Culminating Experience Title

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The Presentation Portfolio

The iMET Schedule and links

The schedule below will help iMET students track progress toward the completion of the master's portfolio.

Jumping points:

Format Activity
TI February 15

 

Rationale Statements and References

F2F February 16 -17

Friday, February 16, 2001

5:00 - 5:30 Check-in

5:30 - 6:15 Potluck Dinner

6:15 - 7:15 Portfolios

7:15 Break

7:30 - 8:30 Action Research

8:30 - 9:00 Questions and Circle

Saturday, February 17, 2001

9:00 - 9:30 Check-in

9:30 - 12:00 Library Research and Advising

  • Be prepared to do some library research. The semester has officially begun, and the CSUS Library will be open.
  • The Tapped In session from February 15 may provide you with ideas as to what references you might want to locate in the library.

12:00 - 1:00 Lunch

1:00 - 3:30 WebQuests, Library Research and Advising

  • WebQuest collaboration

3:30 - 4:00 Discussion

4:00 Circle

 

Phorum February 18

Posting of References 
TI February 28 WebQuest

TI March 1 Portfolio

Reviewing WebQuest progress.

Initial drafts or outlines for Review of Literature

Phorum March 4

Finalizing WebQuests and uploading

 
TI March 14 Action Research

TI March 15 Portfolio

 

Action Research: Data

Mills: Chapter 3

Techniques

Mills: Chapter 4

Validity, Reliability, Generalizability, and Ethics

Mills: Chapter 3

  • Observations
    • pgs. 50-55
  • Interviews
    • 55-61
  • Document mining
    • 61-65

Portfolio: First Peer Review

Reflection Scaffold

  • The Reflection Scaffold is a Word document that must be used at least for your first of four reflections. It is simply a scaffold that you use to get you started. You may modify the format after using the scaffold for the first time or you may continue to use the format provided.

Phorum March 18

Portfolio and Action Research

  • What are you accomplishing?
  • Share your reflections.
TI March 28 Action Research
  • Agenda for 3/28/01

TI March 29 Portfolio

 		 Action Research discussions in Pepperdine #327
  • 7:00 - 7:20 Julie, Jerry, Marco and Wendy
  • 7:20 - 7:40 Mica and Christie
  • 7:40 - 8:00 Rob and Alix
  • 8:00 - 8:20 Antares and Dave
  • 8:20 - 8:40 Liquid Adjustment
  • 8:40 - 9:00 Deborah, Richard and Jeff
  • 9:00 - 9:20 Gail, Cathie and Laverne
  • 9:20 - 9:40 Scotty, Mark and Marc

Evaluating and Coding

Mills: Chapter 5 pages 100-110

  • Organizing data
    • Organizing documents, observations and interviews
    • Searching for categories
    • Determining codes
    • Finding exemplars
  • Interpreting data
    • Look for relationships within the coded categories
      • Ask follow-up questions
      • Make follow-up observations
    • Look for patterns
      • Ask follow-up questions
      • Make follow-up observations
    • Ask: What does this mean? How often does this thing happen? What seems consistent?

 

Phorum April 1

Reporting your findings

  • Draft your preliminary action research methodology.
    • Post to the Phorum for feedback.
  • In-progress Portfolio
    • Post link to the Phorum for comments
  • Literature reviews
    • In-progress reviews
    • Email these to the Amigos for comments

Phorum April 15

Reporting your findings

  • Draft your preliminary action research report.
  • Post to the Phorum for feedback.
TI April 25 Action Research

TI April 26 Portfolio

Action Research: Discussion of findings

Portfolio: Second Peer Review

  • Reflect
  • Peer Review
  • Reflect

 

 
Phorum April 29

What now?

F2F May 4 - 5

WebQuest Presentations

Friday

5:00-5:30 Check-in

5:30-6:00 Reflections and updates

6:00-6:30 Julie and Jerry: A License to Drive (WQ and AR)

6:30-6:40 Questions

6:40-6:50 Break

6:50-7:20 Wendy and Laverne: Personal Missions and Codes of Conduct

7:20-7:30 Questions

7:30-8:15 Potluck

8:15-8:45 Mica and Christie: Action Research only

8:45-9:00 Questions and Circle

Saturday

9:00-9:20 Check-in

9:20-9:50 Round One:

9:50-10:00 Questions

10:00-10:10 Break

10:10-10:40 Round Two:

10:40-10:50 Questions

10:50-11:00 Break

11:00-11:30 Round Three:

11:30-11:40 Questions

11:40-12:10 Round Four:

12:10-12:20 Questions

12:20-1:20 Lunch

1:20-3:45 Action Research discussions

  • 1:20-2:00 Informal discussions of processes and findings
  • 2:00-3:00 Work session and advising
  • 3:00-3:45 Processing (more questions and discussions)

3:45-4:00 Circle

 
TI May 9 Action Research

Tie up loose ends!

Personal and background information

Uploaded examples of portfolios

 

Looking at qualitative research with a note about the WebQuest perspective.

What is qualitative research? Rob McBride and John Schostak define it as "Enquiry Learning".

Using Sharan Merriam's Qualitative Research and Case Study Applications in Education (1998), we take as a principle assumption that individuals construct reality by interactions with their social environment.  Following this, qualitative researchers are interested in understanding the meanings that people construct.  Qualitative research can reveal how parts fit together to reveal the whole.  In contrast, quantitative researchers understand the whole by taking apart its components and testing them.  These components become the variables of a study.

Other characteristics of qualitative research (p. 5 - 8):

Merriam further describes qualitative research as generally having "emergent and flexible" designs with small, non-random, purposeful samples.  The researcher -the primary instrument of data collection- spends long hours in the natural setting (p. 8).  These, and the major characteristics outlined above, may match nicely with the research plans that iMET students consider in their action research design.  In some respects, the characteristics of qualitative research may also be embedded in the designs of WebQuests.

Howard Becker, in Tricks of the Trade, provides some highly useful ways to think about all research (Becker, 1998).  Below are some of the "tricks" Becker feels researchers must scrutinize as they look at their areas of focus.  I highly recommend this book.

Becker's words can summarize much of the above list:  "When an analyst of causes has done the job well, the result is a large proportion of variance explained.  When an analyst of narrative has done the job well, the result is a story that explains why this process had to lead to this result." (p. 57)  

Finally, ask "how" not just "why".  Becker quotes Charles Ragin in describing the investigator thinking about his research problem: 

"...pondering the possibilities gained from deep familiarity with some aspect of the works, systematizing those ideas in relation to kinds of information one might gather, checking the ideas in the light of that information, dealing with the inevitable discrepancies between what was expected and what was found by rethinking the possibilities and getting more data, and so on, in a version of Kuhn's image of the development of science as a whole." (p. 66)

Simple summaries of the characteristics contrasting qualitative and quantitative methodologies can  be found at the following locations:

A more in-depth summary:

Online meetings

All online meetings will be held on Wednesdays or Thursdays except where individual arrangements are made.