Today is the first day of EPSRI and my first day back at SPU since last spring when I did my internship with the Energy Project. The big difference between what I’m doing now and what I did a year ago is that now everything is live. The teachers here than I am observing are really here, right in front of me, in live time. So in addition to me observing and reacting to them, they also can observe and react to me. I am no longer an invisible eye reviewing video taken at another time. The other difference that comes along with real time videotaping is that I am no longer able to stop and rewind. Things happen and keep on happening without waiting for me to catch up. Because of this taking field notes is slightly different and more difficult than the content logging I was doing last year. I think I will get better at knowing what sorts of things to write down in the fieldnotes, and, maybe more importantly, what things to leave out. Today I mostly tried to write down the dialogue I was hearing between the two teachers at the table I was observing, and occasionally I would jot down a note about their behavior. Tomorrow I want to try writing down less word-for-word dialogue (except when something particularly noteworthy is said) and try to focus more on summarizing what they’re saying – what they appear to want to be saying – and they’re behavior throughout the conversation. I also want to record more observations on my part as to what is going on in the room. I’ve now looked over the google doc with everyone else’s fieldnotes from the day, so now having taken a morning’s worth of notes of my own and comparing how I did it to how others did it I think I’m more informed to improve my notes tomorrow.
Another interesting aspect of the morning was tracking how the teachers felt about the microphone, the camera, and us videographers in the back pounding away on the keyboard. I was listening to Joan’s microphone and it seemed like she would go in and out of knowing that she was being listened to. Especially toward the beginning of the class she seemed to look over at me a few times and wonder what exactly I was typing. I think this was also caused because I was doing a whole lot of looking at her. I tried to look at her less and focus mostly on what I was hearing in the headphones while just checking back to the table every few seconds rather than a constant stare as I typed. I think Joan also got more comfortable throughout the morning with the idea of being observed (or else she just forgot).
One part of the morning that particularly stood out was the fieldtrip outside. At first Siri and I weren’t exactly sure if we were supposed to follow the teachers outside and continue filming. Eleanor prompted us to follow them out, so we picked up the cameras and went on foot. At first I couldn’t even find where my group had gone, but soon I saw them over by the parking lot. Unfortunately I didn’t realize that I could bring the headphones out with me, so I couldn’t really hear what they were saying, but the camera should still have been picking up the sound from the remote microphone. I should be able to go back later once the video is uploaded and watch the section again to hear the audio. There was a little bit of awkwardness (at least from my perspective) in filming them outside. I wasn’t exactly sure where to stand; I didn’t want to be intrusive, but I also didn’t want to be completely hidden. I ended up standing behind them and a little bit to the side. I don’t think they were expecting to be followed outside by the camera and I don’t know if Christine even knew I was there. Joan could see me with the camera since she was turned half way towards me most of the time. I tried to just stand quietly and hold the camera still, but it was a much different feeling than sitting in the back of the classroom with the camera sitting alone on the table. I suddenly seemed to have much more responsibility (or control) over the fact that they were being recorded, and that made me feel more awkward even though I could no longer hear their conversation so I really wasn’t intruding as much. After several minutes Joan and Christine decided they wanted to go back inside to begin to compile and make sense of everything they had seen outside. When they turned around to go back in Christine jumped a little (which is why I think she didn’t know I was filming), but I just tried to smile, say hi, and follow them back in. Christine did hold the door for me, so once she knew I was there she did seem at least partly comfortable with my being there. Back inside they returned to their table so I was able to set the camera back up, put on the headphones, and continue taking notes. Now that I could hear their conversation again and was a bit farther away in the back of the room I felt more comfortable again and I think they did too.
No other groups returned back to the room for a while. They used the whiteboard to “scribble,” as Christine called it, and get all their ideas out and where they could see them. Throughout the morning Christine kept referring to strategies like this that she wanted her students to use (such as having a title, writing your name, etc.). They discussed all the kinds of energy they saw outside and the different systems of transformation that energy takes. They focused in on the food chain and weather (or the water cycle) as two chains of transformation that energy takes. They tried to trace the track of energy from sun to wherever it ends (note: both these concepts of “beginning” and “end” of the story of energy came up later in the whole class discussion). Joan and Christine considered the “starting point” of energy to be from the sun and determined that there is light energy and heat energy from that source. They started their process of the food chain by describing the sun’s emission of light energy, leading to photosynthesis where light energy transforms into chemical energy. This chemical energy is then converted into kinetic energy and other forms when an animal or person eats that plant. Then when the animal or person dies their bodies decompose and they decided the energy is then used in the form of fossil fuels to run things such as cars.
They then discussed the water cycle and how the energy from the sun affects weather. They had a long discussion about the process of how water evaporates, forms clouds, rains and repeats, and also energy's role in that process. However, when they designed their final whiteboard they only included a short note that heat energy from the sun determines the weather, whereas they wrote up a full description of the food chain energy process.
Stepping back to the big picture again, another thing that stood out a few times today was humor. Both humorous things and the actual abstract idea of humor were brought up several times throughout the morning. There were specific people (as is usual in a group environment) who seemed more drawn to humor than others, especially Brian, but everyone seemed to appreciate a little laugh now and then. At table 3, which I was observing, Christine seemed to laugh a lot in little spurts, perhaps to deflect any awkwardness that comes from collaborating with someone you've never met before.
In general Christine was very focused on making the whiteboards very pretty and official. She seemed to enjoy writing on the whiteboard and making it look nice. She kept making comments about how students use whiteboards which suggests to me that she was really putting herself in the shoes of students she has taught.
Both Christine and Joan seemed equally willing to participate and contribute to their conversations. Often Christine would take on the role of scribe, while Joan would look on and approve (or not) of what she recorded. Joan almost always seemed to approve of what Christine wrote, but occasionally she had a different suggestion and would gently tell Christine as much. Joan seemed to take a little more of a leadership role in the talking, while Christine did so in the writing, but they did seem to keep their jobs fairly balanced between them. It will be interesting to see what the table layouts are tomorrow and how they will interact if they are sitting with other people.
Another discussion of note that Joan and Christine had was about looking at the big picture versus picking a specific focus. At the beginning of class when they were asked to pick a snippet of the Wallace and Grommet video and draw the energy story Joan and Christine didn't pick a specific moment but instead mapped out the bigger picture of the whole video. They were the last to present their whiteboard and they (at least Joan) noticed that everyone else had picked a much smaller segment to draw out which was different than the approach they had taken. Amongst the two of them they talked about the different advantages to taking a big picture approach versus and more focused approach. Christine pointed out that it's important to have a big picture take-home message that students can walk away with. At the same time it can be very informative to dig deeper into certain areas of that bigger picture to develop a better understanding overall. Both Christine and Joan identified themselves as learners that work from the big idea down to the small and this learning strategy was apparent in at least some of their discussions (particularly their discussion about the food chain and water cycle).
Now it's time for the meeting! More tomorrow.
FYI, when Joan gave the microphone back at the end of the day, she said she had forgotten she was wearing it.
ReplyDelete