310u wk7 disc1 | Social Science homework help

– You have now observed
one interview. Let’s see how the next interview
compares with the first. – Oh, hi, Laura.
Glad to meet you. I’m Linda. – Pleased to meet you too.
Hi. – Please have a seat. Thank you for taking the time
for this interview. Your participation
in this educational project on workplace morale
for teachers is really important
as a study. It will help us understand more
about how to support teachers and ultimately help with student achievement
and student outcomes. We’ll be interviewing yourself
and about ten other teachers, so we’ll have
all this information that will contribute
to the project. Now, I know you’ve read
about the project and how we’re conducting it, but I’d just like to review
a few items with you. – Okay. – First of all, as you know, your participation
is totally voluntary, so if I ask you a question
that you don’t want to answer of if you need to stop
the interview at any time, just let me know, okay? Also, as you know, I’ll be audio taping
the interview and also be taking
some notes. Okay? When I finish–when we finish
the interview, I’ll be giving you
a transcript of the audiotape and sharing my notes
with you so you can look at them,
review them, make any corrections
that you see need to be made, make sure that we really capture
what it is you want to say. – Okay, great. – This study
may be published, and in publication,
we won’t use any of your names, yourself
or any of the other teachers. Even if we use direct quotes,
we’ll use pseudonyms. And it also might be
presented in conferences and professional meetings. – Okay.
– Okay? Do you have any questions? – No.
– Okay. As you know, we’ve set aside
about 30 minutes for the interview. And that seems
to be okay for you? – That will be okay, yeah. – We won’t go beyond that time
unless you wish to do so. – Okay.
– Okay? Audio taping is still fine? – Yes, yes, that’s fine. – Ready to go?
– Yes. – Let’s start, then. Laura, what does
workplace morale mean to you? – Hmm, workplace morale,
I would say, basically means that
it’s a fun place to work, that it’s a place
where you are looking forward
to getting up and going to every day and that there’s
nice people there that you enjoy working with. – What makes it fun? – I would say the idea that you can try out
new ideas, that your colleagues
support you, that there’s a sense
of friendship, camaraderie, flexibility on the part
of the supervisor, and support, just feeling
supported, I’d say. – So support actually
makes you enjoy the work. – Yes.
– Okay. I’d like to hear some stories
about workplace morale. – Okay. – And if you could tell me
a story that might have enhanced
workplace morale and one
that de-enhanced it without naming
any real names, that would be
really helpful to me. Do you have
some stories like that? – Yeah. I think I’ll start
with the one that you called de-enhanced. – Okay. – At a school
I worked at before, there was a principal who– he just didn’t– didn’t give us the flexibility
to try out new ideas. I had a program
I had my heart set on starting. I had spent
so much time on it. And I really felt
like it would help solve some of the problems
and difficulties that kids were having. It was
an after-school program, and I just thought
it would just be so– the creativity and
the critical thinking involved would just really help
the kids. And he just said,
“No way.” He squashed
the whole idea. And I felt bad, because I felt
like I had nowhere to go. I couldn’t even–you know, every time I tried
to bring it up to the point that he said, “Just please don’t
bring this up to me again. “Stick to the basics. That’s–you know, that’s what
you were hired for.” And I was completely deflated
after that. And so that– yeah, that didn’t make me
feel very good about my job. – After that, did you propose
any other new programs? – No. No, I knew
it wouldn’t work out, but I’d had other times– and it was because I had
other times where little things he–he would just squash. And that was just sort of like
the icing on the cake. And I knew, you know, that there was nothing else
I could do at that point. – Had you shared this idea
with any of your colleagues? – Yes, they liked the idea. And then they told me
about times the same thing happened
to them. We were all
very frustrated. And, you know,
it got to the point that we were just complaining
to each other. And that didn’t help,
you know, because it’s sort of a,
you know– after, you know,
complaining– it’s just that negative talk,
at least for me, sort of makes me feel
even worse. You know, we were trying
to support each other, but that wasn’t helpful. – When you say that you’re open
to constructive critique, I’m interpreting
that to mean that you don’t need
to be told everything you do
is right and good. – Right, yeah, right. Like, for instance, you know,
there’s guidelines. You know, and we need to be told
that, you know, we’re going to keep
in those guidelines and… you know, that’s– but it’s all in the way
you do it, the way it’s presented. – So my understanding
is pretty much on target with what you’re saying? – Mm-hmm.
– Okay. As we think
about the responsibility for workplace morale, we’ve talked about the employees
or the teachers and the supervisor
or the principal. Particularly in education, does the community at large
have any role in it? And what might be
the relative roles of those three groups, the supervisor,
the teachers, and the community
at large? – I would say
the community at large– the only thing
I can think about is parents is another group that affects
our workplace morale in terms of
if they’re too negative, if they’re not open, if they’re not supportive
and helpful, that makes our job harder. You know, if–and especially
if they’re not supportive if we have new ideas
or new programs, that makes–so they’re
an important piece. And then the colleagues
are also important, very important
in terms of that support. But if I were to put it
in rank order, I would say,
your principal– you know, for teachers, the principal
is the most important– colleagues second,
and then parents third. Even though
they’re all important, that’s how
I would rank them. – Okay, could we go back to an earlier question
a little bit? Do you believe that you’ve
given me enough information or all the information
you want about a positive
and a negative experience? – Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, the– oh, I’m glad
you mentioned that, ’cause the situation
I’m in now is like night and day
comparing to the other one. We really have
a collegial atmosphere. It all starts
with a program. This principal said to us–
and it was his idea– he said, “I want
each of you teachers, “whatever your interests are, “to develop a program “that’s going to enhance
student learning, student critical thinking,
and student creativity.” And he left it open to come up
with what we wanted to do. And he said, “I want you
to meet every week, “provide each other support
and feedback. “And, you know,
I’ll be at these meetings, and we’ll help each other,
and we’ll brainstorm,” because he really believed that that’s going
to really help things. And for me, I just–
you know, I felt like I– I was so thrilled. You know, based on
my other experience, I thought, “This is wonderful.” So I developed
a media literacy and a documentary-producing
program for the kids
in my class. And other teachers
did totally different things. And we meet every week,
and we talk about it, and we give each other
really helpful feedback, and it’s become
just this great– it’s really enhanced
our interest. And, you know,
we’re interested in each other. We care. We give each other
good feedback. And now, you know, I’m friends with some
of the teachers now that I didn’t, you know,
hardly know, just because
of this support. And the principal’s there. He reins us in
when he needs to, and we can handle it, because we know
we have his support. We know he’s just sticking to
the guidelines that are there. And–but otherwise–
and if we’re going too far, he’ll help us brainstorm
for a way to work around it or address it
so that it– so that, you know,
it’s appropriate. And I’m just
really thrilled. And the interesting thing is,
it is more work, but we’re able to really
make changes and see– we could see–every day
in that classroom, we see it with the kids;
we see it on their faces. And then we see it–I see it
in their assignments, in grades going up and struggling kids
doing better because they’re excited
about school. And, you know– and we’re starting
to bring in pieces of each other’s programs. You know, all these programs
are quite different, and it’s just
been wonderful. It’s still in process,
but so far, everything is completely good. And I think, you know,
part of it is that it’s a good principal, but all of us as teachers
at this particular school just jumped in and were open and ready
to try it out. And it’s been working
really well. And so I’m happy. – Laura, I want
to respect your time, and I noticed
we’re at 30 minutes. – Oh, we are?
– Yeah, already are. – Oh, wow. – I do have
one more question, but it’s–time’s up, so I’d like to know
if you’d like to stay or go. – Okay, well, you know,
I was going to go, but I have to say,
I’m really enjoying this. I don’t mind
answering another question. Go right ahead.
I’d like to. – I’d like to know
some of your ideas on how a school might ensure
a positive workplace morale. – Well, I guess a typical school
that aren’t doing sort of these unusual
motivating programs, one simple thing
they could do is just more social occasions
for the teachers, more opportunities for teachers
to get to know each other on a social level, because I’ve been at schools
where I only, like, have one or two
teacher friends that are my close friends
at the school and, you know,
don’t really know the others, and I feel–
it can be a bit isolating. And just to be able
to talk and to be able to share
experiences and ideas and– I think it could start with just, you know,
social parties, little after-school,
you know, get-together hour
just informally. I think that would help. I think that’d be
a simple way to help to be able
to support each other. And then I guess
the key thing is a supervisor who sort of
makes it a point to be flexible and trusting
and supportive. I think
that’s a key element, and that’s going
to affect everything. – If you had to, like,
say three to five words really key
in terms of this area, what would you say? – Respect, support,
and openness. – Okay. Laura, is there anything else
you’d like to share with me on this topic
that I’ve not asked you about or that you would like
to have an opportunity to say? – No, I can’t think
of anything else. I think we’ve covered everything
on this topic, yeah. – Well, thank you so much. And as I say,
I’ll be sending you a copy of the transcript
and also my notes. If you see any corrections
or anything that I’ve missed, please do let me know. Okay, thank you
so much, Laura. – Thanks. Bye-bye.
– Bye-bye. Have a good class. – Okay.
– Okay. You now have observed
two interviews. As a researcher doing
qualitative studies, you need to carefully plan
for the time it takes for you to collect, organize,
analyze, and interpret data. It can be quite a bit of time. Estimate for yourself,
for example, how much time it would take
to collect data for ten audio-taped
40-minute interviews. As you estimate the time, plan for contacting
and scheduling the interviews, travel time,
conducting the actual interview, and transcribing the interview. That estimate feeds
into your feasibility planning for the study. And it’s important for you in order to allocate
adequate resources to fulfill your research goals. You have observed various
qualities of interviewing. Now imagine yourself
as an interviewer. What would your
body language be like? How would you establish rapport? What about the phrasing
of your questions? How would you phrase questions to draw the participant
into dialogue? In order to practice that,
you might consider a question and write it three, four,
five different ways, then evaluate the phrasings in order to see
which would be most effective. You might even try them out
with some folks. As an interviewer, you are a scientist
and an artist. As a scientist, you must use strong and rigorous
research designs and procedures. As an artist, you are painting
a relationship to establish comfort
with your participant so that the participant
can contribute as much as possible
to the study. Practice your science and art by designing and conducting
interviews. Invite people
to observe those interviews and give you feedback. Participate yourself
as an interviewee and observe others
conducting interviews. One way to do that
is to observe and critique interviews conducted
on news programs. This study, observation,
and practice will develop you
as a skilled interviewer.