Educational Communication and Technology Ch.39 Qualitative Research Issues and Methods

It's been a while since last post, the one on 24th Aug. For one reason, I was busy in using google site to build my resume, as mentioned earlier, though not much progression since then. On the other hand, I think I need to apologize for myself being procrastinated over and over again. It almost tool me one week to finish another comps reading: Handbook of Research on Educational Communication and Technology-Ch.39 Qualitative Research Issues and Methods: An Introduction for Educational Technologists. Though it is a big book and the chapter I read was really many pages long, yet I admit these are only excuese. It's really only a matter of being persistent and concentrated enough to determine if you can succeed.

Anywyay, here's the excerpt, three pages long in MS word. Though lengthy it is, I think this does provide a comprehensive overview for qualitative study in our field. With other revelant textbook handy, now I don't think I need to print the CH.39 out. In a way, I save some small money, which is always something I did as usual.

1. Borg and Gall (1989) name the two approaches (i.e. qualitative and quantitative) positivistic and naturalistic, comparing them on the dimensions of the vision of the nature of reality, the relationship of the researcher to the research subject, issues of generalizability, discussion of causality, and the role of values (P.1046).

2. Early research efforts often used qualitative methods to evaluate and describe the use of media in the classroom (P.1047).

3. Although not researchers per se, instructional systems designers have always used the qualitative methods of surveys, interviews, and observations during the front-end analysis and evaluation phases of development. […] Driscoll (1995) suggests that educational technologists select research paradigms based on what they perceive as the most critical questions. […..] Many teachers, trainers, administrators, managers, community members, and instructional leaders contend that the evolution of new technologies will continue to change the nature of teaching, training, instruction, and learning (Ambron & Hooper, 1990, 1998; Lambert & Sallis, 1987; Schwartz, 1987; Schwier, 1987; U.S. Congress, OTA, 1988). (P.1048)

4. Qualitative Research Methods:

(1) Grounded theory

(2) Participants Observation

(3) Nonparticipant observation

(4) Interviews—Goetz and LeCompte (1984) describe three techniques for structured interviews: confirmation instruments, participant-construct instrument, and projective devices (P.1057).

¨ Confirmation instruments verify the applicability of data gathered from key-informant interviews or observations across segments of the population being studied.

¨ Participant-construct instruments may be used to measure degrees of feelings that individuals have about phenomena or in having them classify events, situations techniques, or concepts from their perspectives.

¨ Projective devices such as photographs, drawings, other visuals, or other objects may be used to elicit individuals’ opinions or feelings, helping researchers clarify what is going on in the situation.

(5) Documents and artifacts analysis (P.1058)

¨ Goetz and LeCompte (1984, P.155) provide guidelines for artifact collection, identifying for activities in this type of method: locating artifacts, identifying the material, analyzing it, and evaluating it. They recommend that the more informed the researcher is about the subjects and setting, the more useful artifacts may be identified and the more easily access may be gained to those artifacts.

¨ The meaning of artifacts is often intensely personal and subjective, so that verification of findings through triangulation is recommended.

5. Overall approaches to analyze qualitative data—based on the philosophical approach underlying the study (P.1059). Miles and Huberman (1994) outline three overall approaches to analyzing qualitative data:

¨ An “interpretive” approach would be phenoniological in nature or based on social interactionism.

¨ A “collaborative social research” is often used by action researchers in partnership composed of members of many, and sometimes opposing, organizations.

¨ “Social anthropology” relies primarily on ethnography, providing detailed and rich descriptions across multiple data resources. Goetz and LeCompte (1994) call this “recursive approach.”

6. Miles and Huberman (1994, P.10) state that qualitative data analysis consists of “three concurrent flows of activity: data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing/verification.”

7. Researchers may derive patterns in ways Goetz and LeCompte call “analytical induction (P.179),” reviewing data for categories of phenomena, defining sets of relationships, developing hypothesis, collecting more data, and refining hypotheses accordingly. Those using a grounded-theory approach may employ “constant comparison.” […..] Field notes consist of observations and the researcher’s interpretations. Bogdan and Biklen (1984) call former content “the descriptive part (P.108)” and the latter “the reflective part (P.121).”

8. Coding data (P.1060):

(1) Miles and Huberman (1994) suggest that data can be coded descriptively or interpretively.

(2) Bogdan and Biklen (1992) recommend reading data over at least several times to begin to develop a coding scheme.

(3) Goetz and LeCompte describe coding to form a taxonomic analysis, a sort of outline of what is related to what, and in what ways.

9. Criteria for evaluating qualitative studies (P.1063)—validity can be created in three ways:

(1) multiple observers in teams can cross-check data and patterns continually

(2) the researcher can refine and test propositions and hypotheses throughout the study, in a grounded-theory approach

(3) the researcher can write using “verisimilitude” or “vraisemblance” (P.383), or writing that makes the world of the subjects real to the reader; the reader recognizes the authenticity of the results. (member check)

10. Lincoln and Guba (1985) agree with others that conventional criteria are inappropriate for qualitative studies and that alternate criteria do exist: a) credibility; b) transferability; c) dependability; and d) confirmability. Erlandson et al (1993) describe the following techniques for ensuring the quality of a qualitative study (P.1064):

(1) prolonged engagement

(2) persistent observation

(3) triangulation

(4) referential adequacy

(5) peer debriefing

(6) member checking

(7) reflexive journal

(8) thick description

(9) purposive sampling

(10) audit trail

using google site to build up my website for resume

This is it: Gaze Upon Ying-Chu Liao (Angela Liao). Still under construction. Don't know when to finish, what to include, and how to build. Everything to me is still in the phase of exploration, though I used to use google site creating my learning object.

When it comes to why to build this website, what I have is nothing but maybe merely a vague attempt that I want to include all my relevant experiences and qualifications and accomplishments to win some offer from some employers. To some extent, I think the attempt itself is crystal clear. The purpose is self-explanatory enough to understand.

What is tricky is that what job I want to seek when becoming the job-seeker. All too often I have been bombarded with this hard-to-answer question, and all too often my answer is "as long as there is an employer who can offer me the opportunity". Such answer is practical, yet it is impractical as well, for it would be difficult to find a job you really want if one doesn't know what he or she wants to do. As I'm not clear about what job I will be looking forward to after graduation, I cannot set a specific direction for my resume website. Without the direction, I think what I do now is merely to repeat what I present in my paper-based resume, in a more detailed manner. However, I know that mere repetition wouldn't do me good for my job-hunting. From the resume I must show something more than paper resume and relevant to the job I will be seeking then.

That to clarify the direction really matters.

comps reading - How People Learn – Chapter5. Mind and Brain

1.Summary research findings of this chapter:
(1)The functional organization of the brain and the mind depends on and benefits from positively from experiences.
(2)Development is not merely a biologically driven unfolding process, but also an active process that derives essential information from experiences.
(3)Research has shown that some experiences have the most powerful effects during specific sensitive periods, while others can affect the brain over a much longer time span.

2.Memory is neither a single entity nor a phenomenon that occurs in a single area of brain. There are two basic memory processes: 1) declarative memory; 2) procedural or non-declarative memory (P.124).

3.Research has indicated that the mind is not just a passive recorder of events, rather, it is actively at work both in “sorting” and in “recalling” information (P.124).

4.In an act of efficiency and “cognitive economy” (Gibson, 1969), the mind creates categories for processing information. Thus, it is a feature of learning that memory processes make relational links to other information (P.124).

5.Classes of words, pictures, and other categories of information that involve complex cognitive processing on a repeated basis activate the brain. Activation sets into motion the events that are encoded as part of long-term memory. Memory processes treat both true and false memory events similarly and, as shown by imaging technologies, activate the same brain regions, regardless of the validity of what is being remembered. Experience is important for the development of brain structures, and what is registered in the brain as memories of experiences can include one’s own mental activities (P.125).

6.One of the primary differences between the novice and the expert is the manner in which information is organized and utilized (P.125).

7.Development is not solely the unfolding of programmed patterns. One of the simplest rules is that practice increases learning; in the brain, there is a similar relationship between the amount of experience in a complex environment and the amount of structural change (P.125).

8.The learning of specific appears to alter the specific regions of the brain involved in the task. The brain is a dynamic organ, shaped to a great extent by experience—by what a living being does, and has done (P.126).

comps reading - How People Learn – Chapter4. How Children Learn

1.Theoretical framework of infants’ learning:
(1)Jean Piaget: the world of young infants is an egocentric fusion of the internal and external worlds and that the development of an accurate representation of physical reality depends on the gradual coordination of schemes of looking, listening, and touching.
(2)Vygotsky (1978): the active role of learner; zone of proximal development

2.Language acquisition cannot take place in the absence of shared social and situational contexts because the latter provide information about the meanings of words and sentences structures (Chapman, 1978). The child uses meaning as a clue to language rather than language as a clue to meaning (MacNamara, 1972).

3.Learning in children:
(1)Children have less memory capacity than adults.
(2)Children and adults have roughly the same mental capacity, but with development, children acquire knowledge and develop effective activities (i.e. strategies, e.g. rehearsal, elaboration, summarization, clustering).
(3)Metacognition

4.Three key finding concerning “Multiple strategies, strategies choices” emerging from studies: (P.98-100)
(1)discoveries are often made not in response to impasses or failures but rather in the context of successful performance
(2)short-lived transition strategies often precede more enduring approaches
(3)generalization of new approaches often occur very slowly, even when children can provide compelling rationales for their usefulness (Karmiloff-Smith, 1992; Kuhn, 1995; Siegler and Growley, 1991)

5.One of the applications of “multiple intelligences (proposed by Gardner, 1983, 1991: the existence of seven relatively autonomous intelligences: linguistic, logical, musical, special, bodily kinesthetic, interpersonal, (and intrapersonal, naturalistic 1997))” to education is the attempt to modify traditional curricula.

6.Children’s early understanding of the perceptual and physical world may jump-start the learning process, even making learning possible, but one should look with caution for ways in which early knowledge may impede later learning.

7.Children are both problem solvers and problem generators.

8.Children exhibit capacities that are shaped by environmental experiences and the individuals who care for them (e.g., caregivers, parents, playing the role of more capable facilitators, concept and application of “zone of proximal development”)

movie - Cape No.7

At last I watched Cape No.7, probably the best-selling Taiwanese film for the past several years, which made its box office record even outperform some Hollywood films then. More than two hours in length, it is worthwhile to spend such time watching the movie, with many diverse reasons and perspectives that we can justify ourselves, say, I am so proud that we can have such excellent a locally-produced "made-in-Taiwan" film. Though this may be merely a sense of vanity, yet the feeling is fantastic haha.

Before digging into the film, as usual, let's watch the trailer first:



I think there are some reasons that contribute Cape No. 7 a hit. First the cast is fresh to audience, with Taiwanese and Japanese singers and actors and actresses. Very often, especially maybe in Taiwanese dramas, we keep seeing similar faces, which keep us away from finding everything fresh and new. Secondly, Cape No.7 not only has beautiful actress and handsome actor, but also unsophiticated characters. Most of the lines expressed in the film are so familiar to Taiwanese people, and you should always know that language carries out emotions and feelings, moreover, even the sense of identity with something you are familiar with. In addition, this film reflected the theme of not only romance, but also persistence when pursuing dreams and the affection toward your homeland. The affection is sort of displayed by contrasting the Japanese event coordinator and the Pingtong people who seem to be constrained in this small village. Last but not the lease, this film employs lots of musical elements, and it is crystal clear that music is powerful in conveying emotions as well.

Apart from the content and the characters, I especially like the music, the two songs, in the film. Let's end up this posting with the two beautiful songs.





To sum up, thank you, Cape No.7.

movie - Angels and Demons

earching from the google picture, I discovered there are at least two versions of the posters. Both to me are impressive to me and may serve different functions. They are shown as follows. Honestly, I prefer the one with the winged angel, with its grayness displaying a spooky feeling.





Overall I would rate this movie as acceptable, and I'm not sure if this is because I read the novel before watching the movie. The movie itself is thrilling enough to make me a little bit suspensive, yet it is not so spectacular that drives me to recommend other to watch in the movie theater (anyway I myself did not go to theater watching it either...) I still like Tom Hanks, but not to the extent of being his crazy fan. It is always the case that when you watch a movie that you already read its novel before, more or less you will be affected when watching the movie, and very often the influence is disappointment. I would clarify, though, I was not disappointed at the movie. It's just ok to me, and I did not have much expectation laid on the movie before watching.

Let's take a look at the trailer:



After watching the movie, I really don't think the Church needs to worry about being demonized by the movie, for the upshot is more positive than I assumed: the newly-elected Pope is liberal, instead of cynical toward science. Though throughout the movie, the oppressed scientific organization Illuminati is repeated over and over again, trying to relate the oppression the past Church did with the science world. However, the result in the movie, as well as the novel, shows that the whole murder is nothing but something plotted perfectly by someone from Church, in order to call for people's attention on revive the spirit and orthodox of Church. The person plotting the whole murders died heroically, according to the Church official announcement. Yet the Church key figure, as well as the leading male and female characters, knew the person committed suicide after being revealed plotting the whole murders.

Back to reality, though studying Bible and attending church, yet I don't self-identify as a Christian. From Christianity perspective, I may be either a Buddhist or an atheist. I do recognize the existence of God, yet I'm not sure if the God I recognize is the same as the God in Christatianity or not. I also value the external life and truth the Christan God may grant to us, yet I'm not sure if that's something I am pursuing or want. To some extent, I am pro-postmodernist, and the only truth to me is everything changes as time goes by, more or less.

movie - 17 again

Last week was my movie week, which, I guess, was an attempt that I had for myself to fill in the emptiness caused by my getting rid of Ugly Betty from my daily life. So far I totally watched three movies: 17 Again, Angels and Demons, and Cape No.7. I plan to watch the fourth movie recently: Twilight. As you can see from the poster above, this posting will be reflection of "17 Again." But before that, maybe some entertainment is required, not only for physical pleasure, but also for memory refreshment. Here's the trailer:



At first glance, the movie seemed to share some commonalities with the movie Click, and it is the case in some aspects to me. At least, both dealt with the main character involving a journey related to time. While "17 again" goes back to the "glorious past," "Click" has more control for the time the main character wants to be: ether going to the past or flying to the future. The ultimate theme to me is a little bit similar as well. Though you have opportunities to either go back or toward your specific period of life time to change your previous bad decision or to avoid something bad from happening, yet there's trade-off of missing something. In a sense both main characters changed their life, yet what made their life changed is not the decision they change, but the different inspiration they acquired when faced with the changing moment in their life, caused by something mysterious.

While both movie are funny, I still like "Click" more than "17 Again," for I think "Click" is not only funnier but also touching. One thing that "17 Again" outperforms "Click", though, is that Zac Efron is really eye-catching. But he is not my cup of tea haha...

How People Learn – Chapter3. Learning and Transfer

1.Early research on the transfer of learning was guided by theories that emphasized the similarity between conditions of learning and that of transfer (e.g. Thorndike, 1913). Such emphasis was primarily on drill and practice, excluding consideration of learner characteristics. Modern theories of learning and transfer not only retain the emphasis on practice (i.e. specify the kinds of practice that are important) but also take learners characteristics into account.

2.Key characteristics of learning and transfer that have important implications for education:
(1)Initial learning is necessary for transfer, and a considerable amount is known about the kinds of learning experiences that support transfer.
(2)Knowledge that is overly contextualized can reduce transfer; abstract representations of knowledge can help promote transfer.
(3)Transfer is best viewed as an active, dynamic process rather than a passive end-product of a particular set of learning experiences.
(4)All new learning involves transfer based on previous learning, and this fact has important implications for the design of instruction that helps students learn.

3.“Throwing Darts” studies (Scholckow and Judd, described in Judd, 1908; see a conceptual replication by Hendrickson and Schroeder, 1941) compares the effects of “learning a procedure” with “learning with understanding.” Because the students in the group that had been instructed about the abstract refraction of light principle understand what they were doing, they could adjust their behavior to the new tasks. Another example of learning with memory versus learning with understanding is about leaning the physical properties of veins and arteries.

4.Elements that promote initial learning:
(1)Understanding versus memorizing: transfer is affected by the degree to which people learn with understanding rather than merely memorize sets of facts or follow a fixed set of procedures.
(2)Time to learn: providing learners with enough time to: a) first grapple with specific information relevant to a topic, and b) to process information
(3)Beyond “time on task”:
-learning is most effective when people engage in “deliberate practice” that includes active monitoring (i.e. attempts to seek and use feedback about one’s progress) of one’s learning experiences (Ericsson et al., 1993)
-Understanding when, where, and why to use new knowledge can be enhanced through the use of “contrasting cases,” a concept from the field of perceptual learning (see, e.g., Gagné and Gibson, 1947; Garner, 1974; Gibson and Gibson, 1955).
-Transfer is enhanced by helping students see potential transfer implications of what they are learning (Anderson et al., 1996)
(4)Motivation to learn: motivation affects the amount of time that people are willing to devote to learning.
-Competence motivation & extrinsic & intrinsic motivation
-Challenges must be at the proper level of difficulty in order to be and to remain motivating.
-Social opportunities affect motivation: sense of contribution facilitates motivation
-Seeing the usefulness of what they are learning and using that information promote motivation

5.Factors that influence transfer:
(1)the degree of mastery of the original subject
(2)context
(3)problem representation
(4)relationships between learning and transfer condition
(5)active versus passive approaches to transfer
(6)transfer and metacognition

6.Learning as transfer from previous experiences:
(1)building on existing knowledge
(2)understanding conceptual change
(3)transfer and cultural practices

7.Transfer between school and everyday life: contrast between everyday settings and school environment:
(1)School environment places much more emphasis on individual work than most other environments.
(2)Everyday settings heavily use tools to solve problems
(3)Abstract reasoning is often emphasized in school, while contextualized reasoning is often used in everyday settings.

How People Learn – Chapter2. How Experts Differ from Novices

1.Experts notice features and meaningful patterns of information that are not noticed by novices.

2.Experts have acquired a great deal of content knowledge that is organized in ways that reflect a deep understanding of their subject matter.

3.Experts’ knowledge cannot be reduced to sets of isolated facts or propositions but, instead, reflects contexts of applicability: that is, the knowledge is “conditionalized” on a set of circumstances.

4.Experts are able to flexibly retrieve important aspects of their knowledge with little attentional efforts (flexibility and automaticity)

5.Though experts know their disciplines thoroughly, this does not guarantee that they are able to teach others.

6.Experts have varying levels of flexibility in their approach to new situations.

In conclusion, the six principles of expertise, in need of being considered simultaneously and as parts of an overall system, are listed as follows:

(1)meaningful patterns of information
(2)organization of knowledge
(3)context and access to knowledge
(4)fluent retrieval
(5)expert and teaching: expertise in particular domain does not guarantee that one is good at helping others learn it.
(6)adaptive expertise

comps reading - How People Learn – Chapter1. Learning: From Speculation to Science

1.The meaning of “knowing” has shifted from being able to remember and repeat information to being able to find and use it (Simon, 1996).

2.Drawing on the empiricist tradition, behaviorists conceptualized learning as a process if forming connections between stimuli and responses. Motivation to learn was assumed to be driven primarily by drives, such as hunger, and the availability of external force, such as rewards and punishments (e.g. Thorndike, 1913; Skinner, 1950)

3.A limitation of early behaviorism stemmed from its focus on observable stimulus conditions and the behaviors associated with those conditions. This orientation made it difficult to study such phenomena as understanding, reasoning, and thinking — phenomena that are of paramount importance for education (P.8)

4.In the most general sense, the contemporary view of learning is that people construct new knowledge and understandings based on what they already know and believe (P.10).

5.“Fish is Fish” (Lionni, 1970) illustrates both the creative opportunities and dangers inherent in the fact that people construct new knowledge based on their current knowledge.

6.The implication of the new science of learning for education (P.14-19):

(1)Students come to the classroom with preconceptions about how the world works. If their initial understanding is not engaged, they may fail to grasp the new concepts and information that are taught, or they may learn them for purposes of a test but revert to their preconceptions outside the classroom

(2)To develop competence in an area of inquiry, students must: a) have a deep foundation of factual knowledge; b) understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework, and c) organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application

(3)A “metacognitive” approach to instruction can help students learn to take control of their own learning by defining learning goals and monitoring their progress in achieving them.

7.The implication of the new science of learning for teaching (P.19-21)

(1)Teachers must draw out and work with the preexisting understandings that their students bring with them.

(2)Teachers must teach some subject matter in depth, providing many examples in which the same concept is at work and providing a firm foundation of factual knowledge.

(3)The teaching of metacognitive skills should be integrated into the curriculum in a variety of subject areas.

8.Designing classroom environment based on learning science:
(1)learner-centered
(2)knowledge-centered
(3)assessment-centered (formative / ongoing assessment)
(4)community-centered

records of volunteering experiences

For temporary records only.

1. Volunteer Mandarin Teaching Assistant – Canada Tzu Chi Academy of Humanistic Studies in Burnaby Moscrop Secondary School
2. Volunteer for Hosting Shad Valley Visitors – Recruitment & Community Liaison, Faculty of Environment, Simon Fraser University, 15th July, 2009
3. RONA MS Bike Tour, Route Marshal, 9th August, 2009
4. Taiwan Day Festival
5. CLCS camp volunteer, SFU International, August 2009
6. Frontier College
7. Vancouver Fringe Festival
8. Tim TA/TM Day, 11th September, 2009
9. Graduate Orientation, 3rd September, 2009
10. Vancouver 2010 Olympic
11. SFU food bank volunteer, 15th August, 2009
12. Renfrew-Collingwood Senior Society
13. Market 1886 (Street Festival), 16th August, 2009
14. Burnaby Campus Orientation Program, 2nd-3rd September, 2009
15. Burnaby Campus Week of Welcome Program, 8th-11th September, 2009

blue-application result unknown or plan to apply

green-in the process

black-finished

comps reading - The Intellectual Work of Change

This paper deals with why educational changes are challenging for teachers, analyzing from four aspects, and how teacher participants in this research view and cope with educational changes.

To start with, the authors pointed out four aspects that can help understand why educational changes are difficult for teachers:

(1)The technical perspective: “If a teacher isn’t able to do it, it can’t be done!” Successful change in this respect means learning how to master a new and technically complex curriculum or a demanding new set of teaching strategies (P.116, Hargreaves, Earl, Moore, & Manning, 2001).

(2)The cultural perspective: “If a teacher doesn’t know how to do it or doesn’t ultimately feel confident doing it, it can’t be done!”

-The cultural perspective is concerned with the meanings and interpretations teachers assign to change (P.117).

-Elmore (1995) argues that the problem of educational reform is one of “changing the core of educational practice—how teachers understand the nature of knowledge the student’s role in learning, and how these ideas about knowledge and learning are manifested in teaching and class work.”

-Change, in this respect, has its indispensible human side, as well as its technical one (Evans, 1997). This human dimension of understanding educational change is both intellectual and emotional in nature.

-Meaning, motivation (“Whatever the change was, it presented teachers with a problem, need, or sense of dissonance that they felt to be compelling and were motivated to resolve.”), and relationships (i.e. proper supports) are all at the heart of the change process.

(3)The political perspective: “If a teacher won’t do it, it can’t be done!”

-concerned with how power is exercised over others or developed with them, the ways that groups and their interests influence the innovation and reform process, and how the ends of education address, comply with, or challenge the existing distributions of power in society.

-raises questions about who is in charge if change and about whose agenda the change itself serves.

-When the change is educationally or morally suspect, resistance can be a great professional virtue (Maurer, 1996)

(4)The postmodern perspective: “If the teacher has too much to do, it won’t be done well.”

-Postmodern society is synonymous with chaos, uncertainty, paradox, complexity, and ongoing change.

-Changes are opportunities; problems are their friends (Fullan, 1993)

-In the meantime, change in postmodern society can become an obsession rather than an
opportunity.

Followed by the four analyses, the authors presented their research results. This seems to be a qualitative case study, employing interview method to acquire their data. Teachers are their research participants. In this section, the authors, based on their research and data gathered from interviewing their teacher participants, explicated three phases of implementing educational changes.

1.understanding change: meaning and mastery

(1)The intellectual work of educational change involves establishing moral and philosophical clarity and agreement about what the change means (Tom, 1983; Sockett, 1989; Sergiovanni, 1990)

(2)Many teachers found (new) policy documents too “nebulous” and “far too involved,” without “a clear focus.”

(3)Teachers need to decode the language of the policy documents and determine if the policy’s intentions were in line with their own social and educational mission.

(4)Another teacher complained that “we use too much jargon, and we are afraid to decide what it means.”

(5)Some teachers employed “doing it already” approach, which can offer them personal and professional reassurance, but it can sometimes also lead to smugness and complacency, preventing teachers from forging ahead.

(6)Some teachers explored the differences between their own practice and the policy recommendations more actively by pinpointing where the gaps were (i.e. gap analysis). Such deciphering and sense-making process was best undertaken collaboratively with colleagues.

2.Deciding to change: urgency and energy
The power of social relevance was most obvious in teachers’ willingness to integrate curricula and establish relationships across traditional boundaries.

3.Developing capacity to change: agency and opportunity

(1)teachers as learners are at the center of educational change.

(2)Successful implementation requires opportunities to clarify policy initiatives and understand reforms (declarative knowledge), opportunities to develop procedural knowledge associated with the innovation, and opportunities to explore new routines and modify practices (Leithwood, Jantzi, & Steinbach, 1999)

(3)Teachers found many ways to create the conditions for their own learning (for new policy):

-using their own practical knowledge and experience to think through the changes so that they made sense in the classroom

-Teachers grounded learning outcomes in the practical world of their students and in their own accumulated knowledge and experience about what does and does not work with students. They built integrated units on this foundation of practical knowledge before considering how these units connected to the outcomes. Outside-in knowledge made sense only when it was filtered through inside-out experience.

-By engaging in explicit professional learning about new practice and strategies in an embedded way, both within workplace and workshops and other events.

-By coming together to share ideas, engage in problem solving, undertake joint planning, pool expertise and resources, and explore ways of integrating their work more effectively.

Overall, solutions to implement educational changes effectively could be as follows (excerpt from the paper):

(1)more time, more human resources, better professional support

(2)changes in how policymakers present reform: e.g. clear outcome statement

(3)educational reform must become considerably less schizophrenic

comps reading - Adaptation and Understanding: A Case (CSILE) for New Cultures of Schooling (excerpt)

This paper first dealt with the relationship between "adaptation" and "understandning" in classroom context, pointing out that the extant system/design/context of schooling constraints learners' understanding, due to the following factors:

Classroom work, even when it is meaningful in its underlying intent, is often characterized by arbitrariness in the standards and procedures that most immediately confront the student. Arbitrariness is only one of a number of factors that can undermine the urge to understand. Other conditions of school life that we place in this category include: product orientation, incomprehensible texts and explanations (unintelligibility), limited time for reflection coupled with competitive knowledge display (lack of opportunity for reflection), emphasis on reproducing authoritative statements of facts combined with disadvantages of producing interpretive accounts (emphasis on reproduction of information), overload, discontinuity of much of schoolwork with prior knowledge (remoteness from experienced reality), busywork, and powerlessness and low probability of success (P.150-154, Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1996).

Learners, in order to adapt the extant schooling and meet with the expected/scheduled performance, need to cut off time spent on understnadning so that to accelerate productivity. That's why the authors relate low understandning with adaptation. To address such issue, CSILE (Computer-supported intentional environment) system is developed. "Collective Knowledge" is the center of this system. Here are some characteristics regarding CSILE, mentioned in the paper:

CSILE (Computer-supported intentional learning environment) helps to make understanding adaptive in classroom. It is viewed as a discourse medium; providing a single, communal database into which students may enter various kinds of text and graphic notes. They can retrieve notes by others, comment on them, link notes to one another (like “concept map” in Knowledge Forum?) or create group discussion notes. CSILE0mediated discourse can be carried on in any or all academic areas, limited only by the availability of machine time. In CSILE’s communal database, collective knowledge—as contrasted with school exercises, activities, or private interests—is the center of attention (P.155-156, Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1996).

The strategy we (CSILE researchers Scardamalia & Bereiter) have used to address issues particular to the role of understanding is to present students with material that is, by age-adjusted standards (readability levels, problem-solving difficulty), more demanding than typically dealt with successfully at their age. We also looked for depth of explanations in students’ written reports. We would expect CSILE students to have beliefs about learning that reflect mature views of understanding. In summary, CSILE students consistently outperform control students in ways that suggest more understanding. The longer students spend working with CSILE, the better the results (P.158-159, Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1996).

comps reading reflection: Meaning in Method

The dispute over the difference and importance of quantitative and qualitative research has long been the focus of research method and methodology. In general, people are consistent that quantitative methods explain the positivist paradigm, which assumes there is an object reality, while qualitative methods are derived from pragmatic and phenomenological paradigm, where multiple realities exist and are "constructed through individual or collective definitions of the situation" (Taylor & Bogdan, 1984). The extremists from both sides see little complementarity between quantitative and qualitative methods. Firestone in this article explicated part of the discrepancies is actually originated from the rhetorics, in an attempt of addressing the complementariy between quantitative and qualitative methods and how such complementarity can corroborate educational researches.

Firestone first pointed out the relationship between paradigms and methods. While a logical relationship exists between paradigms and methods in quantitative research, within qualitative research, the relationship is relatively instrumental. Between quantitative and qualitative methods, differences are revealed in the four primary aspects: 1) assumptions about the world; 2) purpose; 3) approach; and 4) researcher role. To understand why quantitative studies are typically more positivistic than most qualitative research, Firestone though it would be helpful to understand the rhetoric device of research first. He then defined what "the rhetoric of research" is: rhetoric analysis of research proceeds by examining the product of research in literary terms to identify the values, meanings, and beliefs projected by a work and the values to which it appeals either explicitly or implicitly (Firestone, 1987). With the rhetoric examination of two studies as to how they use different strategies to persuade readers the research validity, Firestone summarized with three categories: 1) persuasion; 2) assumptions; and 3) complemtarity.

In the strategy of persuasion, while quantitative study faithfully employs the established procedures and format to avoid researchers' subjectivity and to corroborate research validity, qualitative study uses rich description and strategic comparison to persuade readers. Regarding assumptions, it can be described through three dichotomies:1) variables versus actions; 2) hydraulic determinism versus limits and opportunities; and 3) randomness and error versus choice. Overall it is observable from these dichotomies that quantitative studies tend to be more fixed, while qualitative ones are more dynamic and flexible. Such distinction turns out to be the complementarity for each other and for a research. As the quantitative studies assess the magnitude of relationship more precisely (by concretely numbers or percentages), qualitative studies conclude with more ambiguous yet relative statements (Firestone, 1987), which facilitate readers to form a more integrate concept.

With this article and the analysis of the two studies Firestone tried to suggest there is a rhetoric connection between method types and paradigms. What remains to be clarified is how tightly or consistently the convention link paradigm and method (Firestone, 1987). It should be noted that, after reading this article, readers ought to know the relationship between quantitative and qualitative methods is not arbitrary but complementary. It is also hoped that researchers can make better use of the strength of both methods to corroborate their research statement.

comps reading excerpt - Meaning in Method: The Rhetoric of Quantitative and Qualitative Research

1.Quantitative methods express the assumptions of a positivist paradigm which holds that behavior can be explained through objective facts. Design and instrumentation persuade by showing how bias and error are eliminated.

2.Qualitative methods express the assumptions of a phenomenological paradigm that there are multiple realities that are socially defined. Rich description persuades by showing that researcher was immersed in the setting and giving the reader enough detail to “make sense” of the situation.

3.Purists see there is a logical relationship between paradigm and methods; pragmatists see a more instrumental relationship between paradigm and methods.

4.relationship between method-type and paradigm

5.Difference between quantitative and qualitative methods in four analysis:
(1)Assumptions about the world: objective reality vs. socially constructed realities
(2)(research) purpose: explain causes of changes in social facts vs. understanding social phenomenon
(3)(research) approach: experimental or correlational design vs. ethnography
(4)Researcher role: detached vs. immersed

6.Two studies compared (quantitative vs. qualitative):
(1)overall conclusion: both of them provide complementary info to the readers
(2)Persuasion: by de-emphasizing individual judgment and stressing the use of established procedures vs. providing sufficient detailed depictions to show researchers’ conclusion “make sense”
(3)Assumption
a.variables versus actions
b.hydraulic determinism versus limits and opportunities
c.randomness and error versus choice
(4)Complementarity: When focused on the same issue, qualitative and quantitative studies can triangulate. Where studies using different methods have similar results, one can be more certain that the findings are not influenced by the methodology. Where the results diverge more research is needed; but comparison of studies can often suggest important lines of inquiry to pursue.

Swear to Quit Ugly Betty

Have been watching the American series Ugly Betty for the past several days and now am finishing the first season, being in the 12th episode of the 2nd season. I think I was so addicted to Ugly Betty that I forgot what I plan to do during my summer break. It's time to quit it. I know I can make it.

Apart from the quitting thing, I do think Ugly Betty is worth watching. A story about Betty, who is far from attractive a girl working for a fashion magazine, she is honest, sincere, enthusiastic, courageous, considerate, nice, loyal, and diligent for everything. This is a story about love, love about family members, friends, romance, and even the relationship in the working environment. It's also a story about hope, faith, and determoination. Don't assume Ugly Betty is a serious TV series because of those serious themes I mentioned, it's quite funny as well. I do like watching Ugly Betty for the past few days. In some way, I seem to see some commonalities between me and Betty. I, too, far from attractive and always lack confidence for myself, am actually diligent and nice, trying to be courageous and determined toward everything I make up my mind for. I think to some extent I was really inspired and encouraged and touched by Ugly Betty. Betty teaches me to stick to whatever I believe is correct and worthwhile, reminding me of having faith and being gratitude. Yes I know these are kind of cliche, yet they are really inspiring whenever you refresh yourself with these spirits.

I have to admit, though, watching Ugly Betty takes me so much time that I cannot do anything I plan for my summer break beforehand. So now it's time fore me to quit Ugly Betty. I appreciate everything Ugly Betty taught me, including those funny laughters and time I had when watching. With this posting I swear I will quit Ugly Betty right now and go back to my original plan for my summer break.

Here is Taiwan Day Carnival

August 3rd to me is another wonderful day as well, except I was a little bit exhausted (because I need to wake up at 7 AM, which I overslept for 30 minutes...XD), and except the political tendency is a little bit different from mine XD But overall, people there are quite friendly and nice, they actually did not mention our former Mr. President that much in public.

I was at the Bobolink Park since maybe 9:30 AM, arranging the chairs and later being the one selling the coupons for others. As their volunteers, we can have $10CAD from them to purchasing stuff there. They had roughly 20 something booths, most of which are food, as you can see from my picasa album. Since it is Taiwan Day Festival (or Carnival, whatever...), the food sold there are all traditional Taiwanese cuisines, such as Taiwanese meat ball, rice dumpling, cold noodles, various rice cakes, even the wheeled-shaped cake!!!!! You should know how I miss them!!!! Though I stayed there for over 7 hours, I was really happy and had a lot of the so-called "rewards." In addition to the $10CAD coupon that I used to buy rice dumplings, wheel-shaped cake, glutinous oil rice, and rice noodles, they also gave me some extra stuff, such as lunch box with pork spareribs, sugarcoated haws on a stick, vegetables, Starbucks coffee, kimchi, crackers, and sandwiches. I also took the free World Journal, on which I may be able to find some job opportunity. I even played hula hoop with little kids XD

Initially when I saw the yellow pin, out of curiosity I put it on my chest.After realizing it is for Mr. Chen, I took it off from my chest XD. We had some leaflet promoting their activities on our booth desk. Most people felt ok / nothing with the leaflet, yet I did encounter few people who came to our desk for buying coupons showed their disagreement on their face and even did not want to buy coupons when realizing what the leaflet is about XD Under such circumstance, What I can do was nothing but merely try to comfort them by saying that this is only for reference and you don't have to agree with that...XD I also told them that "see...I don't wear the pin either (smile XD)" This is really interesting experience to me haha...

Overall today is a wonderful day to me, though I needed to wake up early and worked as their activity volunteers, staying there for more than 7 hours. Actually I did know some volunteers did not stay as long as I did; yet, after all, I wasn't busy, thus I stayed there almost at the end of the whole activity, helping them to recover the site. By the way, I need to thank my U-Pass, the almost-omnipotent bus and skytrain ticket. With U-Pass, I don't have to pay any extra money for taking the bus and skytrain. The fee is completely covered in my tuition. I love it haha!!!

Here I am at Harrison Beach

Yesterday I went to Harrison Beach with James family, Yuki, and John. I really had a great time there!! The scenery is so beautiful that I almost want to come here whenever I have free time, haha. You can swim there, row your rubber boat, or just play with water. Of course you may choose to stay at the resort villa if you can afford as well,'cause the view is really awesome as well.

What I wore is the SFU pink T-shirt and black short pants, with my birkenstock, which, I think, is probably the most convenient shoes I ever had. I did bring my swimming suit, though; yet I was too lazy to change it. Anyways, merely playing with water is such a wonderful blessing to me already. I am content with what I can possess and experience.

I hope one day I can go to Harrison Beach with my beloved ones, Mom, Annie, or WTC. However, as I don't have a car, I think this is probably the so-called "mission impossible"...

Hey come on! I think we still can do something that meets our ability. Say, I actually can take you shopping at the Metrotown, or take the SeaBus to North Van, haha!

Tomorrow I'm going to the Taiwanese Festival. Hopefully I can meet some people who are nice and who can provide some job opportunity to me later when I graduate.