RA Lupe's reflections on the year:If I had to describe my experience in this project it would be incredibly welcoming. From the start everyone was so easy to talk to and become friends with. These past three quarters have been great, it saddens me that the last quarter of us as a group wasn’t as we planned. I could easily say that Fall quarter was by far my favorite. When I think of Fall I remember when we all first met and how we each learned how to transcribe and how to work the cameras. I will always remember how nervous we all were when learning to set up the cameras for the first time, and how accomplished we felt after having it down. One of my favorite memories from Fall quarter is starting the Researcher Club. Meeting students and seeing them engage and wanting to learn more of what research is was amazing. I always looked forward to the meeting and hearing all their ideas even if it was just two students, it was great to see them excited about something. I also enjoyed small talk with the students about college and the questions they had regarding different career paths. Let’s not forget about the pizza, it was delicious! I am also glad I had the chance to attend classroom observations and see how the camera's work is done and also get a better look at how the classroom is run first hand. Same thing goes with the PD, it was so interesting seeing all the teachers bounce ideas off each other on how to improve and get their students more engaged with science. Let’s not forget the RA meetings, those were always fun. Dana and Jasmine always had the best ice breakers and the M&Ms were great too! The one word I would choose to describe Spring Quarter would be “interesting”. This quarter was quite different for all of us. From getting used to a new environment and getting adjusted with online classes. Spring quarter we dealt with student letters which was great seeing how students showed affection to their loved ones when explaining to them why they chose the car they did. RA meetings were always fun, it was nice interacting with others due to all of us having to be in quarantine.
In all thank you Jasmine and Dana for giving me the opportunity to be part of this project. I would also like to thank you for constantly helping and giving us words of advice when it comes to our academic goals. I am thankful to have met everyone in this project and wish everyone the best.
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RA Yasmeen's reflections on the year: Over the past three quarters working on our team’s research project, what I have enjoyed the most is having been a part of some of the main steps of the research process from the Design a Car for a Loved One unit. From attending professional development meetings discussing alternative assessments, to coding and analyzing themes in student work based on those same assessments, I am so glad to have been able to participate in such a project. For example, the earliest Professional Development meeting I attended was where teachers from the physics department came together under the guidance of Dr. Kang and discussed initial student work regarding the new unit in order to apply and understand physics concepts taught in class. I remember reading excerpts of student initial work then and compared that to the students' final assessments, which reflected not only physics content, but their own personal tastes and affection for family members, as they designed features to keep their loved ones safe while also attending to their personal tastes and preferences. That having been my initial exposure to the project, I have been able to interact with the following outcomes of the project, such as attending one teacher’s introduction of the unit to her students, decoding student work, reading letters students wrote to their loved ones, and finally coding student letters to analyze major themes in student work.
Having the ability to work for an extended period of time on such a project has been highly rewarding as we have been able to see growth in student thinking, and have been able to interact with different pieces of data, such as teacher interviews, classroom observations, and analysis of student work. I look forward to resuming our team’s research in the fall! |
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