Aracelie_Reading Log_16 Mar
Posted by acastro on March 16, 2010
Filed under Reading logs
The good of the group…the benefit of several outweighs the benefit of one…take one for the team. These are common phrases we hear in life emphasizing that an action that benefits the majority is usually a good thing. However, what happens when that action is part of SoTL and you are the teacher that must make the decision whether or not to pursue a question? McKinney and Hutchings address the more common themes to appear from SoTL over the years.
Ethical issues are never clearly delineated, and it seems SoTL is no exception. Were I to have begun teaching before I started working on this degree and taking this class, I would have assumed like many others that what went on in my classroom was fair game. I would have used previous students’ work to highlight examples in future classes, if I thought it would be helpful in illustrating my point or in giving instruction. Because I happen to desire a fairly high degree of privacy myself, I would have done my best not to give specific identifying information about the students I referenced. Never, though, would I have thought about informed, active, or passive consent, one’s right to privacy, or protecting them from harm in such a formal manner. I suppose those are items I have always associated with deliberate surveys and studies that are intended to be publicized in documents or proposals.
Having just reread my last statement, I see that is exactly why I should consider those items – that is what SoTL is all about. Going in with the intention of gleaning all you can from the students, both the good and bad parts, then putting them together in a useful manner that can serve as a basis for changes, improvements, and lessons. (I think I just had a moment here, but it’s hard to see that on a screen…)
Page 5 of the Hutchings chapter discusses Suzanne Burgoyne having difficulty with having secure informed consent at the start of a socially and emotionally charged class. She describes “a chill in the air”. It seems like obtaining consent in a situation such as that would almost be like putting handcuffs on the students. For a student, having the knowledge that what you say might essentially be held against you in the future can be daunting. At the same time, I am sure there are laws, or at least IRB guidelines, dictating consent be obtained first. How then does a new teacher know what the impact of obtaining consent explicitly and in the beginning will do to his classroom research? What would the outcome be otherwise?
So many questions…
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