"Something Just Like This..."

Was getting a bit detached from my dissertation for sometime.  

I had to be with family end of April to mid-May.

A very dear aunt died.  So I decided to  spend quality Zoom time hosting novenas and rosary prayer sessions for my relatives. Weird act from a very Protestant me.  But it was really a good time to catch up with my cousins.

We ended up unloading stories, making chismis. It was like 4 nights of life disclosures within the 9 day novena until the actual Zoom memorial.  We cried lots.

Losing Tita Ely is pretty close. The first death that actually hit me was Jerico's. Christened him as the He-Devil to go with my She-Devil Associate In Arts student. We spent good times at the UPOU community site, offline included. 

Anyways, just a weird thing happened.

I was daydreaming about my auto-ethnography to fill in more discussion points. I was reading more about teacher/ academic identities, and identities of Academic Language and Learning Advisors-- such creatures and possible ways to dig into their epistemic and pedagogical beliefs. I came across an article on the use of metaphors  in narrative inquiry discourses and sensemaking.

So I was trying to reconcile whether I should still maintain using superhero metaphors and actually wondered where the superhero metaphor started.  It was like a weird idea back then to engage my new found colleagues at UPOU to see whether how game they could possibly be. I set up my Scratch Pepper at UPOU Google Sites. I was testing content in tables and I sort of imagined each of them in their future selves at UPOU. I entitled it as

"Lay your Claim". Funny that some of them took a bite :) So yeah, I think I secretly knew that I can grow old with them. But to grow old with them also meant I should be someone they can live with or even deserve to grow old with.

Fastforward, I was now getting ready to let go of the superhero metaphor and use their real names in my autoethnog cuz Im sure they would not mind.

Then came the feedback of internal reader, Dr Karen Spence. And OMGOD, I use a GOD to emphasize that she must be God-sent= a surprise superhero. Gahhd, the 'labor' on my work was obvious. Is she an alien or what?!?
Her pencilmarks, checks and corrections brought me back to my chapters -- and this time, I'm looking at my work and my life from a different light. Yes, it has been my labor of pain and joy, for three straight years. Had to cut ties because of this thing called PhD. And yes it had a way of changing me. 

So I managed to quickly get into this zone of proximal submission with that last major fix-ins & add-ons on my chapters. Why not pick a Coldplay while I'm in this zone-- first time to really get into the tune and lyrics of "Something just like this". May I drown in the beat, it kept me going. Lovely lyrics.  Was trying to relate with the superhero lines. Yeah, it seems like a good match while working on my chapters page by page.

Close to 6pm, I was overcome with emotion --  I guess this feeling that I'm close to submission and that up to the last minute, you get the help you need from this person. I searched her at the USQ website. There she was. She's this mysterious lady whose name I obviously forgot but whose face really stuck to my memory.  My first time to see her felt like the time I first met Kat at the UPOU Facrum.  They both were the quiet and reserved type. She reminded me so much of her...a dear colleague who is no longer with UPOU. It got me thinking also of Jerico, RIP., who is  no longer 'here'.  Like if he were alive today, I know I can count on him too for this thing called PhD.

Going back to OMGOD, I've wanted to make conversation with her but I just felt she wanted to spend her lunchbreak in silence.  Well I guess the conversation took a different form --  Her writing on my work= the quality time she spent reading my work AND my brain was more than what I asked for.  And I can only feel gratitude all over again.

God takes away key persons in our lives because He has other plans for them. 

Or that there are people we have to leave cuz yeah, we were meant grow, take root and outgrow.

God had plans for Kat to be in another university.  Then Jerico and my Tita Ely -- they just had to go.

I've lost some people, too as I just had to move on from one workplace to the next.

That's me outgrowing causes and with that I've lost people too.

Maybe because God has other plans for me too.

And God has this way of giving them back to me, in a different form and at times I least expect.

He filled me up with a Catherine, a Lolita, an Anna, a Barbara, a Sofia, a Karen, a Petrea, a Linda, 

a Nicky, an Earl... a Bruce Wayne to Bane (HBD btw)

In the spirit of Coldplay's  "Something just like this..."

"...Achilles...Hercules...Spiderman...Batman...Superman...
Where do you wanna go, how much you wanna risk

Am not looking for somebody with some superhuman gift

Some superhero, some fairy tale bliss

Just something I can turn to, somebody I can miss...Something just like this

doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo..."

It's Like This 3

I now have key search terms for this new study I'm interested in doing.
At the back of my mind, I'm interested in branching away from a case study design and would like to go for: phenomenology and narrative inquiry. Or maybe to even find out whether these 3 can simultaneously happen in this new study.

New search terms:

• teacher identity
• teacher beliefs
• personal epistemology
• epistemic cognition

In other words, teachers' ways of knowing and in particular -- that of learning support teachers and learning advisors (K-20)

A bit of background:
In the process of writing my auto-ethno on my PhD journey, I have had quality exchanges with key persons engage in providing research support and learning advice from my Australian university. It made me curious about the role of the HDR-LA. There is no such thing as an LA in my university. I figured perhaps, if universities in the Philippines had more LAs, library support for researchers and working with Research Supervisors, without further delay. So how does one become an LA? How do you prepare one to become an LA? And more -  what's in the 'make-up' of an existing LA expert. How can you actually engage them to un-pack what they know and what they are learning so that they can recommend ways other teachers can learn these to.

I figured, with all the online learning that's going to happen, surely we will be needing more online learning support providers K-20. Some students will certainly fall through the cracks in HS and they will hopefully land on to university work, online ones even. So how do we prepare for them to make sure they continue to learn and succeed.

Then of course, I turn to my K-12 practice. This time taking note that for the first time, my curiosities and recent HDR experiences fuelled this interest in my new-found study.  Normally, I take the route of my teacher self and my K-12 bag of tricks to further research ideas at the higher ed.  This time, it's my higher ed research experiences which make me want to reflect on my K-12 practice and translate into a research study spanning K-20.

Recent K-12 experiences: (to mean b4 leaping into my PhD v.2.0)
1) I was Learning Coordinator at BA and really had the fortunate experience of observing teachers at work. Just so happen that these observations are within the context of teacher evaluation. BUT, it was great opportunity to 'learn' from fellow teachers and 'capture' their teaching based on their CK and PK and PCK. Teacher observations are really good ways to understand how-why teachers teach the way they teach. You see varied ways teachers engage students and it brings you to that space of understanding one's strengths and limitations as a teacher.

I've been fortunate enough to interact with the LST=Amor of BA who had all the tools and tricks to provide quality learning support to students whom I can clearly relate with when it comes to language processing and written expression.  My task then was to at least support her clear initiatives and desire to help as student in need. I needed to make sure there would be communication among key persons to identify possible student cases;  diagnostics and informal ways to assess student level; documentation of work; honest to goodness 'case conferences'.

From these exchanges with different teachers, I was able to put in words "teacher pathways of growth"-- that in fact teachers continue to evolve in their functions and roles. However,  how to provide support to this evolution was not mine to decide at that time. What I realized is that a major part of my growth as a teacher was: self-learning, on the job and while interacting with teachers and teacher-leaders. And there were clear areas I will not get into -- for example Learning Support -- as this is best handled by a teacher with more methodical ways of diagnosing, addressing and teaching those students in need.


2) As co-founder of Builders School, I was the luckier teacher handling inquiry learning projects with our schoolchildren. Luckier because I had co-teachers to ensure that explicit skills instruction. We managed to install our ILS = Integrated Literacy Support Program. Instead of the usual 'clinic-mode' model of Wordlab school, I figured that the literacy support should be integrated with the everyday things they do in their language classes and within the multi-grade setting.

While my mindspace was pre-occupied on dual language, whole-language approaches, field trips, integrating ICTs amidst co-crafting project presentations/ sharing with students, and doing classroom-based research and curriculum documentation, I was assured that my schoolchildren are still able to cover content they needed to learn and acquire skills they needed to deliver in the other subject areas. These way students can safely move up to traditional HS not only with the necessary skills but with the confidence and love for learning intact + wonderful memories of their gradeschool life to continue learning how to learn.

Within this space, I was a great witness to how students loved their read -aloud sessions with Teacher Vic; how their reading and writing lessons paid off as seen in their project work in my class; how our themes were at work not only in my project class; how students are just as committed to their artwork to express their understanding of literature. Most importantly, how our once-nonreaders have become fluent and confident children.

In other words, it's clear that my co-teachers have worked their magic! And while I do acknowledge my own magic, I've always wondered about the HOW behind their magic.

Tables have turned:
I recall that one of the first few questions I asked the HDR-LA during our F2F consultation Year 2017, while preparing for my CoC was something along the lines of: have you worked with students who may have language difficulties?

Then after a few consultations, I was able to confirm MY kind of language difficulties - in the area of written expression. While I was getting all the help needed for the thinking and writing I needed for my major research at my QLD university, I've come to realize that yes, there may be common spaces learning support teachers, special educators and LAs operate or even more, common things they bring to the table.

I guess, those were my ways of figuring out what exactly HDR-LA's do and whether he is the higher ed version of Amor and Vic. And if so, what was his background? how much of his K-12 practice gets into his current practice as HDR-LA? or if in fact that background even helps.

Teacher beliefs > teacher cognition > teacher and learning experiences

And why even? Is there something about this which can be 'transmitted' to would-be teachers? and how? or what are the basics we can integrate in pre-service courses to pre-dispose teachers to consider becoming LST and LAs? Will a background of an Education degree even help? In what ways? How can we explore informal learning spaces to learn to become one?

It's Like THIS 2

One time, I was daydreaming for a Zoom session because I've restarted to concoct ideas for next research 2do. I allow myself to daydream future writing projects as a way to look forward to having my life back. But because I had to hyperfocus in finishing my section on Limitations of the Study, and hadn't had breakfast, come Zoomtime I couldn't just ask that the session be recorded-- cuz the daydream was unfolding.....but no playback, tsk tsk!

THIS paper idea is triggered by the ff:
1) HERDSA and my daydream of doing a poster presentation I've never tried before
2) My husbandry asking about auto-ethno
3) A recent exchange with Professor X on a possible auto-narrative project
4) My unfinished blog on 3 great teachers

5) A shared conversation with Catherine Chinook on giftedness and demigods
6) Meeting another Learning Advisor - and me trying to listen to him give feedback to a student in THAT neat part of the library
7) Immersing with HDR-LA - like literally me, making a labrat out of me, observing, wondering and uber-benefitting from an academic writing coach & reflecting/asking myself 'will I be able to do the same for someone next time?’

8) My ongoing interest with expert teachers to include a cohort I categorize as 'gifted teachers'(by order of appearance in my life):
Rachel-R - Maryknoll HS and UP
Feny - Community of Learners
Mailin - Wordlab
Victor - Wordlab and UP
Dr. Acoymo - UP
Dr. Nellie Deutsch - IT4ALL
Dr. Dina Ocampo (as my EDR prof) U.P.
Amor - Beacon Academy
Eric Z - Beacon Academy
Dr. Eacersall - USQ

9) My wanting to do an ethnographic study of teachers
-as I do get a kick out of observing great teachers at work (it feels like getting immersed in a great movie or an art installation)
10) Wondering about an iteration of a TP study I've done before but using a different methodology

Pausing here…I'm trying to see what's common among 'gifted teachers'.
        My guess - ( like if I were to profile them)

• Good to great with languages or background in language teaching
• Hardly netspeaks nor truncates messages
• Sends complete text messages (not using shortcuts)
• Reads books for pleasure or has a taste for HiQ literature
• Grammatically correct
• Digests content just like that
• Intuitive and methodical
• An OC streak
• Have highly literate parents
• Really enjoyed reading as a child/teenager
• Has an older sibling who is highly literate

      Could be's -

• An actual IQ corresponding to that of a gifted person
• An IQ for the Fine Arts

Now, a bit of rewind:
Sent: Wednesday, 22 January 2020 12:38 PM

Wondering here-
So a study of expert teachers providing language learning support spanning - K-12 all through Doctoral level.

Shared views & beliefs about 
> learning how to write
> gaps in written expression of students

Common understandings of diagnosing writing problems
and how the above translate into:
>actual explicit language skills instruction

And how did you actually learn the how- to of those? + Teaching principles you abide by or unknowingly demonstrate

And if so, how do we train mowwwh language support teachers to do the same?