Ahh, Research

I'm taking a break from the thinking-in-circles my research paper for grad school has become. A bit of context, since I haven't written much about it: this is the final paper summing up my semester-long research project on formative assessment and remediation. It's due in a week, and I present on it two days after that. I have the claims I had already figured out about halfway through, but I'm looking at the rest of my data and going "uhhhh...." right now. Lots of patterns, bits of ideas, but I'm not sure any of it makes another solid claim. Blegh.

While taking a break, I've been catching up on my edu-blogs a bit. I'm sad to see that Dan Meyer has decided to go PhD and stop teaching, although I'm sure it's the right move for him. Still, a lot of my experimenting with assessment this year is owed to his insightful rants on How Math Must Assess. Of course, I have to go in very different directions with what I do, history being rather different than math. :)

I also ran into this post that's worth spreading: How Will We Survive?

"My library has already been cut. We will have no bookroom clerk, making novels almost an impossibility and replacement costs much higher than previous years for sure. We will lose one adviser, the person we send students to when they are problematic. We will have a total of fifteen more students each day, meaning that we’ll teach five and a half classes for the same pay as we usually get for teaching just five..."

It's not quite that bad around here, but we will be losing staff, gaining kids, and considering the drama that already exists around copies I can't wait to see what happens next year with reduced budget. Still, I find myself hopeful about next year. All those problems will just be little obstacles, and I'll be too busy worrying about giant finishing grad school project & really getting to grips with my problems with classroom management to focus on copy room drama.