2. What topic and why?

What topic and Why?


Many children in the society I live in are abandoned at birth and placed in badly run orphanages. Adopted children may have suffered neglect for many months or years. The adoptive parents are often unaware that the early, formative years of a child’s life are crucial to its emotional development. Many of these children have Attachment Disorders which become more emphasized as they grow, although the signs are not always recognized by the parents or school.

My enquiry will be:
• To ascertain to what extent Attachment Disorder has on the student with respect to social and academic progress.
• How can the school environment support students with this disorder?


I would love to hear from anyone who has had experience of AD.

Laura

Laura

thanks good idea. You say:-

My enquiry will be:
1 To ascertain to what extent Attachment Disorder has on the student with respect to social and academic progress.
2 How can the school environment support students with this disorder?

Everyone needs to distingusih the field research question from the literture research question. I sugges that 1 is found in the literture. 2 Can be found in the literture also. but a 3rd question What are the experiences of children of the suggested support stratgies can be found out in the field and lead to improvements.


Everyone should start thinking of these topics as being answered by the literature and then your field work.

I would like to investigate recent changes in attitudes towards the use of the target language in the MFL secondary classroom at KS3. This is a topic that needs re-addresing since the introduction of languages at KS2 became compulsory in 2010 for all schools across England. I have been teaching for four years and have observed a change in general attitudes from " it is difficult, I don't understand or I don't want to do it" to " I know the answer and can I have a go" when students hear the target language in the classroom.

Within the languages department at my school I have noticed that some of us use a high percentage of the target language whereas other professionals use very little indeed or none at all. This has come to my attention because amongst my classes I teach a year 7 group who started school with some knowledge of Spanish, in this instance, and the group have moved from guessing and recalling some of the answers to a basic fluency in the language that I particularly find very interesting as shown in the assessment data. This has been achieved because I started to teach most of the lessons using a very high percentage of TL, which students enjoy and are keen to demonstrate when daily assessment for learning takes place. Boys as well as girls want to do well and learn to speak the language; in reality, it is the ultimate goal of studying any foreign language.
We are now starting a new unit and the interactions in the language taught through previous modules have risen to create a positive effect and sense of achievement amongst the entire group. Even those who have been identified with behavioural issues or special educational needs within this group want to contribute. I believe that by addressing this subject, we as language professionals, can gain new insights into how much of the TL should be used without making the students feel alienated or lost in the subject. A balance must be found and perhaps standardised if we want to see real progress and achievement in the subject at KS3, which will ultimately motivate the learner to continue his language studies at GCSE or even AS/A2

a good topic leonardo but perhaps because of the length of your paragraph I am unsure of the exact focus. I suggest that pupil experience of target language lessons and wasy to increase target language use.

You can ask questions and collect observations of the use of target language, trying to get to 100% through different strategies, maybe?


I would probabaly steer clear of the attitudes of staff to target language as their attitudes are a different issue and based upon training, abilities, and other complex issues

As the GTC suggests, teachers should aim to increase pupils' participation in their learning. The QCA also suggest that there is a limited knowledge among teachers of how to increase students motivation to participate. As a practitioner, I experience it first hand, especially towards the end of KS3. It is a well known fact that the motivation and effort decreases dramatically after students pick their subjects for GCSE. Therefore I am planning to investigate the impact of pupil centered strategies on motivation, especially towards the end of Year 9. I am aiming to conduct a single case study without broadly generalising my findings.
I propose the following working title:
The Impact of Pupil-Centered Strategies on Motivation and Participation in Art (KS3)
A case study of the impact of collaborative work, instructional choice and situational interest on the motivation and participation of year 9 in a girls’ school in Enfield.

Good topic.

In the literture review you need to map the differnet definitions and meaning of particpation, engagment, involvement.

You are using several differnet terms and need to specify and clarify. (Pupil centred, collaboartive, involvment, particpation).

Collaboartive is not a general term but specific (see Slavin's wortk)


You will need to demonstrate your knowledge of this first

I have chosen to focus upon co-headship (job-share headship) and the practical & organisaitonal issues surrounding this in order to establish if it is a viable and sustainable model of school leadership. It is linked to my own circumstances/ interest in leadership/ creative solutions and the current national climate of difficulties in recruiting new leaders/ projected shortages linked to retirement/ retention of expereinced heads and worklife balance issues.I feel that if more (tried and tested) information were availalbe to governors/others it may open up greater opportunities for individuals and schools and assist in succession planning/ recruitment/ retention of senior leaders in education.

This is an example of a real experience and practical problem. The danger is that there is no literture on this. Or rather you need to synthesise literture from a variety of different and associated fields eg realtionships, sharing, collaboartion, conflict resolution etc

TRhe danger is that it is just reporting and anecdotal. It will lack any conceptualisation unless you do this from your data. It could lack demonstartion of research skills unless you work on this.

It could really work as a case study if you can collect data sytematically as a researcher. And it could contribute to an undertanding for others.

However, its a challenge for you!

It is a concern re availablility of examples/ literature, however, I want to do something that will be useful, and reveal new knowledge that could be of benefit to others in a wider context, especially in the current climate of recruitment issues of head teachers.
On reflection the case study will be more about an analyisis and refelction on my experience of co-headship and why it is not used more widely to deal with recruitment issues. I shall foucs on the advantages/ disadvantages of this model of leadership, collect data through questionnaire/interviews/ feedback (qualitative collection methods in the main, supported by some quantitative) and I intend to seek out other (though rare)co-heads to interview to discuss thier experience to see if there is any common ground.

to add, I forgot to say- I like a challenge!

My topic is going to be in the realms of "Are practising teachers at Barnet FE College knowledgeable about Inclusive Education practice in the classroom particularly regarding Specific Learning Difficulties and if not how can best practice be put in place?". This is my chosen area as I was asked to lead a session with a class of teaching staff undergoing teacher training about Specific Learning Difficulties, inclusion and differentiation. I did a survey with the students asking how much they knew about Splds, and from this and from what the students asked and said, I think it would be a good area to research because I know from other curriculum areas there is much ignorance in this area. We see the students who suffer the fall out from this in Additional Learning Support.

Jacquis research is clear- What do FE teachers know, feel about etc in Inlcsuive Education.

The review of literature is more complex as it contains perhaps 3 elements
1. What does research show that teachers know about Inclsuion (Probabaly limited)
2. What should they know.(eg best practice etc)
3.What mechansisms should be in place so that they do know.

What is your focus?
My focus is about 'implementing the LMLE(London Managed Learning Environment)at my school in the summer term. The first steps into setting up a brand new online school takes 3 months- from March 2010 to July 2010.
Why are you doing it?
Establishing effective use of the MLE that suits my school requires a high level of commitment. As the ICT co-ordinator of my school, it is my role to assist my Head teacher, to work with LA MLE consultants, to form, lead and coach the SLT/SLICT team: to plan the design of the online school, decide on resources, set up classrooms and activities, and set up management tools. My knowledge and experience in the area of Web Designing and Leadership will be updated. This also builds on what I've researched and learnt in the previous two MA modules.

This has 3 steps.
1. What is effective online learning (from the literature of BECTA, Future Lab, Salmon, and others)
2. Implementing this in the school
3. Researching the impact

I would be concerned that this is not a study of the effcetive training and development (unless this is the focus)

I have been mulling over some questions for the topic on Mentoring and Coaching after having collaborated with two deputy principals on developing a coaching programme with varying levels of success due to "other priorities" taking precedence. I would like to look at: 1.What must school leaders do - and not do - if a mentoring-coaching culture is to be developed? Here I may need to tread carefully if I am not to ruffle feathers of the leadership team as results can reveal what senior leaders don't want to hear. I suppose this is where the ethical brief comes in. I might therefore look at 2. What makes an effective coaching team in bringing a mentoring and coaching culture into being?
This would take the focus from the senior leaders.
Any comments welcomed.

neville and everyone need to distingusih bnetween field research questions and literture questions.

The literture tells us what should be happening. (allegedly according to research, expert opinion and policy)

Filed rersearch (observation, asking questions, etc) tells us what is happebning.

You cannot ask people what they should do because they may not know the literture. You can only ask what they currently do (and compare it with the literture)

Hi Ian,

Your distinction between literature questions and research questions is useful. The literature review will therefore be my first port of call so I am informed about policy. The research questions will be used to unpick what is happening in school as regards current practices.Simplified there is an element of compare and contrast.
Thanks

Neville

Neville

I would like to look at strategies used by teachers to teach communication to children with autism. I want to look at the relationship between Intensive Interaction and communication learning generally, such as PECS and Makaton. I want to look for a resolution to the differences between these approaches to teaching, if there is one. I would like to explore this topic as I work in a department for children with autism within a school for children with special needs. The school also wants me to become the Intensive Interaction co-ordinator in the future.
Jo

Hi Iain,
I intend to work on an enquiry into the effectiveness of learning support teachers in supporting children with learning difficulties.i hope to answer the following questions:
1.What are the practices/ role of learning support teachers in the institution?
2.What are the teachers' suggestions towards improving the provision of learning support?
3.What is the degree of involvement/cooperation between learning support teachers and class/subject teachers?
4.How would pupils want their teachers to support them?
I hope this is a researchable topic. your views are highly appreciated.

Hellen

It strikles me that you need to look at what should be happening according to the literture and research and compare that with what is happening. You might need to use "Stakes matrix" to structure this. materials are in the research procedures materials. He looks at aims, procseses and outcomes from the view of what should happen (literture) and what actually happens (field research observations and data collection)


Many of you could use this framework

I am going to be looking at the EAL learners in an international school setting. I want to research and implement different models of collaboration with staff and review what impact this has had on the students - what their opinions are on the methods used and also track the progress of the EAL learners.

The methods used will be a mixture of team teaching, observation of methods used in the lesson, working with target groups (KS3 & KS4) and one to one support (withdrawal from lessons, in class support).

Through these methods I will be able to see how effective the EAL department has been in focusing on each students needs. As my school is not very big, I maybe able to review each EAL student as an individual case study showing which strategies and methods are most effective for them and compare their progress with the literature research to see whether this corroborates other researchers findings.