WCER Graduate Training Brownbag Series 2009-10

Doing Critical Educational Research in Unsettling Times with Michael W. Apple

The WCER Brown Bag Series closes this year with Michael Apple, John Bascom Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Policy Studies. Bring your lunch and join Professor Apple as he considers the tasks of the critical researcher in the current political, economic, and educational climate and as he thinks strategically about generating support for critical educational research.

(Im)migrant Students and Families: Multiple Perspectives and Insights

Join the following panelists for a rich discussion about community reception of new
immigrants. Wisconsin's story of immigrant students, instruction, policies and
challenges related to immigrant students in public schools, and the implications of
immigrant students' perspectives on curriculum practices.

       Jill Harrison, Department of Community and Environmental Sociology
       Jacqueline A. Iribarren, Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction
       Mariana Pacheco, Department of Curriculum and Instruction

Visual Representations of Research: Designing Posters with David Williamson Shaffer and Janet Trembley

The preparation of educational researchers typically emphasizes disseminating research through articles and books. Visual representation of research through poster presentations is another option. If you’re interested in how to move from thinking about research in written form to visual form, would like ideas from a design/layout perspective and an opportunity to put it all together by reviewing a few posters, plan to join Janet Trembley, WCER Graphic Designer, and David Williamson Shaffer, Educational Psychology Professor, for this engaging brown bag!

Handout

Developing Collaborative Research Initiatives: How the Minority Student Achievement Network is Bridging the Research-Practice Gap

Please join a discussion with Madeline Hafner, Executive Director of the Minority Student Achievement Network (MSAN), to: learn about MSAN and why it moved to WCER, discuss current issues facing MSAN districts and the network-wide strategies in place to address them, explore the “promises and pitfalls” inherent in developing authentically collaborative research efforts between school-based practitioners and academics, and find ways that researchers and doctoral students might become more involved in MSAN’s work.

Dr. Hafner is the Executive Director of MSAN at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research. MSAN is a national coalition of 25 multiracial, suburban-urban school districts working together to understand and reduce racial achievement gaps that persist within their schools.

What Should the Preparation of Educational Researchers Entail?

A Spencer Foundation Task Force recently published a report addressing that very question. A PDF of the report can be found below. Task Force Member Mary Metz and Professors Geoffrey Borman and Rich Halverson will share their reactions to the publication while leaving time for a discussion with the audience. Please join us for a lively discussion.

Spencer Report

Grant Writing: A Recipe for Success

Cathy Loeb and Tom Kratochwill will share tips, lessons learned and insights form more than six decades of combined experience. Ms. Loeb currently serves as a Distinguished Administrative Program Specialist for the Wisconsin Center for Education Research. In that capacity, she provides pre-award grants administration and editorial services and serves on the School of Education's Institutional Review Board.

Professor Kratochwill is the Sears-Bascom Professor and Director of the School Psychology program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

His awards are extensive and most recently, include the 2007 American Psychological Association's Award for Distinguished Carer Contributions to Education and Training of Psychologists. His research and writing interests are primarily in the areas of diagnosis, assessment, and prevention, and the treatment of child problems and disorders.

Handouts

NVivo 8 Web Demonstration

From initial literature reviews and project design, through analysis and reporting, NVivo is a software program designed to support a wide range of research methods, including grounded theory, phenomenology and discourse analysis. The presentation will overview some of the features of NVivo 8, such as working with multmedia (PDF documents, video and audio files, digital photos); working with charts (create column, pie and bar charts in either two dimensional or three dimensional formats, access to live links to supporting information in your project, export charts to Word documents and PowerPoint slides); research team functions (view codes by team members; compare coding across teams, coding reliability queries, kappa coefficient and percentage agreement); HTML export (create a mini Web site to share coding and findings, share your research with people who don’t have NVivo).