Tag Archives: support group

New start… exciting

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I have been feeling a bit isolated recently and have noticed a lack of interaction surrounding my research since the intensive month I experienced in Australia. It’s not that I haven’t been working. Choosing to write a journal article as a means of getting myself going has proved useful. I am still waiting for feedback on the draft I submitted to International Journal X and I do indeed hope it will be accepted (after revisions… of course). Having a clear cut deadline to work towards gives me the kind of work-inducing pressure that I seem to need.

In the next two weeks I have three other urgent tasks – producing abstracts for two conferences to be held here in Israel this year (one national and the other international) and finalizing permission from the Chief Scientist’s Office so that I can begin my interviews ASAP.

I am excited that on Sunday I am travelling to Tel Aviv to participate in the Mofet Teacher Educator Interest Groups for qualitative researchers. I have never attended any of their sessions and this year I signed up for two different groups. I am looking forward to a whole day of stimulating discussion and thought provoking interaction. This, along with my ongoing doctoral writing group, will be another means of meeting people doing similar work to mine, here in Israel. I am interested to see how my work fits in to the academic puzzle here in this country.

In the morning I will be attending the interest group for researchers connected to action research. This group is run by Professor Michal Zellermayer from Levinsky College. The afternoon group deals with narrative inquiry and is run by Dr Gabriela Spector Mersel from Ben-Gurion University. This week there is a lecture by Professor Yehuda Bar-Shalom between the two sessions. There will be 5 days like this one throughout the 2011-2012 academic year.

If anyone reading this is attending, I would be honored to meet you…

Today I am a student… – more identity issues

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I have written often about my varied roles and identities, and usually I concentrate on the struggle to devote enough time and energy to each role. When I am Nikki the teacher, I am constantly troubled that I  am not devoting enough time and / or effort to my PhD and when I do grab the time for my studies, I always have a nagging conscience that I’m not “working”.

Friday is usually my main PhD day – getting up at 4 am well before the family and throwing myself into whatever I’m supposed to be doing (my literature review at the moment). Yesterday I did something different. I got into the car at 6:30 am and drove all the way to Tel Aviv University, to join an Israeli forum for PhD students. The group is run under the auspices of the Tel Aviv sociology school but is open to other humanities research students. Yesterday there was an interesting session with Dr Nitza Berkovitch from Ben Gurion University.

The session was about building an academic career, in particular how, when and why to present at conferences. I gained a lot from the information supplied but also from just “being there”. I need these pushes every now and again. I need to say to myself: “Yes, Nikki, you really are a PhD student, you really are writing a doctorate…”. When I can stop and say these things to myself, I get tremendous pleasure from “being there”, feeling a student, acting as a student and even being able to imagine the day when I will be able to devote myself to research, teacher learning …

As soon as I sat down in the lecture room, organized in a circular fashion, I saw an ex-student of mine. I recognized her immediately, even though I haven’t seen her for 20 years and despite the fact that she was 11 and in grade 6 when I saw her last. When we left the room I approached her and said hello. She recognized me instantly and said “Nikki!”.

“You remember me?” I asked. “Of course” she replied, “I especially remember you reading books to us and I remember the question and answer box you made for us for our sex education lessons”.

I was happy to meet her and happy that there were things I did which were significant. However, the meeting did other things for me. The whole identity issue washed over me again – I came here as a student but even here I can’t be just  a PhD student. Maybe I should come to terms with the fact that my roles are so intertwined that they can’t ever be separated. When I am acting as a leader of professional learning, I am talking to the teachers as a colleague, as a teacher. When I am writing my doctorate, I am writing it as a researcher (still don’t feel comfortable with that title!) but also as a teacher and teacher educator.

Something else happened when I met my student, I also felt old – something I deal with every time I put my PhD hat on. How on earth can one of my grade 6 students be doing a PhD?

I walked away smiling happily. I had a wonderful day!

Feedback!

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thinking

Yesterday afternoon I presented a narrative I wrote over the recent holidays to the group of doctoral students I joined. First I must say that because of the meeting I was forced to sit down and write and the result was a 2500 word narrative about the teacher stories written by the teachers participating in my courses. I chose to write the narrative in a similar style to those I wrote for my MEd thesis and my article in English in Australia.

One of the things that interested me was the fact that I chose to write this narrative in Hebrew and not in English. I have been pondering over the reasons for this and have come up with three:

  1. I wanted to receive significant feedback from the group and thought it would be easier to achieve this if the text was in the members’ mother tongue
  2. The context of the narrative and the teacher-texts contained in it are Hebrew based
  3. I am thinking about my work more in Hebrew.

In my thesis examiners’ report, BD suggested I look into the bilingual aspect of my work more closely. He suggested I do far more than simply translating sections directly from one language to the other. I’m still not sure what this means…

I was surprised to receive compliments on the writing of the narrative, all three members commented on the readability and interest in the text. When I sent them the file, I was aware that I was feeling OK about sharing my writing and that I am definitely more confident about my writing skills than I was two years ago.

Most of our meeting was around the difficult “So what?” questions and the “What is this text?” “Do you consider this a research text?” “How does this fit in?” questions. I still find it very difficult to answer these questions and it was very important for me to sit and try and answer them intelligently and clearly. Many points arose and I have a lot of thinking to do to try to make things clearer.

I will write more about this soon, maybe then I will have some orderly thoughts (see image…). 

 

RF image: http://www.images.com/

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blog pic

A  few weeks ago I wrote about being invited to join a small group of PG students who meet monthly and last week I attended my first session. The group meets once a month, each time in a different home.

A few days before the session, H emailed out materials she is dealing with at the moment (interview transcripts, interview summary etc) and wanted to hear our opinions and ideas. She was searching for a different way to look at her data. We drank hot tea and discussed how we read her texts differently from the way she reads them and how they can be examined in other ways. The discussion was informal and extremely supportive – thinking together out loud in order to help her find her way in the mass of data.

I was interested to feel H’s interview style and the way her transcripts were organized. I was fascinated by the way she records her thoughts about the data and her attempt to classify her interviewees into distinct groups. From her descriptions I learnt new terms and was introduced to new theories.

I m grateful to be part of the group and believe that it will  be stimulating and supportive. The chance to look at the writing of others in unfinished drafts and to hear other doctoral students discuss their deliberations and breakthrough moments will be very influential in my work. I will be able to contribute to others and at the same time negate some of the loneliness and isolation of being an off-campus student.

I am supposed to present some work at the next session. As I’m not doing much at the moment, this could pose a problem but I am going to look at it as an opportunity. I have decided that during the Passover holidays I am going to finish grading the assignments from my Z course and write a narrative about the whole experience. As I don’t  yet have ethics clearance to include those assignments in my work, I will have to write about the course as a whole and more about my experience and understandings. Having to have a draft to show is a positive step in the direction of getting something done.

RF picture: http://www.images.com/

Wandering down a new path

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path_blossoms_blossom_244692_l

There is no such beautiful walkway anywhere around here, or at least I haven’t found it, but I have been invited to wander down a new and promising path.

When I went to the lecture by Dr Clandinin in Jerusalem, I was asked for a lift  by a doctoral student who lives an hour or so from me. On the long drive home we had a great chat about her work and mine, about taking first steps in academia and of course about the seminar we had just attended. On the way, she told me that she was a participant in a small group of doctoral students and researchers which meets every two months or so to read work in progress, to discuss it and to give and receive feedback.

This week I received an email inviting me to join this group and of course I happily accepted.  Although I really don’t have time to take on more obligations, this is an opportunity too good to miss. I need to talk about my work and research in general with people, face to face. I also need to begin to understand how the academic world ticks over here. Again, I am feeling the loneliness of off campus research and if I am serious about pulling this through and successfully doing the work I am dreaming of doing, I need to develop additional support frameworks.

This morning I sent the four group members a letter of introduction and I will attend my first meeting in early February. I’m looking forward to it!

 

royalty free photo: http://www.everystockphoto.com/photo.php?imageId=244692