thesisthoughts

When I mentioned to GP, my supervisor, that I was intending to attend the AATE conference in Hobart, his first reaction was: “Of course you are going to give a paper…”. I wasn’t intending on presenting a paper, in fact I thought I would attend my first conference as a listener and as a learner, and that some time in the future I would try my hand at presenting my work. I had no idea how this type of conference works in Australia, even in Israel I have only been to a few.

As usual, when encouraged by my supervisor to present my work to others, I felt inclined to try. I sat down (fairly quickly) and prepared my abstract. I told myself that if it wasn’t accepted I would still have the rich learning experience I was looking forward to, and that if it was accepted, I would worry about it later.

I have written enough about my anxiety and have shared my experiences delaying the preparation of the paper. I will now try to explore how the paper went (from my subjective point of you, of course). I am writing this three weeks after returning from the conference.

My paper was set to be given in a fancy board room with a large table and comfortable meeting chairs. From a technical point of view, everything went according to plan and my Powerpoint presentation worked well.

I was convinced that nobody would come to hear me, especially as this was the last session of the conference and there were another 14 sessions going on at the same time. Being up against a large session on the National Curriculum was especially tough competition.

In the end, I was relieved that I had a small audience and began my presentation on time. I was thrilled that the educators present stopped me to ask questions and to comment. If I had been worried about time, the paper fitted the hour perfectly.

I was especially pleased that each of the participants (those I didn’t know) shared what she was taking away from the session.

I am still trying to build my identity as a researcher, it’s a title I don’t yet feel comfortable wearing. I can honestly say that daring to present at AATE was a significant step in seeing myself in this new role. I’m happy I chose to present some of my Lit review in the paper, I feel it was relevant and important background to the work I have been doing.

Having one of the participants email me and then look up my blog was special for me. I thank her for her interest.

That seems to be it for my Masters thesis – squeezing two journal articles and a conference paper out of it has been rewarding and satisfying. Now it is clear to me that I will need to find new angles and experiences to write about.

I have some ideas, but no time!

I have one week left here in Australia and am already apprehensive about saying goodbye to family. It is comforting to know that my studies will bring me back again in the not too distant future.

Often when I read Faultlines, Ward’s informative blog on writing a PhD, I encounter inspiring materials which help me as a writer and as a researcher. I have written here before that I began blogging after reading an article by Ward on her blogging experiences.

Today I read about Lilia’s honest post on publishing a PhD which is both exposing and highly personal.

Another wonderful source of information I discovered through Ward is the inspiring How I write series from Stanford – transcripts, videos etc.

OK, it’s 10:20 pm, my parents have gone to bed and so have the kids. I am giving myself an hour at the most to write about my experiences at the AATE conference in Hobart. I really want to thank nb for this post, since she wrote a comment saying she was waiting for the post, it hasn’t left my mind. Knowing there are readers around really does make a huge difference to the weary blogger.

I arrived in Hobart a week after arriving back in Australia. I flew down with my mum and left my daughter and son with my sister. Mum booked us in at Wrest Point which was fantastic. Tasmania is a beautiful place and although we didn’t go touring at all, the view from the hotel was spectacular. Being in the hotel made it easy to hop backwards and forwards and I could spend time with mum before, after and between sessions.

 I was extremely nervous about giving my paper but was determined to make the most of the program.

Some of the sessions I attended were:

• Professor David Pearson from Berkley, “The pedagogy of promise…”. The paper discussed the teaching of reading in a time of uncertainty. A broad overview was given of the new reality in the United States and the possible implications for Australia and the rest of the western world.
• Richard Flanagan – Why Novels are Power.
• Prof. Peter Freebody – Uni of Sydney – Bridges and Divides in High Stakes Curriculum knowledge, language and Literacy in the Classroom: What Governments Should Want to Know about Literacy Achievement in Schools.
• A session on Interactive Whiteboards and their use in literacy classrooms.
• Natalie Jane Prior – Please I’m Stuck: Common Creative Writing Mistakes Children Make and How you can help them Avoid Them.
• Teaching Reading and Writing: Engaging with the Professional Community – Marion Meiers. This interesting session was attended by a small group of educators, and all participated actively in the workshop. The discussion was around encouraging teachers to write for the professional journals of AATE and ALEA. Together we brainstormed on the theme of the next edition of Practically Primary. I was reminded by this session how few publication opportunities there are in Israel for teachers. The idea of brainstorming about possible writing opportunities in a staff meeting seems to be feasible and sensible.
• I was thrilled to hear Professor Ilana Snyder speak and was even more excited to finally meet her. She is another of those influential people at Monash who have encouraged me in my study and inspired me to learn.  At that session I was also very happy to meet Scott Bulfin. After reading so much of his writing and building a lot of my thinking around his early articles, it was exciting. I was sorry not to hear Scott give his paper, he spoke at the same time that I did.
• A fascinating talk with author Christine Harris about the use of memory jars in writing.
• One of the highlights of the conference for me was to hear Graham Parr talk for the first time. His paper was titled Literature Teachers learning in the Age of Standards-Based Reforms. I was interested in hearing the work I have been reading spoken out loud and was interested to hear the questions posed by the audience.
• Bridges to Improved Pedagogies: Lessons from Singapore – Scott G. Paris. This paper was mainly about the high price teachers and students in Singapore pay  for their high achievement levels on international examinations.
• Marion Meiers, ACER, Identifying the Outcomes of Teacher Professional Learning Programs. I should write more about this session later.
• My paper was at the very end of the conference and I do have  a lot to write about it. I promise to do that in the next day or so. Now… I must get to bed.

Good night!

OK, I’ve been in Australia for a week and a half already, and I feel that if I don’t start recording a bit of what I am going through, it will be lost.

I left Israel the day school finished for the year. Exhausted and stressed, I parted from my colleagues and from everything that the school year demands of me and got on the plane with my two younger children. Thank goodness they were cooperative and we all slept most of the way to Australia. The family welcome we received was as always, wonderful… our visit had begun.

Mylife is always intense, rushed and pressured, and so was the beginning of my month out here. The next morning, at 9 am, I was supposed to be at Monash University for the MERC (Monash Education Research Conference). I was panicking about finally turning up at the uni in person, after 3 years of online study. I was shy and unsure of how the day would go.

The day was interesting and varied. I payed particular attention to the kinds of work the research students were presenting and how they presented themselves as students and researchers.

The highlight of my day was finally meeting GP my supervisor and we had a nice lunch together. It seems to me that meeting someone face-to-face after years of online conversation is as unnerving as a real first time meeting.

The next article I attempt to write may very well be about distance education and the experiences I have had with it.  

After a weekend off (crammed full of family commitments), I was back at Monash on Monday and Tuesday. The Winter School for postgraduate students was a terrific way to get the feel of the campus, of the research assistance available and to start to chat to other new (and not so new) PhD students. The workshops were interesting and relevant and gave me a sense that I’m really getting started and that this PhD idea is viable.

I especially enjoyed the workshop by Dr  Judy Williams and Ros Winters on Self Study. The session on Autoethnography by Dr Peter De Vries and the sessions on writing by Rosemary Viete and Anne Prince were also very worthwhile.

One of the highlights of those days was going into the Matheson Library for the first time. The library staff have given me so much assistance over the past three years and really have catered for all my research needs, despite me being on the other side of the world. When I got to the Education section and started seeing the books I had used for my thesis (scanned as PDF files or read as ebooks) I almost couldn’t breathe. The excitement was immense. I had butterflies in my stomache and was simply overcome by the experience. I was shocked at my own reaction.

I took five books from the library that day. As I approached the loans desk, like a normal student doing an everyday act, only I was aware that I was a student in my fourth year at Monash, touching “real” library books for the first time.

My next post will tell about my experiences at the AATE coference in Hobart.