Catching up

Unfortunately, the dissertation was so time consuming, that since I went back to work full-time on it I had no time to document the process. Now, a few days after the defence, I can write a few lines on that.

Writing the results was a real challenge. I thought an undergraduate dissertation wouldn't give me a chance to feel the water coming up over my neck, but I was wrong. The results were hard for many reasons. On the one hand, they brought the evidence of mistakes in the methodology. I had noticed some while I gathered my data, and managed to fix a few in time; but some others were unforeseeable to me at that time, and "emerged" like ugly warts when I did my data analysis. This is absolutely normal, because this dissertation was my first piece of empirical research ever, and I knew hardly anything about research methods in the field. So, by the time I was close to the end of the dissertation, I knew enough to spot my mistakes (some of them, because I still don't know enough to discover others, I am sure), but nothing could be done to fix them. As a result, there was this "moment of panic" weekend, where I was thinking "oh, my god, this doesn't make any sense!".

The other difficult part of dealing with the results was the fact that I analysed my data from every angle I could think of, and there was a moment when the results were far too many to map in my mind. It took me some days to select the relevant results and construct a story that made some sense with them. Because, at the end of the day, a dissertation is a story; a narration telling that you started off with a sound knowledge on your research topic, you discovered the niche you wanted to occupy in the field of your research, you carefully thought of how you were going to solve the riddles you had in your mind, you went out and proceeded exactly as planned, you analysed your data according to the plan, and you reached your conclusions afterwards. And, well, my dissertation didn't follow a linear path like that. It wasn't a complete mess, but it wasn't exactly as I told it. And I suspect that is true for many other pieces of research, at least among the less experienced like myself.

And, then, the results seemed to go on and on. I had to do a crash course on statistical analysis on the go, which didn't help speed up the work, either. The whole month of May I sat in front of the computer writing the results, and at one moment I thought I wouldn't be able to make it on time, because I didn't want to rush and end up producing something I wasn't happy with. Even if I had tried to be very concise, the methodology and results chapters were long, and my text ended up being a few thousand characters over the limit. Therefore, I had to leave out a whole subsection of the results, and cut as much as I could from the rest.

Another difficult aspect of the dissertation was the extensive reading I had to do in order to cover the topics chosen. When I narrowed down my research topic to autobiographical storytelling, I thought I was going to be fine. Although storytelling is a very wide topic, personal narrative is a manageable sub-category, and I believed I was safe after I chose it. The problem is that the sort of variables I decided to analyse (comprehension, motivation, engagement) belong to very wide research topics in language learning, and it was difficult to learn enough about them in the seven months I spent working on the dissertation. I believe that the most interesting results of the project actually came from the analysis of how those variables interacted among each other, but I pushed myself very close to my limit.

I was also lucky during the process, because some of the decisions I took in the early stages, particularly when I made my experimental design, turned out well, even if I didn't know enough about what I was doing at the time. For example, I decided that I should have different sources of data, like a questionnaire and video recordings. It seemed common sense to me at the time to have additional sources of information to study if one of them went wrong because I had designed it badly, or something went wrong during the activities. I had to take those decisions in January, when I hadn't finished all my reading, and I didn't know enough about research methods in social sciences. Later on I learned that what I called common sense was actually called triangulation in the social sciences. To be completely honest, I think that this sort of luck is the one that goes together with sweat, but chance was partly involved in the results, and it happened to be on my side.

Of course, not all (good and bad) was due to myself and to luck. As for the good, I received a lot of help from others, some known and some unknown. My dissertation and school placement supervisors gave me very useful advice and proofread the document, giving me very valuable feedback. All the teachers in the units of this last year focused on the dissertation, and how they could help us improve our skills to do better through the assignments for their units. The rest of my teachers during the degree have also helped me greatly during the four years, so I could construct my personal map of what education is, and gave me opportunities to train the skills needed to complete the undergraduate dissertation. And, of course, in a degree where most units are based on group work and collective assignments, whatever I have learned was always with the help of my classmates and group-mates. The undergraduate dissertation is an individual piece of work in the last year of your degree, but the resources you use to complete it have been shaped during the previous years in the interaction with others. Well, at least that is the way I have grown to see what learning is, within Vygotsky's sociocultural theory of learning. Internet, on the other hand, gave me the chance to access guidelines and advice on how to tackle an undergraduate dissertation, and that was of great help too.

On the other hand, I decided to go for a formal poster design that would match the general tone of the dissertation, and that made it very easy to prepare. It would have been nice to experiment with more exciting layouts, but considering that my timing was tight, I think I made the right decision.

Finally, regarding computer problems, I was extremely lucky. My computer decided to crash during one of those operating system automatic updates, but thankfully that was two days after I had handed in the final versions of the dissertation and the poster. I spent two days recovering the original OS, updating it manually and recovering some software such as the browser and its plugins and addons,  which are essential to open the dissertation document. Honestly, I can't imagine what it would have been like if it had happened a week before.

So, in summary, I think that the undergraduate dissertation has been a very good addition to the degree. It gives you the opportunity to learn new things compared to the rest of units in the degree, and it is of great help to build the researching teacher profile that our university wants to promote, which happens to be the profile I like the most myself. After completing an undergraduate research project, teachers are likely to be better prepared to take part in research projects in collaboration with university researchers and other teachers, and I think that will help improve education in the long run.

Minorraren inguruko feedbacka

Ingeleseko ahozko azterketa taldeko eztabaida bat izan zen, gure irakasleak entzule lanetan zeudela. Guri jarri ziguten gaia Minorraren inguruko feedbacka ematea izan zen. Beno, egia esan, borobilean eseri eta Minorrari buruz ordura arte esandakoaz gain beste ezer gehitu nahi ote genuen galdetu zigutenean galdera izotzaldia urtzeko sarreratxo bat zela ulertu nuen, eta "benetako" azterketako proba ondoren etorriko zela uste nuen.

Gauza da ez nintzela oso gustura geratu eztabaidaren emaitzekin. Ikasleon aldetik feedback negatiboa egon zen ia bakarrik, eta esan zen gauza positibo bakarrari heldu eta hori pixka bat landu beharrean, segituan eman zitzaion buelta alde txarra bilatzeko.

Gure irakasleek ez zuten ia hitz egin, guk hitz egiteko momentua zela adierazi zigutelako. Irakasleen artean gure iritziek izan zuten harrera argitzeko, haien hitz batzuk ekarriko ditut hona. Ez ditut hitzez hitz gogoratzen, baina honelako zerbait izan zen:
A: Tira, ba zuen kexa horiek guztiak idatzi egin beharko zenituzkete eta "B"-ri bidali - ezkerrean zuen irakasleari zuzenduz - zuzendaritzako taldeko kidea baita.
B: Beno, agian "A"-ri bidali beharko zenizkiokete, bera baita Minorreko zuzendaria.
A: Zuzendaria ez, koordinatzailea.

Hori guztia irribarreen artean esan bazen ere, iruditu zitzaidan ez zuela lagundu ikasleon eta irakasleen arteko harremana hobetzeko eta konfiantzazko giroa sortzeko. Agian orain ez dauka horrenbesteko garrantzirik, ez baitugu ia elkar ikusiko hemendik aurrera, baina ez ninduen ondo sentiarazi, hala ere.

Behar bada feedbackaren inguruan dudan iritzia lanean partaidetza prozesuak dinamizatzetik datorkit. Hain da nabarmena jendearen artean aurpegira botatako gauza negatiboak positiboak baino gehiago direnean prozesuak emaitza garratzak izango dituela, unibertsitateko eragileen arteko harremanak ere arreta berarekin behatzen ditudala, eta antzeko jarrerak ikusten ditut.

egon + egin = izan

Graduko lau ikasturteetan zehar ikasi dugu irakasleak bi lan nagusi dituela: egotea eta egitea. Horrela ulertu dut nik behintzat. Graduko ikasgai guztietan izan dugu aukera egoteari eta aritzeari buruz ikasteko. Hala ere, ikasgai batzuk bereziki zuzendu dira egotea lantzera, eta beste batzuk egitera bideratu dira. Lehendabizikoen artean jarriko nituzke Hezkuntzaren Soziologia, Hezkuntzaren Teoria eta Historia, Irakasle Funtzioa, Hezkuntzaren Psikologia, Eskola Inklusiboaren Oinarriak eta Zailtasunak Garapen eta Ikaskuntzan. Garapen Psikomotorra I eta II egotea eta egitea estuki uztartzen dituzten ikasgai moduan bizi izan ditut nik, baita Ikastetxearen Antolakuntza ere, hiru Practicumekin batera. Gainontzeko ikasgaiak, orokorrean, egiteari buruzkoak izan dira, irakasleren batek edukiak egoteari buruzko gogoeta egitera bideratu bazituen ere.

Ondorioz, esango nuke gradua egoteari buruz ikasten hasi genuela, eta hortik aurrera egitearen inguruko ikasgaiek nabarmen hartu zutela aurrea. Batzuetan faltan bota ditut egotea lantzeko aukerak azken bi ikasturteetan. Nire ustez, zailagoa da egotea lantzea eta hobetzea, eta zailago izate horrek azkenean garrantzitsuago bihurtzen du. Zer egin errazagoa da ikasten, baina nola egin... hori beste kontu bat da.

Bestetik, beldur naiz nire gelakide gehienak ez ote diren azken bi ikasturteetan gehien landu dugun horrekin geratuko, egitea alegia, egotea alde batera utzita. Azken batean, hogeita bi urte dituzunean duela lau urte egindakoa galaxia urrun batean dago.

Back on the road

I finished with all the assignments, and now I only have the dissertation left. I have been dreading the moment when everything else but the dissertation was finished. I thought I had probably forgotten where I had left it two months ago, as well as the contents of all the articles I had read.

But today I just couldn't delay it anymore, and I went back to writing. It was actually a nice surprise to see that I remembered the only small bit I had left without finishing in the methodology chapter, and I found the articles I needed for that immediately (good thing I had classified the articles in topics that made sense to me). It turns out my old brain is not as bad as I thought.

Now I "just" have to write the results and the conclusions, and go back to the literature review and fix it. And I have four weeks left until I hand in my final draft and the poster. And after that, a couple of weeks more to present the poster and have the oral defence. I prefer to think it's going to be a piece of cake!

Aurkezpenetarako eta irudien ediziorako tresnak

Aspaldian nire buruari jarritako etxekolanen artean bi tresna hauek blogera ekartzea zegoen. Bata, PowToon, animazio motzak egiteko da. Egia esan, lanen aurkezpenak eta bideo motzak egiteko Prezi baino interesgarriagoa iruditzen zait; Prezi beti iruditu zait lioso samarra eta gelakide bati baino gehiagori arazoak eman dizkio. Itxura ez-profesionala duten adibideen artean hauxe gustatu zait gehien:

Beste tresna irudiak editatzeko freeware-a da, GIMP izenekoa. Ez dut probatu oraindik, baina itxura ona du.

Whom is your text suitable for?

During the degree and the Minor, we have often discussed how important it is to use texts suited for the audience we intend to reach. I have come across a tool that can help in this sense, a website named "Analyze my writing", which gives a set of readability scores for any sample text you copy and paste into it. It offers details about the readability indices it includes and is very easy to use.

I have given it a try with a quite informal text for my self-assessment on a unit in the Minor, the autobiographical story I told a group of fourth-graders during the school placement, and with a sample from my dissertation, and the scores are quite different.

I think it can be useful to test the difficulty level of texts before taking them to the English class, as well as to check that we are producing the right type of texts for our most formal assignments, like the dissertation.

Dissertation, what's that?

I have hardly touched my dissertation since we went back to our university lessons back in February. It's been almost two months now.

I am not terribly worried yet, but I need to get back to it as soon as I can. I am finishing off some last assignments now, and once I get that out of the way I will take out the piles of articles and books again.

This long break has some advantages and disadvantages. I will need to re-read many of the articles, because they are not fresh in my mind any more, which is a bit of a pain. That's the worst part. The good side is that I should be able to have a more objective view on what I have done so far, which is also dangerous, because I might decide to change many things. All in all, I think the break will be for the better, because having finished too early would have made me forget what it was all about by the time I had to present it, and it would have been much harder to maintain the tension I still need to keep until the end of June.

Right now, my body and a good part of my mind want to rest, believe it's all done, and relax. But this is not over yet, and I need to continue thinking day by day for another two months. And regarding the dissertation presentation, our last group presentation of the term reminded me that I need to hope (and work hard) for the best, but prepare myself for the worst at the same time. So, yes, there is plenty of work ahead.