Findings

I have started what is probably one of the two most difficult chapters. Findings are what exactly I saw when I was in the classrooms..... the other chapter, Significance, is where I explain why my findings matter. As CPB says, "the 'so what' part". As a graduate student, this is the chapter (or section) you read first.

So here is the introduction to my findings. I am still playing with how to introduce each of the three teachers (and no doubt CPB will have much to say about it) but this is what they call "a sh-tty first draft" - a necessary part of writing...

I entered each of these three classrooms trying hard to set expectations aside. I had been warned on several occasions to observe and record what I saw and not make judgments. This of course was a difficult task. In his work, Blink, Gladwell (2005) wrote about experts “knowing before they know”. Shortly after entering each of the three classrooms, “I knew” that these teachers would be excellent sources of information; they were practitioners of quality teaching. It took a great deal of additional time to figure out why I knew this and which practices in particular were beneficial and which others not so. At times, this knowing made my work more difficult and at others it was most helpful.

In the next part I give specifics about each of the three teachers.

yeah, so that is what I have so far.... no doubt Andy will say that I shouldn't reference pop-culture in my scholarly writing so but it is just such a perfect fit for what I felt/experienced when I first began data collection.

BTW- if you haven't read Blink, it is worth picking up -even if you only read the first and last chapters.