For now, most of what I can reflect on is anxiety.
Will I be able to observe what I am looking for in student's work?
Is someone' s understanding of something
observable anyway?Will my presence and leading questions make any "data" I collect wholly bunk?
Will I get too distracted by the social/psycho drama of teaching that I forget to look for data?
Worksheets don't fail me now!
At left: Cubist Anxiety
good luck gathering your data! I really like your jam picture to the right as well, and I don't even like to eat jam...ALSO thank you for the suggestion of Piece, their pizza WAS really good, and the beer as well.
ReplyDeleteThese are all really interesting questions. I think that this is where collaborative teaching practices really have their strongest benefit for the teachers involved. I think the answers to your questions are sometimes no because it's so easy to project our own desires onto these psychologically complex situations. But collaborators help with that. You can enlist research assistants (wait, remind me, are you an MAAE?) and that can help a person gain perspective for sure. Also, if you want to be tormented by these questions further and without answer, see if Karyn's teaching a section of Psych, Soc, Phenom in the spring.
ReplyDeleteGood suggestions from Rachel. The only thing I'll add is that the anxiety and stress of thesis are finite. This work and project are such a small part of the great work you will do during your career as an educator, and this is but one small step towards getting there. Don't allow your anxiety to stop you in your tracks. Plow ahead, make your mistakes, and move on. IS that vague and philosophical enough?
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