Tag Archives: Education

Student Blogs

Finally Getting to the Good Part

Part I of my thesis was supposed to be completed by the beginning of October, and although I am slightly behind where I originally hoped to be, I finally feel like I am moving into the part of this process that I have been most excited about. Getting through theory is always difficult for me. I understand how necessary it is, especially for grounding the arguments I want to make, but working through theoretical material takes a different kind of attention than analyzing the texts themselves. Now that I have made it through much of that foundation, I can finally turn more of my attention toward analyzing my readings and source material.

This is the part I have been looking forward to because I genuinely love these pieces in different ways and could probably speak about each of them endlessly. Ironically, that has also made the process more difficult. The challenge has not been figuring out what I want to say, but deciding what I should not say. I had to narrow my focus and choose specific sections of the episode and readings that will allow me to develop the argument without trying to analyze everything at once. I finally feel like I have made those decisions, which has made the writing feel much more manageable.

My goal is to have this section completed by the end of the week. Now that I have submitted all of my students’ grades, I have intentionally designated time and attention specifically for my thesis. I am realizing that this semester requires me to be much more deliberate about protecting that time.

For some reason, all of the semesters before this one seemed easier to manage. This school year has only just begun, and I already feel tired and somewhat burnt out. Part of that may be because I have more than forty additional students compared to last year, along with juniors who somehow already seem to have developed senioritis. Balancing teaching, grading, planning, and my own graduate work has definitely been more demanding than I anticipated.

Still, December is slowly approaching, and I can finally see the end of the tunnel. There is something motivating about knowing that I am getting closer not only to completing this section, but to completing the degree itself. For now, I am trying to focus less on how exhausted I feel and more on the fact that I have finally reached the part of the thesis that reminds me why I chose this project in the first place.

Student Blogs

Sailing the Seven Seas

Disclaimer: For all intents and purposes, especially for the purposes of a legal matter, all of the following is a joke. Again, any references to any hypothetical theft, piracy, or crimes (punishable by law within the fifty states of the United States of America) are purely hypothetical scenarios made in jest in order to entertain an audience. The persons and events in this blog are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons or events is unintentional. Please don’t sue or arrest me. I’m broke and too pretty for jail.

Anywhoseits, on a completely unrelated note, I refuse to pay the NYT, or any other major news corporation for that matter, any amount of money in order to read a document. (And before you say anything, the writers have already been paid! Any money I hypothetically did not spend on the subscription would have gone to the the shareholders and upper management.) It’s also just so much fun. If you wonder where I get this sentiment from, please watch the video below. 

In order to circumvent this, I may have, possibly, allegedly, hypothetically, stolen a bunch of articles for my thesis. I currently, may, have about 45 articles hidden in a google drive folder. I definitely didn’t do this by clicking on the article then hitting command+A before the paywall arose. And I would never open up a blank google doc and paste everything into that. And I most certainly didn’t go through each article to get rid of the ads and find more victims articles. I definitely wouldn’t recommend anyone do the same. 

“Freedom is so much the essence of man that even its opponents implement it while combating its reality; they want to appropriate for, themselves as a most precious ornament what they have rejected as an ornament of human nature.” -Karl Marx

How’d that get there?

Now that I have finished my, entirely hypothetical, warning of what not to do when finding sources, let me get to what I have actually done. 

So, for those who don’t know, my plan is to write a speculative horror fiction anthology focusing on the impact LLMs are having within writing centric spaces. I am drawing inspiration from works like Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale, Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone, and The News (Dun Dun duhhhh). By “The News” I mean that I only want to use events that have already happened or have a foundation in things already happening, similar to the approach Atwood took to Handmaid’s Tale.

““Somebody asked me on Twitter recently, ‘How do you come up with this shit?’ My answer was, ‘It’s not me who has come up with it, it’s the human race over the past 4,000 years.’” – Margaret Atwood

The section I am working on right now hits particularly close to home. The chapter follows a teacher who, over the course of a year, is replaced by the very AI she trained. There are a few precedents I am drawing on as inspiration for this story.

  1. There is a large push in the education field to integrate AI into both our professional practices and the classroom. We are being told to use programs like Chat and Magic school to create resources, lesson plans, and activities for our classroom. At the same time, they are telling us to have students use AI chat rooms for activities and project creation. 
  2. Earlier this year, Melania Trump praised AI in the field of education and suggested that it could/should replace teachers in the classroom. (Which is ironic, coming from one of two first ladies who hasn’t completed a degree since 1897.)
  3. While Linda McMahon disagrees that teachers should be replaced, she does cosign that it should be integrated into the curriculum and classroom environment. (Also ironic, considering the fact that she has never actually taught a class.)

My general virtial for the government aside, the move towards AI being a staple in the classroom is terrifying. 

So the plan is to draw on that sense of dread that I experience that keeps me up every night, staring into the dark abyss, contemplating my existence. Write what you know and what not. 

I want to give a special shout out to Dr. Sisler! Dr. Sisler has helped me a lot with establishing a basis for the research. She was nice enough to send me some links to articles (for legal purposes, these links are completely unrelated to any links mentioned in the prior, completely made up, story.) that really helped when it came down to a starting point for the research. 

I’m having fun writing it, so far, and I’m excited for what the other stories have in store. 

Until next time, Dear Reader.

Student Blogs

Hold the Applause

Hello again! Please don’t clap. At this point, I think we all know who I am, so I will spare everyone another introduction. I’m Nas, I’m working on a thesis about care, labor, intimacy, and all the complicated things that happen when those ideas collide, and somehow I am getting dangerously close to actually finishing this thing.

Right now, I am almost finished with Part I of my thesis, which focuses on close readings and care studies. I have been working through my primary texts while thinking about care as labor, emotional investment, time, sacrifice, and something that can be both deeply intimate and deeply exhausting. I started it during our “rat summer,” and I’m still gong. My goal is to have Part I completed before the end of September. For once, that deadline actually feels realistic, which I am choosing not to question too much.

My independent study with Dr. Giunta is also giving me the space to be intentional about what comes next. Once Part I is finished, I want October to be dedicated primarily to my autoethnographic piece. This is the part I am both excited about and slightly terrified to write because it asks me to move from analyzing other people’s stories of care into examining my own. I know it will require a different kind of vulnerability than the analytical section, but I also think it may ultimately become one of the most meaningful parts of the project.

Then comes November and Part III. My goal is to spend that month developing the final portion of the thesis so that by the last few weeks of the semester, I am no longer trying to produce entirely new sections. Ideally, those final weeks will be reserved for revision, restructuring, making connections across the three parts, and probably staring at sentences I have read 47 times wondering if they are still written in English.

For now, though, I feel good about where I am. There is still a lot to write, rethink, cut, add, and inevitably overthink, but the thesis is beginning to feel less like this giant abstract project I have been talking about forever and more like an actual body of work that is taking shape. September is for finishing Part I. October belongs to autoethnography. November belongs to Part III. And then, hopefully, I revise my way across the finish line.

Student Blogs

Where I am with my Thesis

So, I will admit that I’ve jumped the gun on this process quite a bit. I honestly never thought that I’d be excited about research, so this is a very weird time for me lol.

So, where am I at? Well, Dr. Libbey and I spoke the other day, and we will be meeting in-person on Monday before our next Thesis class. Right now, I have my faculty letter (project description) completed, and I also have a more detailed project overview document completed (which explains everything about my proposed thesis plan). While I have not conducted any research yet, I am very familiar with the Charlotte Danielson evaluation model. The research I will be conducting will be based on four areas:

Charlotte Danielson Framework

  • The research/theory behind the Danielson Framework
  • Why the domains/components were selected
  • How Danielson defines effective/highly effective teaching
  • Research on the framework’s validity and reliability
  • Criticisms and limitations of Danielson
  • Research on whether highly structured evaluation rubrics accurately capture effective teaching

Kean University’s Evaluation Model

  • Obtain and study the actual evaluation instrument
  • Understand each criterion and how performance is assessed
  • Determine the intended purpose of the model
  • Research the theoretical/research basis for its criteria, if one exists
  • Determine how much evaluator judgment/discretion the model allows
  • Compare its level of specificity with Danielson

Teacher Evaluation & Classroom Observation

  • Research on classroom observations as measures of teaching effectiveness
  • Observer subjectivity/bias
  • Inter-rater reliability
  • Whether a limited number of observations can accurately represent teaching
  • Evaluation for accountability vs. evaluation for professional growth

K–12 vs. Higher Education

  • How K–12 teachers are typically evaluated
  • How college professors/instructors are typically evaluated
  • Differences in expectations between secondary and college instructors
  • Similarities in what each setting considers “effective teaching”
  • Whether practices from higher education can reasonably transfer to secondary classrooms

Methodology for My Own Study

  • Qualitative classroom observation
  • Comparative case-study methodology
  • Practitioner inquiry/research
  • Reflective practice
  • Researcher positionality—especially because you’re already trained in Danielson
  • Limitations of using four observations
  • How to avoid claiming that four professors represent all higher-education instructors

My Original Research

  • Conduct four faculty observations
  • Score/analyze each observation using Danielson
  • Analyze the same observation using Kean’s model
  • Record evidence supporting each judgment
  • Compare what each framework notices, rewards, penalizes, or overlooks
  • Identify patterns across all four observations
  • Reflect on whether one framework’s additional specificity actually provides additional useful information
  • Consider what aspects of college-level instruction could inform secondary teaching/evaluation

I know that this is a lot to be sharing right now, but honestly, there is a lot that I need to research before beginning Thesis 2. Much of the information above are genuine concerns. For example, my observations could be questioned because of my biases, or because it’s only one person conducting the observation. In addition, when observers are present, students act differently. This is also something that needs to be supported by research, and not just word-of-mouth, when I discuss it in Thesis 2, because these are all factors that can affect/influence the validity of my findings.

Overall, I think I’m in a good spot. My outline for the next few weeks is:

  1. Begin the IRB process (preferably ASAP)
  2. Get approval from professors so that I can observe them.
  3. Begin observing professors.
  4. Slowly conduct my research.
  5. Finish my literature review before December, so that I have enough time to begin refinements.

The only thing I am totally clueless about is how to start the IRB process. LOL. See you all next week!

Student Blogs

Breaking the Texts, Building the Argument

This week, I began narrowing down my primary texts and organizing how I will approach each one through specific themes. Instead of trying to make each text do everything, I decided that each will focus on one key aspect of caregiving that connects to my larger thesis. At this point, my primary texts are Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid, Kindred (series adaptation of Octavia Butler’s novel), Atlanta “Trini 2 De Bone,” The Help by Kathryn Stockett, and Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid.

From the feedback from my presentation last week, I have broken these texts into themes that allow me to explore different dimensions of care. With Lucy, I am focusing on emotional intimacy versus resentment, looking at how caregiving can exist alongside resistance and unresolved identity. With Kindred, I decided to use the series version so I can do a deeper visual and narrative analysis, focusing on care as survival and forced labor, especially within systems of power. I still have two more episodes to watch before fully selecting my scenes. For Atlanta, I will focus on absence and emotional displacement, particularly how the caregiver shapes the child in ways the parents cannot. In The Help, I will explore racialized care and conditional love, paying attention to how genuine emotional bonds exist within unequal systems. For Such a Fun Age, I plan to focus on surveillance, performance, and the tensions of modern caregiving, though I still need to select specific quotes and scenes. I am also still working on identifying the most effective passages in Lucy to close read.

Moving forward, my main task for this upcoming week is to begin connecting these primary texts to my supplemental readings on the politics of care, labor, and intimacy. The goal is to make sure that each close reading is grounded in theory and contributes to my overall argument rather than standing alone. As I continue watching, rereading, and selecting specific excerpts, I am working toward building a cohesive structure where each text supports a different part of my thesis.