Research That Benefits Children & Families - Uplifting Stories

This week's blog assignment calls for each of us to share stories of positive impacts of research that have taken place with children and families involved in research studies. If we have our own examples to share of our own personal experiences with this topic, we are to write about it or research a sample of this. There was an additional option, as well. We could discuss a possible research topic we would conduct and how it would be successful and positively impact children and families, describing the ways in which this takes place. I chose to do the second option since I did not have experiences related to option one.

If I had the appropriate means and qualifications to conduct, operate, and fund my own large scale research study, I would focus on the topic of how poverty is impacting children and schools and what the schools could do to make a positive difference in the lives of these families. For example, our district provides a breakfast program and free & reduced lunch program for families who qualify and are in need. These two programs are instrumental in providing a healthy and nurturing program for the whole child, for every child. The goals would be to show the negative impacts that poverty can have on children, families, and schools and to counter this problem with positive solutions to help the children and families in the school. I think this would have a positive impact on the children, keeping them from hunger and providing nutritional meals for them in a time where their growth and nutrition is so crucial. In addition, I think this would help families in that it would reduce the stress of putting food on the table for all three meals. Families in poverty are having a very difficult time providing for their family so if the child is being provided with a meal for breakfast and for lunch at school that requires one meal to be provided for the family 5 out of 7 days of the week. In this case, any help is appreciated and I think it would be one small step at reducing the stress of the families who are struggling with poverty. Another example of something positive to be done for those in need within the community is that my district has a Village Shoppe, in which anyone can donate items to it (food, clothing, toys, household items, etc.) and the families in need can "shop" there for free for items for their families. This, again, would be a positive and uplifting resource for the families to provide for their children and family at no cost. I think this type of research and involvement would create many positive impacts on the children, families, and schools involved in the study and in the overall process.

Until next week….

Your Personal Research Journey

Week 2 of our Building Research Competency Course calls for us to discuss our chosen topic in our blogs, as well as questions, concerns, or whatever comes to mind in relation to this topic. For our research study, I chose to focus on social-emotional development in children within the Early Childhood field. This topic always interested me and I have worked with various students in my 4th grade classroom who have struggled with issues within this area. Due to this, I have become curious to learn more about this developmental instance to better understand the depth of this development, as well as various factors that can positively and negatively impact this stage or instance of development.

Within this topic, I listed several subtopics to possibly study and focus on for my project. Of all the possibilities, I decided to focus on the ways in which various relationships can impact social-emotional development of a child in Early Childhood, including family relationships, teacher-child and teacher-family relationships, and peer relationships. I think this is a topic that could be easy to study and get results and information on, as well as it is something that piques my interest. I would like to do triangulation research, in which I compare various relationships to see which has the biggest impacts and what impacts each has in comparison to one another, as well as if they work together to promote healthy development or can work together to hinder healthy development. 

At this point, I have many reservations about completing my own research. The overall idea is very daunting and overwhelming, albeit even a bit frightening to me! I feel very unsure of my own knowledge about the field yet as I am still learning, coming from and Elementary and Special Education background and working in 4th grade currently. In addition, I tend to have moments of doubt in my own abilities so would feel more confident and trusting if I had someone to work with or consult with in this process. I worry I will create a question that is too broad or too specific and will not realize this until too far into the process. I worry I will not properly draw conclusions from the information and data I have gathered and analyzed. At this point, I am a total worry wort in terms of research! ;) Is anyone else feeling this way or am I the only one!??!?! I am looking forward to embracing this journey with the support of my classmates along the way, learning together. I know this will be a challenge but I am hoping to be successful and learn along the way.

Until next week...

Building Research Competencies - A new journey!

Hello everyone!

Welcome back to my blog. The fifth course of the program, Building Research Competencies, begins today. This is going to be another new journey and adventure. I am very excited to see so many familiar names in my class, as well as in my group. Looking forward to meeting new people, too! Over the next eight weeks I will be posting blog posts related to this course. I must admit I am very nervous about this one!

Here's hoping for a great eight weeks one and all!

-A