Finally had that meeting with my supervisor today. Really interesting discussion, almost disturbing because of the way he was challenging my assumptions underlying my proposed research on the impact of religious educators’ epistemological, pedagogical, and religious beliefs on their teaching practice.
To wit:
* Does epistemology have anything to do with their teaching practice? Applying Ockam’s notoriour razor, he says maybe it’s just their way of teaching. Read More »
Just got back to Madrid by train from Sevilla yesterday. I fly to London later today for my research at IoE and my meeting with my supervisor.
Funny thing: I woke up with a start yesterday due to some nightmare about my survey instruments, the details of which I had forgotten as soon as I opened my eyes. It´s probably my first non-narrative, cerebral nightmare–or dream! There was no story (at least, none that I can recall); only an insight or a question about the first section of my survey instrument concerning epistemological understandings across judgment domains. Read More »
I woke up at 4 this morning with two things running through my head: First, of all things, LSS of that Korean hit, “I Want Nobody (But You).” Cute but after the 99th repeat, I wanted to stuff my pillows into my mouth–all four of them!
Second content in my head was a bit more scholarly: My half-baked research proposal, which I should finish cooking up today as I need to DHL it to Singapore tomorrow. Read More »
No. of words required for the research proposal (for submission on Tuesday): 2,000
No. of words written thus far: 0.
Two thousand words with two days to go. Read More »
A glimpse of NIE
What’s strugglingSCHOLAR?
It’s my blog as I begin my adventures in academic research. I’m new in this world, being a practitioner for most of my life. I just thought it might be helpful and even fun to document my struggles and woes as I work hard to evolve into some kind of scholar–or more appropriately in my case what Bentz calls a scholarly practitioner.
I’m submitting a research proposal this Monday–cramming as usual. I could whine about how difficult it is to juggle work and studies–or how late I got just the right supervisor, but I just don’t have time for that. Besides, the topic is really interesting: how teachers view knowing even unconsciously (in a word, epistemology) and how these beliefs impact on their teaching.
It’s actually amazing when I think about it. As a teacher educator, I’ve never paid much attention to the teachers’ epistemological beliefs. It was all about techniques and frameworks. Now they tell me that these neglected attributes make a difference in one’s teaching practice. To complicate things, since I work in a religious school, one intriguing question that has popped up is: Does religious belief impede epistemological development? Landmine alert!
These are preliminary, scattered thoughts. I hope that as I blog about my experiences, questions–and woes–as a novice researcher, these thoughts will take shape. Well, they had better! 🙂
strugglingSCHOLAR 