thesisthoughts

When I see that my last post is from the end of August I feel that time is running away from me. We went back to school on the first of September and since then I have been on the run. I have been trying to get up at 4:00 am every morning in order to sit and work on my doctorate. I can’t say that it happens every day and there are days when I do get up but have some urgent assessment or planning to do for school and I do that. Most days I manage to take a few baby steps forward.  

I am working on three different things at once. My ethics application is being read by GP and I already know that there will be many changes made to it. I wanted to get the application in and authorized before starting this years’ courses but I understand now that that was unrealistic. Once I have the forms in, I need to send similar documents to the Israeli Department of Education, to get their approval too.

In the meanwhile, I have started working on the literature review, according to the recommendations in Destination Dissertation by Foss and Waters. I feel as though I am progressing and am enjoying the work so far.

In addition, I started teaching the first of my four professional learning groups yesterday. As part of my big effort to write a lot about my experiences with the groups, I returned to blogging this morning.

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The clock is ticking all the time and I must write a new post, the one I got up to write, about my session yesterday.

During the recent school holidays I gave a two and a half hour presentation on my thesis to the literacy leaders of professional development, here in the north of the country. I was extremely nervous and hardly slept at all the night before. Some of my jitters were connected to the fact that this was really the first time I was presenting my own research to an audience and the rest were language related. It was a strange experience thinking and then talking my way thorough my material in Hebrew. The audience was extremely enthusiastic and I received many compliments, both on the day and by email afterwards. This was a group of 30 or so close colleagues and I felt that they were truly interested in what I have learned. The second part of the lecture dealt with blogging in general, edublogging and my own blogging experience. Many of the participants had never even seen a blog before.

This week we had a professional learning day at school. The grade six pupils taught the younger classes for four hours and the staff all met in the staff room. Apart from my lecture on blogging, two other teachers discussed their recent research. It was a fantastic day and again I had a wonderful response. Two of the teachers took the details for wordpresswhich is the most suitable site for Hebrew bloggers (as far as I can tell) and one of them has already signed up to open a blog herself.

I am constantly aware that I am very lucky to have the opportunities I do to share my learning and my conclusions with my peers. Maybe lucky isn’t the word I am looking for, maybe privileged?

I chose one of my thesis narratives and used it as a base for a journal article. I worked hard on it but found it difficult going back to my thesis and turning the text into something new. I will have to wait for ages now until I get some feedback. I would like to try to write another article before I go back to school but I still am not sure…

I am planning a blogging project for students in the special writing groups I will be in charge of this year. This is the first time we will be blogging at our school. Although I am excited about the prospect, I have more questions than answers at this stage.  

I am still trying to decide whether to blog my school stuff here or to start another site. Maybe I’ll start making some decisions soon.

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I can’t believe that my thesis has been handed in and that this enormous task is behind me.

It has been over a month since I blogged because I was just reading, writing and revising 20 or so hours a day. I was exhausted but more than that, I was riding an emotional roller-coaster. The closer I got to finishing, the more excited and nervous I became. On the one hand I was waiting to submit the piece and be done with it and on the other, I was upset that I was leaving this incredible learning experience behind. Tears of joy, achievement, pride, frustration and worry all joined, I found it hard to describe my feelings.

Now I have many questions to explore. After a year off school and my job as leader of professional development, I am going back to work full time. How will I manage to keep up my professional learning in formal and informal frameworks? Will I continue this blog which was essentially a study tool or will I begin a new work blog? I imagine that this will all become clear to me in the next few weeks.

This blog has taken on a role very different from that intended at the outset. I thought I was opening this site as a means of recording my study notes but it has become far more than that. Blogging has helped me develop my identity as a teacher and as a researcher, it has helped me think and reflect. My writing here has brought me into a community of edubloggers, wonderful people who, as I wrote in my thesis “have let me into their hearts and into their classrooms”.

I want to thank you for reading my work. I never imagined that anyone would find this blog and would take the time to read it. You have all made a great contribution to my study and to my thesis on professional learning for teachers. I appreciate you giving me your precious time, the flowers at the top are for you! 

 The next step is preparing my thesis for journal publication, another step in this wonderful endless journey of professional learning.

But… today I am on lifeguard duty at the pool… an exhausting experience of a totally different kind.

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