805 Journal - Dani Allen Bronaugh 1 8-26 I am very excited to finally take 805. I have felt like I was behind the eight ball through the summer since I started the PhD program in January and do not know any professors from the different departments. I have stated that my focus for the PhD program is Special Education, however I do not know any of the professors in this discipline and this makes it hard to know who to talk to when I have had questions. This summer while taking the portfolio class I did not know who to talk about questions I was having about a minor focus of study. I was able to talk to Gary Galluzzo, who taught the 800 class I took in the spring, and he provided me with things to think about, which was very helpful, but I think it would have been nicer to know someone within Special Education that I could have met with and talk about program focus. I would have liked to know a little more about the different programs by this time in my study. I know that our class is a little different in this regards because of the new format that was being developed for 805. I am very glad to finally be here and I look forward to meeting the different professors. I canʼt believe what a huge class we have considering my other classes I have taken since being enrolled in the PhD class are small. It will be great to know so many colleagues but it will also be interesting to see how this affects our ability to share and ask questions. I also enjoyed getting to meet the Dean of the program and to hear his thoughts on the class, the focus statements for the school and about Communities of Practice (CoP). I look forward to reading more about CoPs this semester. I hope that by the end of this class I may have a better idea of where I would like to focus my minor area of study and a good idea of professors that I may like to have on my committee.
805 Journal - Dani Allen Bronaugh 2 I found that hearing about the brown eyed/blue eyed study and the prison study very interesting and a helpful reminder about research and making sure that we conduct it in an ethical manner. I think that I will always be able to remember Nicole and her name from her willingness and enthusiasm as she shared about her knowledge of these studies. I enjoyed getting to know the people in the class and there were bits of information that were shared that will help me remember my colleagues better. I also think that our facilitator had a very unique way of starting the class off by getting to know us first and referring to himself as Bob, which we came to find out was not his real name, however he left the class before we could get to know more about him. I eagerly look forward to next week with the second half of the class will be introduced and Bob will share his real name, however I think that he may forever be Dr. Bob in my mind. I find Bobʼs style very refreshing and real. So often I think of professors as being stuffy and not approachable and he really put this to rest by his manner. I also look forward to the doctoral students coming in and sharing about their experiences and about their research. I think this will put some fears of mine to rest and help me realize that the dissertation is a process and it is doable. 9-2 I really like it when speakers provide notes or handouts to give us with their contact information and highlights about the talk. This is helpful for reflecting on the class after we have wrapped up. Dr. Isenbergʼs talk was very helpful in that she talked about the importance of her work being meaningful to her. I think that this is a key concept in
805 Journal - Dani Allen Bronaugh 3 anything we do - it is hard to work at something that isnʼt meaningful to you. I liked the opportunity to hear about her research and professional background and her core beliefs. She uses a lot of narratives in her writing which is helpful to learn how people believe things. She is in a community of two in which she collaborates with another person on books and chapters. I liked that she continues to work with teachers in order to keep her fresh. Her comment about finding a network of people who will learn beside you and with you is an important tool to take away. I think that continuing to learn is very important. I really struggled with the concept last semester of being in a paradigm and switching paradigms was not something that most people do over the course of their work. I hated the idea of being stuck and Dr. Isenbergʼs comment reminds me that continuing to learn and being stretched is important. She stated that it is important to begin to figure out who I am and what my core belies are and to make them explicit in my life. What is my passion, who am i caring and collaborating with, take time for reflection, make learning lifelong and have a good knowledge of my content. 9-9 Our syllabus said Margo and Rick were coming to our class. I do have to say I was very disappointed to find out that they were not going to be speaking to us. I guess I shouldnʼt fee that way since I do get to work with them. It was good to have the opportunity to meet other professors in the Spec Ed Dept. that i had not had the chance to meet. I enjoyed hearing what Dr. King-Sears had to say. I had initially emailed her this summer when the information about her grant became available, however I had never met her face-to-face. It was also nice to have the opportunity to speak with her
805 Journal - Dani Allen Bronaugh 4 and let her know that I had gotten a position as a GRA and would not be interviewing with her. It was great to see communities of practice demonstrated for us tonight with special education teachers and a math teacher working together. Crossing those lines of research is important all around. As special education teachers know how to make adaptations for kids with special needs, we need to be working with content area specialists to see what children should be learning. Dr. Suh made the comment that we shouldnʼt just look at the achievement gap but the opportunity gap as well. what are we not providing the kids. Dr. Baker provided some very useful information about being a professor at a university. Having no real knowledge of what is expected of professors, it was great to have her share the information about carnegie foundation and how each school is classified. I had no idea that there was a difference in the way schools were classified. Their statements about needing to be teacher and student focused in-order to allow people to express ideas in different ways really resonated with me. They talked about this being a paradigm shift in that we give people what they need not providing the same to every student. The other important point I received was the importance of adding support up front instead of putting out fires. It seams that all we do is put out fires as educators. Another key point was look for and meet professionals in other areas to see how they can help develop my research. Create and act on opportunities to work together. 9-16
805 Journal - Dani Allen Bronaugh 5 Great class-however I was shocked by your comment to Dr. Buehl about taking a breath was inappropriate. Maybe you know her really well, however I think I would have crumbled at a comment like that. Maybe I need to toughen my skin. She is very sweet and oh my so professional - will i ever be like that? What am I doing i wonder? Will i ever be confident speaking in front of large groups of people like she was. Even though she spoke fast, she had a tremendous amount of information to share with us. Ed psych is an area Iʼm interested in so it was nice to be able to but a face to a name. I do look forward to meeting Dr. Kalbfleishch in a few weeks who is also in the same department because I am interested in the brain research she is doing. Dr. Buehl mentioned that it is important to find something I enjoy, to look for gaps, not to rush and to work with others. I need to make sure I take advantage of resources and my beliefs matter. I need to believe I can do it. I need to think about how my beliefs about knowledge influence me. Dr. Kaffenbergerʼs story was fascinating. This is one reason why i do like narrative forms of research because you get to know the people and their stories which quantitative research leaves out. Her life story and why and how she got to where she is now was fascinating. I think that is one of the things we lack today as a culture, taking time to hear each others stories. In order to build an effective community of practice I think that it would be important to know one anotherʼs stories. I also think that by sharing our stories we can relate to others going through similar situations. Her comment that it is important to interact with the family and determine how to support them. She mentioned that there is a huge gap in perception between parent/schools and medical
805 Journal - Dani Allen Bronaugh 6 personnel. I need to make sure that I am not insensitive to the child/family needs by my actions/comments. This is important for me to remember as I work in the homes of children. Hearing her talk makes me realize how insensitive we can be to families going through a tough situation. She mentioned putting cameras in the hospital/house so kids have the chance to interact with peers and the importance of having a school re-entry committee and having a training packet in order to train the school personnel. I think this is an area we fail in in the large school systems. If principals are not sensitive we miss a very important opportunity to minister to families. A child my son was friends with was out due to cancer treatment and non of this was done for him. As I reflect back on that I think what a better experience and transition he may have had had the school attempted to do this. 9-23 What a great class mostly because we all got to be together. It was nice to get to see our other colleagues and to be in a room that was bigger and not so cramped. I felt more like a graduate student being able to interact with the speakers in a room like this then being crammed in like we normally are. I also think that in this set up it did not feel so much like them vs us. I felt like it was easier to interact with the speakers and have a chance to chat with them individually at the break and at the end of the session. Normally the speakers seem to be rushed because they have to speak and then rush out to get to the other session and there isn't time to interact or speak to them one on one about question. I really liked the sheet that they gave us about the center for
805 Journal - Dani Allen Bronaugh 7 international education. Hearing about this program was new for me and this sheet is very helpful to have because I can look over their values and the areas of action. I would like to see a sheet like this handed out from every department. It allows us to have information on the departments program and focus. I think that having that would be a very helpful tool as I research and think about my minor/secondary areas of study. I did enjoy hearing the perspectives about multicultural education and how this does not involve us traveling but we see it everyday in our classrooms living in such a diverse area. I liked the opportunity to hear from a variety of individuals in their studies. This I think was helpful and I would like to see this aspect carried out throughout the classes. Seeing how these studies are being worked out by a current or just finished doctoral student was valuable. I think that sometimes listening to just the professors it is hard to see what it was like for them going through the program because things change so dramatically through time. Having the opportunity to go to another country to conduct research would be fascinating and well as working with educators from other countries. Learning how to interact with people from other countries/nationalities/ethnic groups is a very important lesson I think for all educators to learn. One comment that was made that will stick with me was the information about the grant that they were just awarded to work with the people from Greece. They talked about how they had gone down to the embassy and met with the people there trying to get them involved in the process and how they were told that no other group had contacted them. Wow - we live in such an amazing area - there are so many resources that we can and should take advantage of. I feel that there is just not enough time - how does
805 Journal - Dani Allen Bronaugh 8 one fit it all in? I could spend my days, nights, weekends just reading and going to these sites however I have to raise my family and be available to them. AGGGGHHHH - time! 9-30 10-7 10-21 This has been my favorite class to date. I loved having a chance to go around and meet a lot of different professors at one time. I also enjoyed the opportunity to hear a little about what each person was doing. I also liked the opportunity to see what a poster session would be like. I had heard the term before but I had never experienced one before. I now have a framework for what CEC will be like in he spring. I felt that this format gave me much more information that sitting and listening to two speakers for the full 2 hours. I wish that Layne had not had the computer issues that she did, or that I had chosen to split up and go with another group to come back when she had gotten everything set up. She was one person I had been interested in meeting with. I am fascinated with brain research and so I ended up staying for 2 sessions with her in order to hear everything she had to say, therefore I missed hearing from Dr. Kitsantas. I think that this set up allowed us to hear from the most researchers at one time. I think that i would have enjoyed having more of this type of session. Having each program have one night to have all the professors present to share for a few minutes about their research
805 Journal - Dani Allen Bronaugh 9 would have provided me with a better opportunity to meet more professors face to face. Dr. Peters gave some good points about taking the time to meet people at conferences and to be bold to approach them and ask questions. This will be a stretch for me, but it was a good word and something for me to work on. Also Annaʼs comment that our dissertation is not meant for us to save the world but to demonstrate that we can conduct research was very helpful for me and something I have found myself reflecting on. I also enjoyed the opportunity to be together with both sessions tonight. 10-28 Back to the small crammed room. I canʼt believe that this is the size room they would give for a class our size and for how the class is structured. The room set up does not make sharing very easy and does not set us up to work on creating our own COP. Oh well - what can I do about that. Dr. Andersonʼs talk about maximizing healthy living was very interesting. He mentioned his passion was youth development which made me reflect back on some of our earlier speakers and the importance of finding your passion. Dr. Andersonʼs statement that while he knows his passion there are times we get distracted by other projects is an important point for me to keep in mind because I think that i easily get distracted by other good things. His pyramid of success is a useful tool to keep in mind that we have our commitment, our competence and our confidence. Our competence guides our practice. I thought that it was interesting to meet someone who is so willing to put all his learning/research out on the web. He does not seem to care about making a buck but getting it out there for others to use is more important to him.
805 Journal - Dani Allen Bronaugh 10 He is very proactive in his research and looks at the root causes of things and moving knowledge forward. He is involved in a COP with about 25 other colleges in VA with people who are in charge of alcohol issues on their campus. It was appalling to hear how all that people are doing in this area appears to be having little impact on the alcohol consumption on college campuses. Wow - Dr. Schocley, Dr. View and Dr. Hanley had an interesting presentation. I have to admit I was getting a little tired when they arrived at class and they mentioned afrocentric education and critical race theory - I thought what does this have to do with me. When Dr. View and Dr. Hanley started singing the poems/songs that had been written to tell peoples stories, I became very interested. I thought that their idea of having the students use arts based education research and come up with a creative way to express what they learned was interesting, but I have to admit I thought to myself-i do not want to take any classes with them. Having to do anything creative is WAY out of my comfort level. They mentioned the cohort has a sense of a COP because the students are all going through the classes together. Dr. Shockleyʼs talk was very interesting. I had no idea that there was anything called afrocentric education. He talked about the importance of knowing who you are and being comfortable with it. He also gave me many things to think about such as what is my own epistemological story, and that I should think about this qualitatively and how m story can be used in my research. I should also spend some TIME (this is becoming a bad word in my vocabulary) writing about what I care about, where I have been and turn that into a story
805 Journal - Dani Allen Bronaugh 11 in order to get to know my background and what it brings to my research and my points of view. Boy do i hate having to be introspective. I have had some very fascinating talks with some colleagues after this class and have become even more educated on the term afrocentric education. This is what I needed in order to understand some of this better. My eyes have been opened. 11-4 11-11 11-18 Boy did i learn today about the importance of where I sit and who I sit around. I did not choose a wise location today and therefore I did not get what i would have had I not been near others who were a distraction to me. I also found that it was difficult to hear the speakers without mics. Susan Burns was interesting however I was distracted by her breathing. When she mentioned that she had taken up smoking while being a part of the panel it was a little scary to me because that could have long term consequences. Enough about that. I also think that i had a hard time because truth be told i was just not as interested in the math panel information. I do think that Jennifer and Susan were good presenters. I felt that the other lady did not offer much to the talk. I found it interesting again just listening to the people talk and seeing how COPs are just naturally woven into what they do. They may not mention them explicitly but you can see it reflected in their talks. I find that seeing this in a natural way is better then when you
805 Journal - Dani Allen Bronaugh 12 explicitly ask the speakers to talk on this subject. I have noticed throughout the semester that I can pick out the speakers in a natural way however when they try and talk about it sometimes it seems too forced. 11-25 This class was very helpful and informative. I enjoyed hearing each one of the students share their views on the program. I found it interesting that the majority all conducted qualitative studies. Having just heard a similar talk the week prior in another class, it was good to get additional perspectives and to hear how other primary concentrations handle parts of the program. I was surprised at how long it had taken some of the people to finish. People that I have talked with prior mentioned that they had completed the program in four years. I did feel a tad bit jealous when Chris mentioned that in the math program, they are part of a cohort and that they have advisors from the beginning. I think that this set up would be very helpful as one begins to navigate through the process. I agree with him that working as a GRA is one of the best opportunities. I find that having a GRA this year has helped me to figure things out while I am still new in the program. I thought the information about making sure my chair is someone who will say those hard things to me is important and that I need to make sure that I can work with each one of my committee members and that they are a good fit for me. Also making sure that I set up a good working relationship at proposal so I can keep myself on schedule and set some guidelines is important. I liked Chrisʼ way of setting dates out with his committee when thing would be finished so he knew what the timeline was. I
805 Journal - Dani Allen Bronaugh 13 also thought the comment about having supportive friends was helpful. This goes along with the theme of COP that was set up this semester. One of the ladies mentioned the importance of reading everything we possibly could. I wonder how she was able to do that. I feel that i am constantly reading for class and when i am not, I am with my family. Trying to find that balance is important and difficult. I also appreciated the comment about not letting fear over things not being perfect keep me from going forward. I find that I am in a bit of a holding pattern in that regard with my portfolio. This statement has really encouraged me to spend the break working on updating my portfolio and contacting some people about being on my committee, so I can go to portfolio 1. I have felt like I didnʼt have it right, so I was going to put it off until I reached that point and now I realize i need to just go ahead. I also like the information Chris gave about working on my CV and practicing writing cover letters and statements of research and philosophy. I wish more programs did this for the students. I need to think about taking on this practice. It really does boil down to time. There is so much to get done and so many good things, I just need to learn how to work effectively by planning and not procrastinating. I also enjoyed the reiteration about going down to the National Academy to look at what the Hot Topics are. There are so many resources in this area, and again so little time it is difficult to try to carve time out to do all these things. I find it a bit overwhelming. Now that I have my library of congress card, it would be beneficial to go down there to do research, however again it is all about time. I am trying to do this
805 Journal - Dani Allen Bronaugh 14 program while being a parent and balancing my desire to get all I can out of the program and still be a good mother and wife is hard. This class has not been what I had hoped it would be but I have never the less learned a lot of information.