so, yeah, that’s an over emotional post for an blog from academia, but when you’ve had such an experience it’s hard not to be emotional.  it’s hard not to be emotional when your heart has been touched, and when you know that the tax money you pay helps to pay for the horrible treatment of your new friends.  it’s hard not to be emotional when you’ve been witness to a genocide that, after 60 years, is still going on.  a slowly suffocating genocide.  *sigh*

What do you think helps for the most productive interfaith/intercultural communication and collaboration?

i posted an answer, but i also need to spend some time thinking about it as well.  here’s the meat of my response:

 i agree with V (the comment above mine) about God. last Sunday (Fast Sunday) i got up to bear my testimony again. i talked about my trip to Palestine and some of the challenges I think i’ll face - most of which revolve around this very question. so how to approach it? what is the mindset i need to carry? i need to remember that we are all children of God. the Israeli’s, Palestinians, Muslims, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Wiccans, UU’s, Hindus, Atheists, Agostics. now i know that not all members of those religions believe in God like i do, but that’s okay. it’s my view and it’s within myself that i hold it - i don’t have to tell them that’s how i am viewing them. if i can look at an Israeli soldier who is harassing an innocent Palestinian and remember that s/he is a child of God, or if i am witness to a suicide bombing or rock throwing by Palestinians and remember that they are children of God then I am automatically in a different space. again - i agree with V here - God is Love. if i can walk into a situation loving someone because they are - like me - children of God then i am automatically in that better space of viewing them with love, and hopefully respect as well. i just need to make sure i remain grounded there during the heat of things - if they get there.

so - what do you think?  go read and answer if you can.

i am beginning to look at studies - how have others measured tpck? most studies so far are qualitative. and while i do respect and think that qualitative is a perfectly acceptable and respectable way of understanding the world - it’s not the way i’m excited about doing research. i love quantitative measures. there’s a lot of logic there that works for me - rather than being a jumble of a lot of things that i have to put into a logical story that may or may not have clean edges - for me the quantitative measures are puzzle pieces that have to be turned in a very specific way to be able to fit into what is being measured. research becomes a puzzle, a game, rather than chaos. it’s all that math blood in me. it’s my grandfather in me - a man who loved nothing more than puzzles (of all sorts, from picture puzzles to rubiks’ cubes) and mastering them.

but back to my point. there are a lot of qual studies on tpck, but also some quant. i need to spend more time with those and then contact the authors to see about getting copies of their instruments. how have they measured it? have they been able to avoid that less-than-reliable self-report? and then once i can do that, can we then improve our professional development so that it is more aligned with problem based learning and we then have the ability to understand how effective we are at helping teachers and pre-teachers gain t knowledge within their own pck knowledge frameworks.

as someone smack dab in the middle of this whole phd process - on my way to finishing coursework, anticipating comps in the fall, already starting to think about literature and methods and a pilot for my dissertation - i find the discussion of when the formal mentoring should start fascinating. when i first got here i was one of many in a research group and the prof i was working with just didn’t have the time to give to everyone - but i had some (and continue to have) senior phd students to turn to for advice (and sometimes a shoulder to cry on) about the process and research methods. since last april / may i’ve been incredibly lucky to be a part of a small research group. the availability of good mentoring available to me has gotten much better since being one of just a few rather than being one of many, and i could say that through the work it became some sort of formal mentoring of sorts. most of what i learn these days comes directly from my participation in this small research group. i may spend time in classes learning various kinds of research methods, but it is through the discussions, application and guidance from my professors that i am able to really make sense of what i learned in class (see apprenticeship models of learning, i know). it’s invaluable to my growth as a brand new scholar.

now - i am aware that there are those around me who aren’t so fortunate. i’m aware because i just watch others and because friends tell me. so should this idea of formal mentoring really limited to when the student finishes their coursework and starts the meat of their degree, or can it start earlier? should it start earlier? should programs make an effort to make sure that students who are teaching assistants, or otherwise not involved in a research group, get that valuable research mentoring that is such a key part of their experiences as a phd student? and if so - who among the faculty should be tasked with making sure that it happens? should it be the faculty’s concern if students not working with them in any kind of formal capacity receive that? or should it be up to the student to seek it out - to find it?

i don’t know the answers to all my questions. what i do know is that yes - this process of mentoring should start from day 1 and it should somehow be accessible to students who don’t know how or can’t access it. i am incredibly fortunate not only to have the background in academia that i do (my pop is a retired prof, ma is a retired associate dean, step-pop currently a prof - all careers at an research 1 institution), but also to be a forthright person who tends not to back off from asking for what i want (i am reticent a lot, but eventually i do kick my butt until i do it). but those not like me - to them it needs to be there, somehow.

and because there was recently a discussion on ITFORUM about the fact that at a national conference there was a study being presented in a poster session about the differences between an online class vs a face to face class and how that research is actually a bit behind the times (in the eye of the beholder, really - it depends on the field, but in instructional technology, it is definitely behind the times) i began to wonder about no significant difference being applied to the last mile.

so now i sit here wondering - if there is a whole body of literature investigating how teachers adapt pre-fabbed curriculum - is there actually going to be any difference in how they adapt pre-fabbed curriculum with digital resources? as there is no significant difference between teaching online vs face to face (the significant difference isn’t with the medium, it’s with the people involved in delivering and consuming the medium) - will the medium really make a difference here?

any opinions? maybe this is worth a post on ITFORUM - at least worth sending the question to my research group - but we’re so busy these days - i don’t want to bother anyone, really. i’ll post it here, see if anyone responds - and then next time i run into my chair maybe i’ll ask her, and then if i actually get the courage i’ll send it out to ITFORUM, depending on responses i get other places.

anyhow.  onward and upward and back to the book chapter we’re writing all about reciprocal mentoring and technological pedagogical content knowledge (there’s a link over there –> to tpck.org) if you want to know what all that means.

i was talking to one of my professors today about my possible dissertation work and a two week detour that i hope to take this summer that may impact what i choose to do for my dissertation.  if i get to take this two week detour (i told her what it is) - i may come back with this feeling that what i’m currently thinking about doing for my dissertation is so far disconnected from really helping those who need MY help that i may not be able to do it.

her reaction was - well - first she said she’s glad i’m still an idealist - but then she said that maybe i need consider what it is we are doing with our work.  we work with teachers helping them to bring digital resources into the classroom.  and while that doesn’t sound like saving the world - the impact that these resources can potentially have in the lives of students is bigger than i may think it is.

so after she said that i babbled a bit more about my own views of saving the world - and i probably made a big bungling idiot of myself - sounding like i was dismissing her - but i wasn’t.  i’ve been chewing on what she said to me since then - and i’m starting to think that maybe she’s right?  or at least i need to think about expanding my view of what saving the world is - not only in the name of getting my degree done - but also in the name of seeing the impact of something that i may not originally see.  that while i babbled in my previous post about privilege and all that crap - maybe i need to not be such an idealouge and keep my mind a lot more open about the true impact of what our work is having.  maybe i need to see that i really shouldn’t judge a book by its cover - that while it may appear to be white and privileged on the outside - if i give it a chance and open the book up - i may just find it to be one of the most colourful books i’ve ever been privileged to read.   i’ve done that recently on my spiritual path and it’s brought me more gifts than the person i was two, three, four, five years ago could ever imagine.

maybe saving the world isn’t just about working day in and day out with those who don’t have my privilege - maybe it could be about working with those who work with those who don’t have my privilege to give them access to resources that otherwise they may not have access too.

hmm.  it’s an idea.  i’ll chew on it as i’m putting together a VERY rough draft of this book chapter tomorrow.