Alright here are your questions.
1. Are the research questions clearly stated? Are they relevent? Is it possible to study the questions?
2. From beginning to end, do you understand how the information supports the study of this topic?
3. Did the author explain how the data was obtained and analyzed? If so how was it collected and analyzed? If not what do you think would be the most coherent way to collect and analyze the data?
4. Were the implications reasonable based on the report/findings? Did you find the article worthwhile to read? Did you learn anything new or did something further support your own ideas?
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1) I do not believe the research questions are clearly stated. I could not find any one specific question throughout the article. There were some things implied, but thats all I could find. I may have missed them though!!??
ReplyDelete2) The information is tricky for me to try to understand it. I understand what they are talking about in regards to apprenticeships and how they are helpful. I also understand they are trying to relate these crafts to social studies in the classroom (I believe).
3)I do not believe the author explained how the data was collected. There were center rotations for the students to go to, but beyond that...Observation could have been the main form, which I believe he did do, but did not directly say he was doing. He does raise questions for the students to answer along the way.
4) Honestly, I did not fully understand the article and I was confused throughout a lot of it.
The last paragraph though I really liked! It talked about how teachers have hobbies and interests too and by sharing them with the students, the teacher is more likely to have them become interested and engaged in their learning and the environment.
Laurin, you are right the questions are not clearly stated, I am unsure if there is a question posed in the article. We chose this article because we thought we could get more conversation out of it rather than having everything be strait forward. The last paragraph was insteresting with getting students engaged by sharing personal hobbies and interests and linking them to social studies. Good post! It is ok that you were confused by the article it is a difficult article.
ReplyDeleteThe question/s are not stated clearly, but they/it are pretty well implied. The question of how to fit content areas that get less attention (social studies) in to a busy day focused science and math. It is great ongoing question and this article gives one really good example of how that is done.
ReplyDeleteThe information provided did cover the topic quite well. It was a short foucsed paper on one specific example, however, much of what was discussed could be generalized into other areas.
There was not a lot of 'data collection'. However, the observation of the lesson seemed to be enough for the purpose of this article, which seemed to be given as just an idea for teachers to consider how they could incorporate their, and community memebrs, skills and hobbies to have children 'learn by doing'.
The conclusion was fine, the findings supported the information. Again, this kind of information is always worth looking at and discussing. Some people may think that this was stating the obvious, as in many other articles. I cannot think of a student who would not be at least interested in watching a real blacksmith, let alone be one for a few minutes...very cool.
Laurin and Dave mentioned the last paragraph, and I think that this was the thought behind the purpose of this article; to give good ideas on how to engage kids and teach as much as you can in a shoert, busy school day...or year for that matter!
-Josh
1. There are no research questions stated in the article. They have a purpose for doing the study which I believe is to integrate different subject areas. No questions though.
ReplyDelete2. The article did a good job of explaining how blacksmiths could integrate 2 subject areas. I think a little less explaining of how to be a balcksmith would be better and how to integrate would be more beneficial.
3. I do not think there really is any data to look at. He looks at the process of forging, but only puts limitations on the process of being a blacksmith. There is no research that is really done, just teaching kids how to be a blacksmith and show that, as Josh put it, learn by doing is a good learning process.
4. Learning by doing is a good way to teach students. A tough read because they really do not have any methods or ways of collecting data. I do not feel that this is a research article or a case study. It is good for teachers to bring their hobbies or interests into the classroom so you show the students you are human and do other things beside teach. In that sense it was good, otherwise not a high quality article.
Q1: I agree with Laurin, Josh, and Mark that the research questions are not stated. I am thinking that this was not really a research article per say, but rather a presentation of a great way to cover social studies content in a meaningful/hand on-way for students.
ReplyDeleteQ2: I think what the author is trying to show is that the job of a blacksmith comes up in history lessons and by showing and letting students experience this job helps them connect to the content in a more meaningful way. They also mention the connection to their community because there are still connections to blacksmithing today. Yes, I was able to understand how this information supported the author's presentation of information.
Q3: I have to agree with everyone else that has posted again, that the data collection method was not really even mentioned. I would assume it is observation because the author is sharing the experience he had watching this lesson take place. I think he could have maybe used a teacher interview or student interview to see how the teacher felt about the lesson and its connection to curriculum and to see if students enjoyed the lesson and what they got out of it.
Q4: I like the overall idea of the article (to incorporate hands-on learning in the classroom in social studies) because a lot of the time social studies involves lecture and reading. Especially because I think history (especially for elementary age students) can be very abstract. I think hands on applications would help them to understand and interact with the topic more.
1. There are no research questions in the article. (Well, at least I couldn’t find any)
ReplyDelete2. Yes, I understand how the information supports the study of the topic. However, I agree with Mark that less explaining would be better.
3. I don’t think there was data collection, or again I couldn’t find any. I also don’t think the author explained how he got the data. I guess like everyone above said, you could say by observation but I think using just observation is a terrible way to collect data. Other ways to collect data would have been better.
4. Even though this article was shorter, which I liked, I thought it was a confusing article to read. I think the “learning by doing” is a great way to teach and a great way to use the hands-on method. This article wasn’t really researching anything though which confused me. I did like though this brought activities and hobbies in the classroom. Students always love sharing their hobby or what they enjoy doing.
Question 1:
ReplyDeleteI don’t think that the questions are clearly stated at all. In fact I don’t really see any questions that this article poses. In addition, I really didn’t see any where in the article where questions could be implied. Except in this passage, on page 100 the article states: “In this article, I describe an activity in which blacksmithing helped students make connections to academic subjects.” Therefore a possible question could be: what are the connections that students can make in their academic subjects to a folk crafts such as blacksmithing? Having said this I don’t think it’s possible to study the questions because there aren’t really questions to be studied.
Question 2:
I don’t know about this question (From beginning to end, do you understand how the information supports the study of this topic?) I guess for the fact that I feel that this “study” is not really a study because it doesn’t really ask questions and therefore answer them. The information does present more or less the advantages that students acquire from interdisciplinary education through folk crafts, specifically blacksmithing. In addition it touches on the other side, by explaining the limitations and so to speak “negatives” of blacksmithing such as special equipment, dangerous risk to students, instructor needs to specific training etc.). Therefore, I do think that if this article was really a study then the information and data would in fact support it.
Question 3:
I don’t really think that the author clearly explained how the data was obtained and analyzed. For example there is not an apparent methodology part, he explains the participants very quickly and then goes right into “Mr. Kuhn…” In addition, the author does express how the data is collected. They do not mention questioners, surveys, even observation (which is probably the chosen method of data collection) I think that the reader had to imply what methods of data collection and analysis that the author did. I think a more coherent way of collection would definitely be observation, but also teacher/ student questioners, teacher/student surveys about this specific type of teaching method.
I have kind of ripped this article apart in regards to this post being a research critique; however I do value the content of it because it is an interesting idea teaching interdisciplinary education through a skill or essentially a profession. I think that this idea is definitely one to think about and develop more. Lastly, I agree with Laurin commenting on the last paragraph. I also think that it is important for teachers to teach what they feel passionately about and include their hobbies and interests with their students. It just makes the students “see” and perceive them as humans with feelings, likes, and dislikes.
As stated by everyone else, there are no research questions in the article. I agree with Colleen that this article is a little different than the articles we have been looking at because it is not really a research article , but I did enjoy reading it because I agree that it is so important to incorporate real life experiences into learning, especially in social studies. I thought that using blacksmithing to teach social studies was a really cool idea and that social studies teachers should do more hands on learning like that. I don't think that the article explained how the data was analyzed. The articled just explained how blacksmithing can be used for instruction. It was just observation. I definitely think the article was worth while to read, although it was different from what we have been reading in the past which was a nice change up.
ReplyDeleteJosh, you are right about the questions not being point blank obvious but after reading the article you can tell why this article was written. You are definately right on when you mention the idea of keeping the kids engaged by letting them work as real blacksmiths!
ReplyDeleteMark, good point with the data. There was no empirical data collected during this study. It was all through direct observation, and from what I gathered from this article, observations have been from years of experience in doing this same lesson.
ReplyDeleteColleen,
ReplyDeletelike Mark stated, there is no statistics or data mentioned in this article. You mention that it is through observation and I agree with you on this. Great ideas with the hands on learning and social studies. Many lessons for social studies are lecture and are very dry. Hands on learning is a great method to getting the students more engaged in the lesson.
Kristen,
ReplyDeleteI can sense that you did not enjoy this article. It truly was not an easy read, and it was confusing because it was not like every other research article. Good ideas with the hands on learning. Like I mentioned in other posts, I believe that the data is through observation but over several (maybe years?) or at least lessons, the engagement of the students is observed by this ex-teacher now administrator.
Meaghan,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, this article is completely vague on all aspects. It leaves a lot of information up for the reader to decide or guess on. You mention that you are not sure if this is even a case study and that is a great point. Maybe you can expand on this in class.
Meg,
ReplyDeletegood point on recognizing that the article is different from what we have been reading for past articles. This is one of the reasons why we chose this article. You were the first to mention that the articles focus was on interdisciplinary learning and you did not seem to get bothered by not having data to look at or even really a research purpose other than integrating subject areas! Nice job.
1) No the research questions are not clearly stated so therefore they are not relevant and it isn't possible to study them.
ReplyDelete2) I kind of got an idea how the information supports the study of this topic but since there weren't any research questions it was hard to see any real data.
3) No, the author didn't explain how the data was obtained and analyzed. I think the best way to collect data would be to interview the students and the teachers and observe how the students involvement and engagement change between their time in the classroom and their time with the blacksmith. Possibly do a pre-test before their time with the blacksmith then do a post-test so actually see if the real world connections made caused an increase in their knowledge of social studies. After observing, interviewing and testing you should be able to get a clear picture of what impact the blacksmith's lessons have on the students.
4) Yes, the implications were reasonable based on the report. I could probably have told you what the conclusion of the article was just by reading the title so I'm glad the article was short but no overall, it wasn't worthwhile. IT did support my own ideas of real world learning and getting the students out of the classroom. Like the last paragraph said, the passions of teachers transfer to their students which usually include real world activities and increased knowledge.
Seahorsey,
ReplyDeleteI am glad that you were honest about your opinion of the article, next time don't hold back though tell everyone how you really feel about it. You bring up an excellent point that was made in the article: the passions of teachers transfer to their students which usually include real world activities and increased knowledge. I personally like this comment and I am glad you brought it up.
Everyone Nice job with the postings. I can tell a lot of you did not care for the article but you all had excellent points brought up. We will further discuss these ideas on Tuesday with a fun filled activitiy followed by a delicious snack.
ReplyDeleteFirst off I am really sorry for this post being so late. Next I did not see any reasearch questions. Mater of fact I did not really see this article as a research paper. I saw it as an informational paper. Tell what Mr. Kuhn does to integrate subjects and bring in hands on learning and skills that are wonderful but there was no data collected, no results, and no questions. I don't see this as a research article. Maybe I am wrong.
ReplyDeleteIn saying that this is not a research article I do see where it supports your topic and does a great job of supporting your topic but as an actuall part of a study I don't believe it is. It just suports that learning hands on and integrating capture students attention but has to be done in a small student to parent ratio.
The researcher would have observed how Mr. Kuhn worked such as how he set up his hot space and made it so every child had something to do while he was working with a student. The researcher must have interviewed or observed to be able to write down how he sets up and teaches and maybe asks Mr. Kuhn what he would do differently or how he does things and why.
I really liked this article but I am not sure if it is a research article or just supporting information. It was really good to support hands on learning, integration, and integrating life skills into the curriculum such as this falling under social studies, science, humanities, and math. Nice article.
Again sorry I am so late, I lost trak of time.
1.) No I do not believe that the research questions are clearly stated. I had a hard time finding them at all. Although I can gather information from the article on what the authors are hoping to find out, I am still unsure if that is what they are really looking for, due to the fact that they did not clearly state their research questions.
ReplyDelete2.) I think the author did a good job in presenting information that supports the topic at hand. Through this information I did gather that such topics, such as blacksmiths and apprenticeship in this article, can be related to more than one subject area. I agree with Mark on this question that less information on blacksmiths and more information about how to integrate blacksmiths into numerous lessons would be much more helpful.
3.) There was not much data in this article at all (unless I’m blind). There was little explanation in the article about how data was analyzed or even obtained. If I had to choose a data collection technique for this study, I believe observation would work best.
4.) Although I really enjoyed this article (since it dealt with Social Studies!), I didn’t find it to be a very good research article. It did however support and encourage the idea of real world learning which I am very fond of! I also agree with Jenna on the aspect that even without the previous information stated, one could easily determine the outcome in the study.