Blog # 3 Personal Research

I'm feeling pretty good with my research question. I feel like it's narrow enough to really do a quality study but with the sense of place dimension added, it allows for some depth. With sense of place added I can explore things like community connected-ness and social engagements rather than just engagement alone. I'm realizing that even just engagement can be measured it many ways.

I have really awesome student sand they are making my life so easy by giving me really awesome data. They're putting a lot of thought and effort into their work and especially into their reflections which gives me a great view into their learning lens.

For me the research hasn't been too hard to find. There's a lot of literature out there about student engagement. I feel like I'm finally asking the right questions to get me the right literature. For example I needed to discern between "What does student engagement look like?" and "How do you measure student engagement?" This allowed me to look at literature that was talking about measuring student engagement and others that attempted to create a measurement tool to measure engagement.

My research really tackles a few points. I really have to define engagement and sense of place because they  are in the title of my paper. There's currently a lot of literature on both so I'm feeling pretty good. I feel like I can somewhat wrap my head around sense of place after reading multiple lenses on it.

So overall I'm feeling alright about the research question and the research.

Blog #2 Research question

It sounds like everyone is having a similar experience focusing their research question down. Tara's words about not trying to tackle the world in a single Plan B are very wise indeed. But it's hard for me to not want to tackle the world with the amount of effort I've put into it.

I started out wanting to use data collected from my entire year, as I have been consciously filing away tests and reflections, thinking that my plan B was gonna be about my whole year experience. At the time my research question was clear. How can STEMS2 curriculum in a natural resource class inspire the next generation of environmental stewards? It really hit me after reading the 6th extinction that natural resource teachers have such a huge responsibility of training the next generation of environmental stewards in a time when we've never been so disconnected in our existence as a race. It's a monumental task, but one that natural resource teachers have great power to change. And yet, the curriculum we're teaching in natural resources, especially in Hawaii, is so far behind in the times and the culture.
                                              "If you teach a man to fish you feed him for life, but if you teach a man                                                    to respect fish, you feed his community for generations to come."

I wanted to use my Plan B to show how place based learning and STEMS2 curriculum was a solid platform to teach natural resources off of......

But I've finally succumbed to the realization that I won't tackle this all in my plan B...this is the first step int hat direction. For now I wanna show that a STEMS2 UNIT in natural resources can promote sense of place/engagement. Then one day down the road I can push for all units to include STEMS2.

So I've widdled my question down to:

How does the implementation of a STEMS2 unit in a high school natural resources class affect student engagement and sense of place?

I searched this question on google scholars and actually got some really good results. There's a lot of research done on engagement of students when exposed to the outdoors. Or when students are exposed to hands-on learning, and also when students are exposed to cultural places and ideals. There's also a lot of literature on how bridging community and school can be beneficial and this goes right along with my unit. I'm having lots of guest speakers and hopefully families coming together.

Overall I like the direction I'm going. I'm thinking about adding Hawaii into my question as in, How does a STEMS2 unit in a Hawaii natural resources class affect engagement and sense of place. I say this because I think circumstances are different over here and I want to acknowledge that fact.

Plan B Research Design

I'm finally starting to formulate my Plan B topic, and what I have now is, What are the effects of place-base learning on a natural resource class? After talking to Tara and bouncing between studying the power of learning journey and the impact of place based learning on a community, I've decided to stick to the original path of place based learning in a natural resource class. This way I can use the qualitative and quantitative data I've collected over the WHOLE year rather than just my unit, or just one learning journey.

I feel like I can cover several topics by going this route. I also feel like I can also start formulating my research questions without waiting for my unit to finish. Maxwell (2013) points out that "qualitative researchers often don't develop their final research questions until they have done a significant amount of data collection." But because I've had a whole semester of data to build off of, I feel like I can get a good start. I know my final research questions will change over the course of writing this Plan B, but just to get the ball rolling...

What are the effects of learning journeys in a natural resource class?
What are the effects of bridging community members to local schools?
Does infusing Hawaiian culture into NR class, have a positive/negative impact on students?

What are the effects of place based learning on SPED students in natural resources?
What is the direct impact on the environment when place-based learning is used in NR class?

I think at this point my research will use a mixed methods approach. Creswell defines mixed methods as a combination of qualitative and quantitative research. I think when I'm researching learning journeys, community bridging, and culture I will be using qualitative research. But for the questions on SPED and direct environmental impact, I will use quantitative data. I can also add some Kupu data numbers to the mix when answering the environmental impact question.

Overall I think my research will use the pragmatic worldview. Creswell says in this view,
"Researchers emphasize the research problem and use all approaches available to understand the problem."(Creswell) I use many different methods like testing, group discussions, reflections, projects etc...to understand how my students are affected by place-based learning.  Pragmatism is not committed to any one system....draw liberally from both quantitative an qualitative assumptions when they engage in research. (Creswell) As I stated above I will use mixed methods research.