Separating the Spurious from the Genuine

This place could easily become a parking lot. I'm busy finishing my lit review for Lisa's class and I came across this article:

Paris, S. (2005). Reinterpreting the development of reading skills. Reading Research Quarterly, 40 (2), 184-202. 

I'd like to spend a lot more time with this article and other pieces by Scott Paris, including this book chapter, entitled "Spurious and Genuine Correlates of Children's Reading Comprehension". 

None of this relates to my lit review, so I must put it aside, but I want to remember to go back and take all of this in.

Lit review: Technology and Learning

I'm trying to locate a copy of an article that I read about here. It's taking too long and I have too much else to work on right now, so I'm parking this information in a blog entry so that I can come back to it later.

The UCLA Newsroom article referenced above has the provocative title, "Is technology producing a decline in critical thinking and analysis?" 

Greenfield, P. M. (2009). Technology and Informal education: What is taught, what is learned. Science, 323 (5910), 69.

We Watch

We're on our way to see the Watchmen. I remember when it was first released. That happened during the period when I was collecting comic books, when I was making weekly trips to the comic book store to pick up my subscriptions and check out what was new with my friend Larry. The first issue didn't seal the deal for me. It was different - very dark, moody, and a little too slow paced for what I was used to. But it was interesting enough that I came back for the second issue, and the third. By then, I was hooked. I couldn't wait for each new installment. I read each issue over and over, and I have since purchased the trade paperback and read it every few years. Reading the whole series straight through is obviously a very different experience than having to wait 30 days between issues. I think I'm lucky to have experienced it as a proper series because that experience can't really be recreated. Anticipation can be a wonderful thing.

I'm looking forward to this movie and I'm trying to keep my expectations in check. Movies aren't books. You can't make a good movie by using the original text as your shooting script. You have to make changes any time you transmediate material and I expect changes in this case. I'm hoping that the creative team was able to make a good movie and stay faithful in principle to the original work. I also know that no movie can match the experience of a fifteen year old me, walking to the comic book store to pick up the new issue of the graphic novel that changed the form.

Student Video Projects

After meeting with the Dean yesterday afternoon, I'm very excited about the possibilities of finding financial support for Patty's project. I think her project is going to impact students in a positive way regardless and I think that finding a sponsor for it can only extend the possibilities. The challenge for me, as always, is to maintain focus long enough to see it through to completion.

Ann's theme word "challenge" kept cropping up all day yesterday and continues to be central today. I was greatly challenged by last night's Stats class. Last week and this week, I feel that I have a very tentative understanding of what we are doing. And there's a five percent chance that I have no clue. I don't quite grasp what we learn by correlating residuals. It feels like it's just out of reach.

Teacher Expectations

I believe that teacher expectations (and learner expectations) strongly influence the learning that occurs or doesn't occur in classrooms. The influence of expectations on performance is an area unrelated to any of the research that I've done so far and it's an area I might consider for future research. Raising a student's expectations for his or her own performance may be the single greatest positive impact a teacher can have on the future of a child.

Research on Teacher Expectations

Research regarding the influence of teacher expectations on student performance cited on pp. 97-102 of Jones, V., & Jones, L. (2007). Comprehensive classroom management: Creating communities of support and solving problems, eighth edition. Boston: Pearson Allyn & Bacon:

• Reyes, P., Scribner, J., & Scribner, A. (Eds.). (1999). Lessons from high-performing Hispanic schools: Creating learning communities. New York: Teachers College Press.
• Weinstein, R., Gregory, A., & Strambler, M. (2004). Intractable self-fulfilling prophecies: Brown v Board of Education. American Psychologist, 59, 511-520.
• Pianta, R., Howes, C., Burchinal, M., Bryant, D., Clifford, R., Early, D., & Barbarin, O. (2004). Features of pre-kindergarten programs, classrooms, and teachers: Do they predict observed classroom quality and child-teacher interaction? Manuscript submitted for publication.
• Noguera, P. (2003). Schools, prisons, and social implications of punishment: Rethinking disciplinary practices. Theory into Practice, 42, 341-350.
• Frericks, A. (1974, March). Labeling of students by prospective teachers. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association Convention, Chicago. [According to Jones & Jones, Frericks found that teachers viewing a group of students that they were told was low performing described their behaviors more negatively than when they were told they were "regular" students.]
• Spencer-Hall, D. (1981). Looking behind the teacher's back. Elementary School Journal, 81, 281-289.
• Sadker, D., & Sadker, M. (1985). Is the o.k. classroom o.k.? Phi Delta Kappan, 66, 358-361. [Teachers treating boys and girls differently.]
• Kahle, J. (1990). Why girls don't know. In M. Rowe (Ed.), What research says to the science teacher: The process of knowing. Washington, DC: National Science Testing Association.
• Lee, V. (1991, August). Sexism in single-sex and co-educational secondary school classrooms. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, Cincinnati, OH.
• American Association of University Women Educational Foundation. (1992). The AAUW report: How schools shortchange girls. Washington, DC: National Education Association.
• Cooper, H., & Good, T. (1983). Pygmalion grows up. New York: Longman. [Ways teachers treat low achievers differently]
• Brophy, J. (1983). Research on the self-fulfilling prophecy and teacher expectations. Journal of Educational Psychology, 75, 631-661.

And from page 100 of the Jones & Jones text (quoted from Educational Psychology by Anita Woolfolk:

Guidelines for Avoiding the Negative Effects of Teacher Expectations

• Use information from tests, cumulative folders, and other teachers very carefully.
• Be flexible in your use of grouping strategies.
• Make sure all the students are challenged.
• Be especially careful about how you respond to low-achieving students during class discussions.
• Use materials that show a wide range of ethnic groups.
• Be fair in evaluation and disciplinary procedures.
• Communicate to all students that you believe they can learn - and mean it.
• Involve all students in learning tasks and in privileges.
• Monitor your nonverbal behavior.

Other Avenues to Pursue

Although I've held strong beliefs about expectation for a long time, it was a recent episode of Radio Lab that brought these thoughts to the fore. Below are some references for items from the episode.

The NYTimes reported on a study showing an increase in test scores of African Americans after the arrival of Obama on the national scene. Here's the current reference for their study: Marx, D. M., Ko, S. J., & Friedman, R. A. (in press). The Obama effect: How a salient role model reduces race-based performance differences. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

Claude Steele was interviewed about his research on the same episode of Radio Lab. He has looked at the effects of expectation on the performance of African Americans and on the performance of women in testing situations. His work is listed here. Here's a recent reference to his work:
Aronson, J. & Steele, C. M. Stereotypes and the fragility of academic competence, motivation, and self-concept, (chapter to appear in A. Elliot & C. Dweck (Eds.) The Handbook of Competence.

I'd like to do some work in these areas, or at the very least, keep up with what these researchers are doing.

Go More

I'm feeling overwhelmed. Too many projects, too many commitments, too many directions.

Great day, though. In the morning, I worked with Jenifer's class who got their first visit from the Learning Gate group. After that, I went to Buchanan with Patty M. to start working on a student documentary film project with her. We met with the students to sort of outline the rest of the project and I got the chance to talk to Patty about doing my own bit of research with this project, and about social justice and equity of access.

Squeeze in there a conversation with Roy about university-wide technology funds and a conversation with Dr. B about laptop requirements/recommendations in our department's degree programs, and here I am in class.

WoW

In preparation for the presentation that I'll be doing next week on James Gee, I played World of Warcraft for the first time last night. I installed a 10 day trial on one of the Lounge computers and played under guidance of James S. (who was playing with the character name PotteryBarn). The first thing that struck me was the amount of text and the level of text involved in the game. Unlike other games that I've played, particularly console games like Star Wars or Halo, WoW is a text-intensive environment. It takes some time to get used to where the text will appear in the interface. At one point, James told me that I had picked something up and I asked him how he knew. He pointed out the text on the lower left part of the screen that reported my action. Until he pointed that out, I wasn't attending to that part of the screen at all. As a new player, I didn't know where to place my attention to receive relevant information. As I played, exclamation points appeared at the bottom of the screen. When I clicked on each exclamation point, a text box appeared explaining some aspect of the game that I had just encountered for the first time. These messages were providing me with small pieces of information at the point of need. I was still in control of the display of this text, but it was offered when the context was appropriate, i.e. when I had encountered the concept, the concept was labeled and explained for me.

Being a low level player, my movements are limited to certain areas, while I learn. There are other players around and computer-operated characters that provide structure, guidance, instructions, directions (how to get from A to B), and other kinds of interactions. James explained to me that WoW is unique in that it is scalable in many directions. The game works well for someone who plays eight hours per day and also works well for someone who plays an hour per week. It works for those who wish to go deep (this is drillable) into the back story and for those who primarily wish to fight battles. The game environment supports many different approaches to game play. The largest proportion of the hour or so that I spent playing last night was spent running from one place to another. What objectives I chose to adopt, what goals I completed, all of that was up to me.

For next week, I need to figure out how to communicate all of the information that I want to get across in this environment without detracting from the experience. I know some of them will simply be overwhelmed by the interface. We'll see.

Heroes?

Here's what's wrong with Heroes: they aren't heroes.

That group of characters, over the course of three years, has done very, very little that actually benefitted any characters other than themselves. The show isn't about people with special abilities who risk and sacrifice to help people. The show seems to be about people with special abilities who bicker with each other, occasionally kill each other, and occasionally kill innocent people. Mainly they fight each other. When was the last time someone stopped a crime, or put out a forest fire, or saved a drowning person, or rescued a cat from a tree for that matter. They aren't heroes. They don't help people. As written, they don't really think about people outside of their group. Rarely, maybe once or twice a season, an innocent bystander gets saved, but it's usually incidental to the main action.

Of course, there are many other problems with the show, but this is one that has been bugging me and it's one that would be relatively easy to fix, I think. Just have them talk about the people that they just saved off screen. Just make me think that they do that in addition to arguing with each other. Give them some higher purpose than trying to save the world from each other every season.

My day

I slept in, after staying out a little late at Steph's wedding, then staying up to watch the two episodes of "The Dollhouse", Whedon's new show. I walked outside in my shorts and quickly walked back inside when I realized that the weather had changed overnight. The weather was beautiful for Steph's wedding Saturday, suddenly chilly and windy this morning.

I got into my jeans and got myself to Panera to meet my Stats study group at noon. We wrote the proposal, due Thursday, for our group project. Brent left at that point to get back to his family. AnnMarie, Barbara, and I reviewed Thursday's slides and the homework, carefully explaining each concept to each other. Thursday launched us into multiple regression, with so many new terms and so much new notation that our heads were spinning. I really needed that review. I left Panera at about 4.

Next job: return equipment to USF. I called ahead and asked Michael if I could pick him up for that quick trip. It was a little more than I wanted to unload by myself. He jumped in the shower, I got a quick workout with Wii Fit, and then we headed to USF. We dropped off an overflowing bag of recycling (I really wish Pasco would get on board with recycling pickup), and then unloaded all of the audio equipment that we used at Steph's wedding. It's a shame that we don't have more use for that equipment in the department, but I'm not sure what one could do with it to support education.

After that, Temple Terrace, where Michael got a haircut and I took advantage of someone's wireless signal to update itunesu.pbwiki.com. I've got to update all of my pbwiki sites to 2.o. I think they are using this update to get rid of abandoned and obsolete sites. I answered some email and checked off a few to-do's. Michael gets his hair cut across the street from Dairy Queen and that simple law of proximity was impossible to overcome. One can't park across the street from DQ for 45 minutes and not want to eat there. So, take out was taken out and we headed home. I never tire of Michael's company and we never run out of things to talk about.

Home, food, 30 Rock. Then I started careening around the internet. I answered email, I read tweets and blogs. I downloaded updates. Then I read William Kist's "I Gave Up MySpace for Lent" in the November issue of JAAL. Nice preliminary article and I'll have to remember to watch for his forthcoming piece. I forwarded the reference to my Monday class, the profs I know on Facebook, and Dr. L for the Lit and Tech class. Somehow, I stumbled on a program called Stanza, which I think I love. I'm using it to read PDFs and the automatic scrolling and formatting options make me happy. Then I read O'Brien and Bauer's 2005 RRQ review of Gee's book about video games and literacy. The review also covers Lankshear and Knobel's New Literacies book, but I was primarily looking for the discussion of Gee in preparation for next Monday night's presentation.

I'm excited about that preso, and especially what I'll be able to do with the help of my secret team of insiders. The biggest challenge will be limiting it to an hour.

Tomorrow, a meeting about iTunes U, a TIL workshop, an annual review meeting, and Dr. King's class. And somewhere in there, I'll read and take notes on the final edit of the book chapter.

For me, one aspect of being a doc student is never knowing if I'm working hard enough. There are always more articles to read, and the endless possibilities of the Internet work against me frequently. I have always had problems overcommitting and overextending. I also have problems making myself focus on anything that isn't almost due. One reason that I decided to blog this year was to hold myself more accountable for my habits. To do that, I'm going to need to write more about what I'm learning and how I'm learning it. I think it will also make it easier to find information when I need it later. And now I'm going to bed!