As we discuss in classes with this too different “Cases” about “Research involving children: the ethical issue”. I was impress with the two examples posted on the discussion tablet, the first one was an issue involving opt-out consent from parents and the second one was about researching involving “my space”. Both were very interesting: one dealing with researchers actually putting a plant virus on the things that children touched every day, without asking the parents of those children before, after that they send a note of the outline of the study on the children’s bag. The second one presents a researcher taking information from a under 18 girl, who is using my space whit a public profile, which make her information accessible for everyone, the researcher takes some information and then send some questions o the girl to be filed.

In both cases I personally believe that the respect for persons was transgressed. The informed concern through an informed sheet or personal interview in both cases could have been done before the collection of information about the girl or the experimentation of certain “solutions” on kids in the child care. But more important than that, the opportunity for the parents, regarding under aged persons, of being able to refuse or withdraw their participation on the study, was a methodological limitation in both studies. I think we are completely free of decide what we want for our self and for our children. Every person is free to say when they want to be part of an experiment or observation or when they do not want to do so. Everyone is free to say NO!

While I have been doing my assignment 2, reading through the article that I chose, “Creating a Learning environment for all children: Are teachers able and willing?”, I came out with a number of questions and reflections related to the educational system in Chile. And also answering the question, Do the readings engage disciplinary debates in the field of educational research and, if so, how?

First, I think teachers disposition towards inclusive education and preparation is a debate in Chile educational system. Educational institutions believe that teachers are prepare for the inclusion of children with disabilities in their normal classroom, but I think, as a general view, teachers demonstrate that they don’t have the enough preparation to do so. Teachers might count with the dispositions, but they hardly have the skills and knowledge necessary for this important process. But some private schools continue accepting children with specific needs on the regular system, without preparing their teachers or without provide them with support or other specialist collaboration. Private Schools have a economical interest for maintaining those children on the schools, but the lack of responsibility they have when they dice to incorporate children with disabilities is unbelievable, and causes many educational debates on my country.

During the last lecture we have an interesting presentation about mixed methods in a longitudinal research by Johanna Wyn, she introduces to us the study “The making og a generation; The children of 1970s in Australia”, and I felt particularly attract to one of the things highlighted during the presentation. She punted out that more than just transmit information and skills, education should help students to prepare them to achieve their goals in life. Educational Policies might be conducted towards that objective, see what is really happening outside the schools and prepare children for that reality. I think an educational system based on teaching thinking more than just transmitting isolated information, might help students to be prepared for the world outside the school. An education that seeks the deeper understanding and the developed of skills and dispositions for thinking, should prepare students to overcome the future and achieve their goals

I was reading this article about Educational Research, “Creative Thinking and Doing”, and it addresses a very important type of research, the case of study and it sees it as a reflective practitioner, it means that teachers on their everyday activities must be able to be reflective about what they are doing and how are they teaching. I personally believe that the reflections are a very important part of our work as teachers and most of all the reflection in action, on our own way of acting. These reflections can revel us important information about ourselves and our practice. For some teachers result very difficult to make some reflections about themselves, it is very easy to talk about other people’s behavior but when it comes to ourselves, we find very hard to critique and make changes.

The information that we can get form reflection in action will subsequently become knowledge. With knowledge we can take action and make changes. First I think we need to be able to look back upon our action, this could be by asking ourselves questions (what did I did?, what happened?, how I did address this?), then when we already have the answers of those questions we have information, but maybe not all the information is important, here we need to select and be aware of the important information. After this we can look for different alternatives of doing things in order to find the best and appropriate way of doing or solve those problems. But the reflections don’t end there, we also need to reflect about our new strategies or alternatives, there this becomes an endless work.

It is teacher’s responsibility to attribute to these reflections a major character and it depends on the teachers and educational community in general to give the value that reflections need to have in our educational practices. Let me leave you with these questions: Is your educational community valuing reflections in practice? Are you given enough value to your own reflections?

Educating for Thinking about Thinking

I am reading now a very interesting text about Teaching Thinking, which says:

" The teacher must not only transmit but inspire, move, convince, engage and enthrall"

this calls for a change in most teachers' conception of teaching...

Research Question

One of the question that has been bothering me , and that could be my research question, is

What is a good inclusive practice?

Are inclusive practices successfully enough?

How can we really include Children with specific learning difficulties in normal classrooms?

What factors contribute to create a successful inclusive program?

Lets see is I can make it!

Educational Research

I will begin by putting out my first fundamental question

What is EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH?

We talk about Educational research as Empirical, the kind of research that makes not only the investigations based on the theory (books) but also takes the experience on the field of study. These experiences can be collected by interviews, surveys, observations and your own experience. This kind of research mainly focuses on things that really happened in that context and time

When we observe our educational practice or other teacher’s educational practices it is so difficult to be unnoticed by others and not interfere on the real interaction or the real environment of the class. That makes it so difficult for researchers to have an accurate observation of the realistic situations happening on the class.

As we talked in the first class, the research, in education particularly, is not a SOLO research but more of a continuous dialogue with others. That can take place in different forms. It is not just observation, but more the interaction with all the actors in the process.

In this context, the conversation that we create in our daily life with other teachers and educators can be a very rich research source. Colleagues’ conversations are a very useful tool for educators; we can exchange information, new ideas, things that have had a great result and things that might be useful for someone else. We also find judgmental opinions either towards our students or the educational system. This can be a reflection of what is really happening in our classrooms or outside of them. Also, they can be a very good start point in order to make changes, improvements or educational readjustments.

Some teachers really don’t realize the importance of these conversations. My objective in this appreciation is not to criticize teachers, it is an invitation for teachers to take advantage of these moments and for principals or educational participants to be able to organize the agenda, and give to colleagues’ interactions a very important role. If we do this, maybe we can know what we really should be doing and what we, as educator, should be aiming to do.

But HOW WE TRANSLATE THIS IMPORTANT INFORMATION TO REALISTIC DATA, SO WE CAN ANALYZE IT?