Pre-Meeting Participant Assignment

What follows is the assignment that participants in the 1999-2000 Virginia Adult Education Research Network received and completed prior to Meeting One:

October 28, 1999
To: Practitioner Researchers in the VA Adult Education Research Network
From: Ronna Spacone, Project Coordinator
Subject: Pre-Retreat Assignment

This packet contains information about our upcoming retreat, December 1-2, including an important assignment that you need to complete beforehand. Please call with any questions, or if you need help getting started with this assignment. I am here to support you!

Pre-Retreat Assignment

Reading
First read Chapters 1 and 2 from Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher by Stephen Brookfield. These chapters provide a clear rationale for much of our practitioner research work this year.

Writing
In your application to the Research Network, each of you described a problem that you would like to investigate through research. No matter what problem you identified, or perspective you chose to write from, we assume some concrete incidents, which have produced tension, dissatisfaction, or questioning in your professional practice, have led to your current research interest.

This pre-retreat writing assignment is to describe and generate detail about one, or more, of those incidents. The two entries that you write will be the basis for some discussion with two or three other colleagues at our first meeting. Our work builds progressively from this initial step, so thank-you, in advance, for completing this crucial writing activity. Please type and double-space your entries. Bring four (4) copies to the retreat.

Entry #1
Think back over the last several months or so. In a paragraph or two describe a very specific incident that contributed to your current research interest. In most cases, this will be a very straightforward account of a commonplace event in your classroom, program, or learning community. Or it may be an incident that was particularly striking. In either case, provide enough detail so that others will understand:

1.the setting;
2.the characters involved, and
3.the action that took place.

Conclude your description by explaining or interpreting the incident, as best you can. In other words, ask yourself (and then answer) the question, "What's going on in this incident that I just described?"

Entry #2
Let a day or two pass before you revisit your first entry. Now, add some detail by either focusing in on a small aspect of the incident or by enlarging your discussion to include more about the context in which the incident occurred.

Important Points to Remember

• Please type and double-space your entries. Bring four (4) copies to the retreat.
  
  
• You can write about incidents that have occurred in your classroom, the larger program in which you work, or the professional network in which you are involved. As long as the context is your professional practice, any setting is appropriate.
  
  
• Consider the need to protect the privacy of others when you write about the incidents. You may want to use pseudonyms. You may chose not to use any names at all; using descriptions of the people involved would be fine.
  
  
• You are not limited to writing two entries. The more you reflect and write, the more you can learn from your experience(s). Minimally, we ask that you write two entries on two different occasions before we meet, December 1.
  
  
• If you have trouble thinking of a concrete incident that provides the foundation for your research interest, please consider a different area of focus. This does not mean your original research focus is not important; however, it does indicate that using it for practitioner research will likely not prove fruitful.
  
  
• It is not too late to change the focus of your project. If you have been inspired by a new idea since you applied to participate, go for it!
  
  
• Please call or email, if you have any questions or trouble getting started with this assignment. We can think through your ideas together.
  
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  Adapted from documents in the Adult Literacy Practitioner Inquiry Project, Department of Adult Education, the University of Georgia, 1998. Project Facilitators: Cassandra Drennon and Dougie Taylor.
   

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