2009年5月22日星期五
Jessica: Report of meeting-May 19
I write to report this Tuesday's meeting .
We had a big group discussion, Maggie's back from her pilot study, Lucia's back from data collection for a week, Shelley joined us, Cheri is interested in being an "observer" ...
In the first half of our meeting, people reported work that had been done last week. Maggie shared her experiences in her pilot study. She is trying to figure out a suitable data collection technique, maybe stimulated recall. Other people did some reading or writing last week.
In the second half, Shelley shared her study "Narrative inquiry into the Fuhexing Yingyu Rencai in 2000 Syllabus for undergraduate English major in China. It was good to hear a heated discussion of Shelley's study among group members.
Next meeting will be on 27th May (Wednesday). Manla is going to share her study. The meeting after next will be on 5th June. Cheri is going to share with us Foucult's theory. Her will bring one of her favorite papers (or send us the soft version) so that we can learn that together. Cheri suggested us to think about the following questions before we come to the meeting:
1)why do we need a theoretical framework in our study? Why do we want to do the research we are now doing?
2) Why do we use theories in our research? e.g., why do we use critical theories?
3)Why do we need to reflect on our study and how to do this?
The coming meetings sound very interesting. Please don't miss the opportunities to learn and share. Hope to see you then.
Best regards,
Jessica
2009年5月18日星期一
12May09 Meeting report
2008年10月29日星期三
group meeting report on Oct.14th
Dear Superwriters,
Sorry for the belated submission of report on two weeks ago, I will give a brief account on what we did on Oct.14th.
There are 7.5 members, Alam, Jessica Wan, mother-to-be Iris and her cute baby, Nicol, Jun, Lucia and Rina attend the meeting. We firstly shared our progress in the past week. Then Lucia shared with us her pilot study in 5 schooles including EBD(emotional behavior dissable) schools in Xiamen, China.
As Lucia introduced, most studens in EBD school are under-achievers, and they have some kind of emotional behavior dissabilities. They go to school to get used to the social enviornment.The academic atmosphere there is less oppressive, and more "nature".
We discussed some issues like how to handle the ethical issue when facing the EBD students, how to lessen the negative impact on participants, can we lie or not?
Iris shared her experience that sometimes, to get the reality, we may not expose our intention at the beginning ,but should tell the participants at the end. they may be more familiar with us and our research, and then they can understand and accept what we have done.
Lucia also focused on whether how many cases are enough in each school level. should she increase case amount to assure the research validity? if you have more idea or suggesions on this topic, please tell Lucia.
Wish everybody happy learning , good appetite and sweet dream everyday:)
Cheers,
Rina
2008年10月27日星期一
Report on Superwriter meeting_Oct 21, 2008
Sorry for the belated submission of report on last meeting, for the ex-chairperson is 'killing' the deadline. So please allow me to give a brief account on what we did last Tuesday.There are 6.5 members, Alam, Jessica, mother-to-be Iris and her cute babe, Nicol, Jun, and Lucia attend the meeting, we firstly share our progress in the past week. Then Alam share with us part of his research from the cultural perspective, which is very refreshing and thought-provoking. Through his presentation, we have gained some knowledge about the cultural, custom and education situation in Bangladesh, which share some commonness with China in terms of the agricultural origin, the trajectory of developing towards a industrial/post-industrial society, traditional gender role of the women, the emphasis of education and so on, yet it also has its uniqueness. I hope some day we can arrange a tour to Alam's hometown, for fresh air, boundless farmland and, most attractively, tasty mango:)
Wish everybody a fruitful week!
2008年9月25日星期四
Report on Super Writer Meeting of This Week Sep 23, 2008
In this week’s meeting, Rina, Wenyu, June, Issa and Xiuli were present. A special guest Doris (YANG Dongsheng) who serves as coordinator of rpg students also attended.
The main topic of this meeting was Rina’s research. Rina herself had an excellent preparation for the meeting by offering everybody a handout of her research outline. The primary problem which emerged in the discussion about Rina’s research was how to distinct different categories of forgiveness. In Rina’s original design, she didn’t have intention to differentiate forgiveness mainly due to the consideration of recruiting enough participants. The advice for Rina was to distinct different types of forgiveness, such as forgiveness in friendship, in love or in acquaintances, and to focus on one of them. So that her research question could be clearer and it’s relatively easier for her to conduct the study. Otherwise the variables in the experimental groups will be too complicated and it will be nearly impossible to compare these two models of forgiveness education programme.
Another advice is related to the translation of keywords in Rina’s research. As Issa pointed out, the concept of forgiveness was largely derived from the western literature, therefore the connotation may be quite different from such Chinese words as 宽恕、宽容、容忍、原谅, etc. Since Rina will design her questionnaire in Chinese, it’s better to offer a working definition of forgiveness in the questionnaire so that the participants can be ensured what are the researcher really intended for.
In the section of progress report, Wenyu mentioned her incompetence to write in an academic way as her supervisor contended. As a response, Issa generously shared with us her strategy to read and write efficiently. Her method is to organize the reading in a systematic table as follows:
Author Research Settings Theoretical Framework Key Concepts Focus and Findings
Literature A
Literature B
……
Literature X
Issa noted that the focus and findings are mainly from the abstract and it’s also a little time-consuming to input all the necessary information in the above table. But it may provide us a clear picture of what have been done on particular theme and in which context. If some findings interest us, we can turn to read it in detail, otherwise we can skip it by just read the abstract. In this sense, it’s quite a quick way to strive for the deadlineJ
In the last section, Doris asked for our opinions about whether it’s proper to inform the new rpg students the existence of Super Writer Group and welcome them participate in our activity. Doris said currently Super Writer is the only active group in our faculty (Wow, Yeah!) so she hopes that the new rpg students can also have a chance to experience it. We didn’t make a straightforward reply to Doris that day because we think it’s best to consult all super writers’ opinions. We also expressed our concerns about the stability and operation of a large group (if new members are enrolled) and Issa stressed the commitment should be undertaken by each writer if they join the group. Doris ensured us that she would emphasize the obligation of our group to the new rpg students and once they participate, they should comply with it.
Another decision was also made at the end of the meeting. In order to make the meeting time more convenient for everybody, Issa proposed to advance the meeting from 13:00 to 12:30 on every Tuesday.
Lastly, I would also like to remind that Iris (Wang Xiang) is to do her confirmation on tomorrow afternoon (16:00-17:00), which will be held in Room 403, Runme Shaw Building. All are welcome! Let us give the mum-to-be the warmest encouragement and support. Best wishes to Iris.
Look forward to Iris’ superb presentation tomorrow and best wishes also go to Rina, and us all.
Xiuli
2008年9月15日星期一
Report on super writers meeting - Today (on 16th Sept)
Today cathrine, June, Nicol, Xiuli, rina and Alam meet together in our superwriter group to (1) share with Xiuli about her research problem and puzzle; and (2) report our progress for the last weak.
In the first part, Xiuli shared with us her research proposal. Her interests is how "student teacher" develop in their teaching practice (sorry for my preliminary and shallow understanding). She want to investage the following 2 specific research questions: (1) what are the believes, attitudes of "student teacher"; (2) what is their experience in their teaching practice?
Xiuli put forward her puzzles about (1) could she include "teacher identity", "teacher coganition", "teachers professional knowledge" in her research topic? (2) how to shape her research question clearer? (3) how to use narriative inquiry in her research?
there are several important feedbacks: (1) Xiuli should narrow down her research topic based her own interests and experience; (2) She might look at her research subjects to dig out what is her real interests; or (3) She may focused on either "teacher identity" or "teacher knowledge" or "teacher belief" to narrow down her research.
We hope Xiuli could get some inspiration and help through this sharing. And We hope to hear from her soon about the progress of her research.
In the second section of our meeting, all shared our progress about the last week. We set the Xiuli as the Chairperson of the next meeting and rina as the reporter who would share her research proposal with us at the next meeting.
For the mistakes or missing points of the report above, please feel free to respond or add your points.
Cheers
Wenyu (Cathrine)
2008年7月29日星期二
report on our super writers meeting
Venue: common room
attendents: Alam, Iris, Jessica Wan, June, Lucia, Nicol, and Wen Yu.
Chairperson: June
Topic: Alam's experience in conference
First of all, many thanks for everyone's contributions to this meeting!! Even in summer holiday, our seven group members are still coming for our meeting although I know each person has their difficulties to make it.
Alam's experience:
1. the fifth Pan-Commonwealth forum on Opening Learning in London. It is a conference to explore how open and distance learning can help achieve international development goals and education for all.
2. The preparation for conference:
submit the abstract six months earlier;
submit the paper three months earlier;
revise the paper and abstract while receiving reviewer's feedback
inform supervisor before attending the conference
3. Alam's role in conference:
be aware of the issues emerged in different sessions, and then do the summaries and recommendations for education policy based on conference, and finally implement in own country.
After conference, Alam was invited to Paris's UNESCO.
4. The information or source of conference (how to choose the suitable conferences to attend?)
asking supervisor for advised conferences;
conferences alert in Internet;
check the key speakers in conference.
We are so happy to receive Alam's souvenir: Bookmarks and cute ballpoint pens with Eiffel sign, Many thanks for Alam's considerations!!
The next meeting is finally considered, and we are looking forward to hearing from Jessica Deng to see if our trip in Guangzhou is still being arranged. 15th and 16th August are our preference.
Have a enjoyable summer holiday!
Best,
June