Generative Observation

Many times in my life I believed I could feel someone watching me and had a slight panic attack, I had no idea that at one point in my life I would willingly subject myself to a “Fish Bowl” and volunteer to be watched and evaluated by my peers and a professor. But it happened to myself and my classmates as we endeavored to use our newly practice communication skills to the test. Using Rothwell’s Standard Agenda for problem solving and group discussion, our Fish Bowl groups were able to use group communication skills and critical thinking to arrive at viable solutions for the problems placed before them.

People discuss various issues with their family members, friends, and colleagues (Nam, 2004)17. In the context of education, classroom discussion develops habits of collaborative learning, shows respect for students' voices and experiences, and affirms them as co-creators of knowledge (Brookfield & Preskill, 2005)18. Moreover, it provides valuable feedback to the teacher (Bacay, 2004)19. One format for classroom discussion is Philosophical Chairs (Risi, Schiro, & Serret-Lopez, 2005)20.

I am not merely observing to gather information for this research. This close interaction with students allows me to obtain first-hand responses, reactions and feedbacks from the students on real time. Although I interact with all students, my main focus is on students with special with disabilities. Hence, they are the focus of my research. My observation stems beyond my personal interaction with students. I also observe interactions between students. This also lets me view from a different perspective and point of view.

Interaction adds to the learning that a student would not get if he was isolated. Collaboration with the peer group and facilitator motivates one to bring meaningful discourse to the discussion that will qualify each student as a scholar. Each scholar knows that a contribution must be made to reinforce the learning, trust, and maturity in the community.

His work highlights the importance of social background and context to learning through talk and the value of teamwork within the classroom, to create a shared experience of learning. Through talk and thinking he categorised three differing models of speaking and thinking: disputational talk, cumulative talk and exploratory

The topic that I chose for this week is observational learning. Observational learning is learning by others and imitating their behavior (Griggs, 2009, p. xx). Observational learning can help us when we want to learn how to play sports, drive a car, or even learn to write letters. There are numerous things we can acquire through observational learning. Many of us watched our mother and grandmother bake, or even just cook when we were younger. We picked up many of the things that they did, this is another example of observational learning.

The leader of a shared inquiry discussion not only prepares the interpretive questions that initiate discussion, but also regulates its flow. Leaders challenge participants’ unclear, factually inaccurate, or contradictory statements; follow up on participants’ answers; ask for evidence; and invite further responses. If participants digress from the main point, it is the leader’s responsibility to redirect attention with a question. Leaders must recognize when a question has been resolved and then, by posing a new interpretive question, must direct the group’s efforts toward yet another problem of meaning.

This qualitative study is based on a post-modern, constructivist philosophy. Knowledge is socially constructed, with environmental biases. This study will be conducted in the natural setting of a classroom, with the researcher as a key instrument. Students will provide multiple sources of data through engagement, discussion, and written responses to prompts.

You mention how people tend to conform based on the actions of others and use the example of how people may conform to the actions of police officers since they are a group that is viewed as more powerful, compared to the general population. However, I can also think of a few examples where people may act out and defy the police, which may be in part caused by the power of observation, rather than the power of being accepted/avoiding punishment. According to the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), research consistently shows that minorities are more likely to view law enforcement as suspicious and distrusting compared to their white counterparts, which may be correlated with the high instances of minorities reporting that they feel the police

The expression ‘Conversation Analysis’ is at this point solidly settled as the name for a specific worldview in the investigation of verbal communication that was started in the 1960s by Harvey Sacks, as a team with Emanuel Schegloff and Gail Jefferson. In Conversation Analysis the attention is on the procedural examination of talk-in-cooperation, how members deliberately sort out their connections to take care of a scope of authoritative issues, for example, the dispersion of turns at talking, the community oriented creation of specific activities, or issues of comprehension. The investigation is constantly in view of sound or visual recordings of collaboration, which are precisely interpreted in subtle elements. The exploration ought to be data driven, as in ideas and speculations ought to be founded on watchful thoughts of the information, recordings and transcripts, as opposed to drawn from hypothetical assumptions or ideological inclinations. While initially imagined from a sociological point of view, Conversation Analysis picked up a far reaching gathering in numerous parts of the world by scientists from a scope of disciplinary foundations, including: brain science, human sciences, correspondence ponders and an assortment of phonetic sub-disciplines. As a

On the other hand, when children are asked to discuss in pairs or groups they might discuss something which is not related to what they are learning (Coles and Mcgrath, 2011). Also, certain children may dominate the conversation leading to other children being less involved or completely withdrawn from the discussion. To prevent this from happening children should be taught to use exploratory talk (critical but constructive engagement with each other’s ideas) as a problem – solving and learning tool. Hence, there will be an improvement to group work which in the end will benefit individual learning outcomes (Dawes, Littleton, Mercer, Wegerif and Warwick, 2012). Whereas, teachers may cut opportunities for discussion short due to time related pressures, including increasing demand to cover curriculum content, meet standards, plan and implement interventions. This results in teachers often taking control of discussion. Thus, opportunities for students to engage in meaningful and extended activities that require them to think, question, reflect, and respond can be limited. Relative absence of discussion and real talk present missed opportunities for both students and teachers. This includes promoting engagement, learning and informing teaching. These challenges can be overcome by carefully planning discussion times in lessons to motivate students in thinking and learning.

During this learning experience, I focused on two students, Focus Child 1 who was identified earlier as Student F and Focus Child 2 who was identified earlier as Student A. Focus Child 1, was able to analyze the passage after it was read out loud to the students. She participated in the group discussion and made connections to her life during the group discussion. Focus Child 1 related the passage to a moment when she was struggling during writing and wanted to give up. The student also provided a way in which she overcame this obstacle, which was drawing a graphic organizer for her writing. I used a checklist during the group discussion which asked “Did student participate in discussion? Did student use evidence from the text to support their answers?”. Student did participate in the discussion and made connections however the student was unable to use textual evidence to support her answer as she made inferences of the message of the passage. The student also had a work sample where she had to show the evidence underlined in different colors to support each answer to the questions that were being asked and met with me one on one for guidance. The student was able to understand what the character

observer, single-theory studies" (Jacob 2001 cited in Yeasmin and Rahman 2012). For those reasons, the combination of different research methods will enable the researcher to confirm the results and draw a conclusion from different findings. However, while interview and classroom observation instruments can coordinate well together, combining CA with other research instruments might be inherently problematic (Ten Have, 1990). Drawing from the principles of CA, the researcher is aware that CA takes an emic trajectory towards data analysis. Recordings are CA’s basic data and “CA resolutely refuses to accept the analytic relevant of respondent validation”(Richards et al., 2012:301). This posts a challenge on the decision of combining CA with classroom observation and interview in terms of method compatibility and validity. However, it is argued that when choosing the mix-method approach, the researcher chooses not to follow this traditional way of using CA. Rather, the researcher will only draw on the strength of CA to look at the data with attention to features of talk, avoid CA narrow focus and use other research instruments.

Group discussion and case analyses are guided by tutors sensitive to participants’ comfort levels. Cases and discussion are designed to introduce increasingly challenging concepts through the course.

The speaker discussed Gestalt theory, the use of it in therapy, and her background with Gestalt. She was very insightful and knowledgeable about the topic which made the time fly. After giving insight and information about Gestalt, the speaker engaged the audience with a variety of activities. This allowed most individuals to work together and create things with pipe cleaners all while not verbally communicating with others they were working with. This showed that people tend to just go along with others, a leader is established, and that when more people are involved the less clear a message or design will be. Working alone during this activity, an individual was able to have a clear and obvious