The web conference that I participated in this evening was just excellent – I can’t say enough good things about Dr. Jenkins’ support of students through this intimidating process of developing a research plan. While the conference still had its share of technical difficulties, the flow of the conference never seemed affected. Early in the conference some dialogue occurred relating to creating a writeable document, embedding the document into a blog, contacting site mentors, and the nuances between sections of the weekly assignment. These questions were resolved, and Dr. Jenkins set minds at ease about the logistics of plan development. (Please feel free to go to http://wilsoneduwiki.wikispaces.com if you need a writable copy of the SIP/PIP document.) As a result, the conference theme was able to move effectively past the ‘nuts and bolts’ of the assignment particulars and into content.
I had the privilege of hearing some truly fascinating research topics: from parent involvement in Pre-K to PDAS, many stakeholders will be benefiting from the efforts of these professionals in the coming months. I had some concerns about how to articulate my plans to share my research data this early in the process; during the conference Dr. Jenkins discussed the need to create a framework for the plan that could be updated as information and guidance became available. As I read through the class texts this week, I had some questions about how to utilize my campus professional learning community to collect data via peer observations. Dr. Jenkins advised us to look into some current research that is being conducted on peer-to-peer observations and evaluations, which I hope will help me to formulate a template for our PLC observations.
All in all, I feel much more comfortable with my inquiry progress than I did two hours ago. Hopefully I will be able to meet with my mentor and principal in the next week; then, it should be all systems go for the project. It’s exhilarating to get started!
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