So far this
week the majority of my time has been spent reading research articles. I
average about 2 articles per day; each being between 16-25 pages. That’s a lot
of writing about reading comprehension. Ideas about my own research become
clearer with each study I read. I’ve developed a method to reading each. I pay
close attention to the purpose, population, methods, results, limitations, and
suggestions for future studies. The actual data analysis slows down my overall
understanding of the study, so I tend to gloss over that section. I did hours
of research at the end of last school year and either printed or emailed myself
all the articles that are now kept in one folder. I like both hard and digital
copies of the research. However, I didn’t read anything until the start of this
semester. I know I’ll need to search some more, but for now reading is
occupying most of my time.
It took me
an hour to write my Needs Analysis; I found a quiet place in Starbucks to type it. Like Lindsay, I reread the Needs Analysis section of my IDD paper. That was
somewhat helpful. So far this week, I’ve also done the following:
- · Order a copy of the IDD textbook. I “rented” a copy for the previous class.
- · I emailed an author of a research article to find out more about the Student Reader Satisfaction Survey he used in their study. I have yet to hear back.
- · I bought a calendar with LARGE boxes to organize all due dates for this project. I’m not a Google calendar girl, so I went with the “old-school” version.
- · I arranged a meeting with my supervisor to discuss permissions as related to research participants (my students). I’ll write more about that next time.
I recently
read this post about the sacred nature of libraries. The timing was perfect considering my
current student status and also made me long for the simplicity of
undergraduate life.
