# Assignment 1 Jethro Jones ## Assignment Directions ## Assignment [[Unit 1 - Lecture notes]] Assignment 1: In the chapter, you will have read an overview of many research methods. In this video, please respond to the following: 1. What is a possible topic or problem rooted in education that you are thinking of researching?  First of all, James, I am not sure how I'm supposed to spend 5 minutes on this topic! We will see how it goes! The topic in education that I am interested in exploring is how school leaders grow and share in their organic skills. The organic skills are what we typically define as soft skills. I like how Marvin Berkowitz describes this in his book, [[PRIMED for Character Education: Six Design Principles for School Improvement]]. He says: > I use the notions of organic vs. mechanical concepts, metaphors, and terminology. So much of what we say and do in education is framed in terms of mechanics. We teach. We transfer knowledge. We control behavior. We manage classrooms. We engineer school change. And so on. Instead, I want to hear us talking about and enacting more organic processes. We should nurture learning and development. We should foster understanding and human flourishing. We should educate for character. Humans are organic entities. The second part of this approach deals with the sharing of their learning. This question is rooted in my own experience. I started a podcast over 10 years ago, where I would interview other school leaders and consultants about what works in schools to make them better. I was just in my second year as an assistant principal at a Title One elementary school at this time and was not pleased with the professional development that I was receiving in my current role. I felt there was a better way. So I started a podcast. Rather than just attending more conferences, I thought it would be most beneficial to me to go directly to people who were doing amazing things and learn from them. This caused me to learn in what I call dog years. I learned so much faster than I believe I would have otherwise. I was able to make great strides in changing my schools for the better in a short amount of time. In fact, one of the prevailing pieces of advice that new principals often get is "Don't make any changes in your first year." Well, by my third school, I threw that advice completely out the window and within that first year, I made all the changes I wanted to. I didn't do this because I was smarter than everyone. I did it because I had spent years learning from others how to enact change. I would like to study other principals who start podcasts and measure their learning. I think the best approach for this is an ethnographic study, specifically a case study on a small group of principals. Perhaps the more interesting part would be to focus on two similar principals and do a [[Causal-Comparative Research]] where one of them does a podcast and the other doesn't. This wouldn't be a quantitative experiment, but rather a focus on what things they each learn and how they document. It is important to note that just observing one's own learning would naturally increase the non-podcasting principal's learning and awareness, but I think this would still be instructive. Perhaps it would require examining how they each learn and what situations would lead to their success or failure in learning situations. First and foremost, I would say that if someone has skills in certain areas of intelligence, say Interpersonal, they will have more success in doing a podcast overall. I'd have to get Tom's perspective on that to make more sense of it. Overall, this would be a fun topic for me to explore because of my own experience, and admitted bias, where I already know the answer for me personally. It would be interesting to examine different participants to see where their skills, dispositions, and experiences take them. 2. What specific method(s) seem most appropriate for you to use in researching that area? (i.e. experiment, survey, ethnography, correlational, causal-comparative, case study, content analysis, historical, action research, program evaluation) And would you describe this as qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-methods? 3. Explain your reasons for choosing this/these approaches.