Stephanie
Underhill
Professor
Chandler
March
21st, 2013
Ethnographic
Study
Introduction
In
class, we did a study on how people act.
My Professor called it Ethnographic Study. We watched the other students in the class
and wrote down what we saw. Many of the
students saw different things. I will be
studying and proving, according to my research, what the students in the class
seem more interested / focused on documenting?
I want to know what the students wrote, why did they write more of one
thing than another. Below are my
reasoning’s for the topics of classroom Discourse, Focused on what the students
wrote about each other, focused on what the students wrote about the teacher,
confusion between the student and the topic, and the interactions / Conversations
between the students and teacher.
I
conducted the study by taking the ethnographic notes from February 7th from
each student’s blog. Then I pasted them
into a word document, then left the document unseen for about a couple days (to
make sure that I forgot who wrote what data)
then went back to number the different posts. I looked at each blog post, regardless of
who wrote the specific post. I looked at
the blog post for content to determine conclusions most of the students wrote
about.
Classroom
Discourse
The class, from
doing this study as well as being a part of this study, is very close. Every student in the class understands of the
points being made by other students.
Some of the students use language that would be only understood being in
this specific classroom. The language is
understood among all of the students because we talk about the language as a
class as well as use the language in sentences all of us can understand.
Many
of the students use the language to express different thoughts. On the other hand, many of the students use
the language to communicate with other students. Add more classroom discourse here.
Focused
on Students
Many of the
students in the class during this study wrote about what the different students
in the class did. The students observed
the various student behaviors as well as the context that was said. Most students wrote in detail what they observed.
All of the students listened and wrote what they observed, no matter the
context. A lot of the students were more focused on writing down what
they saw than not writing.
During
the period, only one or two students wrote that Jenna left the room; the rest
forgot to write that detail. Data set #1 wrote “Jenna walked outside the room
with a bag at a very fast pace”. Dr.
Chandler told us to write down what ever happened in the classroom. A lot of us forgot to write down that Jenna
left the room because we were too focused on writing everything else down.
Many of the students wrote what a specific student was doing.
For example, data set # 1 wrote “I was
looking around the classroom and everyone did not have a good seating posture
except for Jenna who was the only person sitting in a posture that was almost
perfectly. Stephanie on the other hand was seated in a very comfortable matter
where she had her legs on the chair as well.”
Data set # 2 wrote “Stephanie and I tend
to look at each other confused and laugh whenever we don't understand something
in class. (Rest of class does this too, to whoever they are sitting by)” and
data set # 4 wrote “The first
thing I noticed was that everyone in the classroom was writing.” Many of the students in the class seemed more
focused on writing down what was happening rather than writing down what was
said during the class.
Many of the students noticed what the presenters were doing. Data
set 3 wrote “The class participated through nonverbal communication by
giving both speakers eye contact and some even positioned their
selves to view the participants.”
Focused
on Teacher
Many of the
students wrote what the professor said and did. Some of the students focused
more on the professor than they did on the students in the class. Data set # 6
wrote “SH addresses the class in a discussion about what
our projects are going to be about.”
One of the students
noticed that the professor was asking the students questions. Data set # 5
wrote “Professor C continued to write on the board and ask the students
questions. You could read on a lot of student’s faces asking why she would ask
us questions if we are trying to write down what people are doing.” Data Set # 7 wrote “More questions are still being asked by the prof. to the students about
what might they can add to their classmates project, more research they can focus
on.”
One
student noticed what Prof Chandler was doing with her body. Data set # 2 wrote “Chandler walks toward to whoever is
speaking and then turns to the rest of the class when they are finished talking
to tell her intake on what they said then sometimes ask for our opinion.” As
well as writing “Chandler was the only one moving around (except when Jenna
left the room briefly) - she walked around the room by different aisles - she
moved to the computer to go onto different students' blogs depending on who was
sharing their research topic.” When Professor Chandler was talking with a
student, she would be near them but not blocking the overhead. She would make comments to the students then
direct the comments to the rest of the class.
Although many of the students did not write about what the professor said
or did, I am sure that they were aware of what the professor did.
Confusion
Many of the
student noticed that there was confusion in the room. Many of the students were confused about
questions that Professor Chandler asked, while others were confused about what
was being talked about.
Some of the students
wrote about how the teacher confused the students. Data set # 8 wrote “Teacher
starts talking and everyone in the class looks around with perplexed looks on
their faces. Teacher starts talking about the different ways that we will be
analyzing and asks students.”
Some of the students wrote about how the material confuses
them. In the discussion, we talked about
how to make our final papers better.
Some of the students volunteered to share their topics and get feedback
on them. Data set # 6 wrote “SH
asks what Discourse is (see S's face) looks confused and trying to understand
what Discourse is. The class still laughing and does not know what to say about
what discourse is.”
Interactions
/ Conversations between the students and the student to teacher.
Many of the students
wrote about the interactions between the students in the class. A student wrote
“Stephanie and Corrine look at each other and giggle” Data set #1 wrote “Many side conversations were taking place and Karl was
sitting cornered here in the last row. Dana and myself had side conversation
about bullying and our encounters while working with bullying projects herself.”
Many of the students had side conversations because they either did not
understand what was going on or they giving feedback on what was being said.
Many
of the students wrote about the interaction between a student and the teacher. Data set # 3 wrote “After the teacher made a joke and
the class all laughed” Data set # 4 wrote “I spoke about my research topic and
Chandler said something about a "200 page paper.” Chandler laughed
and made it clear that it was just a joke then proceeded to say that Joanna's
research ideas and mine were excellent.” Many of the student interactions with
the professor were positive except the instance with the “200 page paper”
joke.
Wrap
– up- make stronger-
ideas?
Did I put in this quote? – I like it!
"You could read on a lot of student’s faces asking why she
would ask us questions if we are trying to write down what people are doing."
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