LAST post :(

Well, I am about finished with my research essay. This has been an experienced that will hopefully change my writing tactics forever. It has been a long time since I've written an essay this long, but it feels pretty good to know that I've accomplished it and created a decent piece of writing. I now look at an essay as a process that is not necessarily linear. I hope my finished product fits the expectations of the assignment and is somewhat useful for me in the future.
peace out blogger!

My Research Paper's Abstract

In the ever-changing world of America’s Educational System there has been continuous discussion and debate over the topic of assessment.With the changes in legislation over the past decade, state lawmakers, districts, and more specifically teachers, have opened new doors to students in Special Education, exposing them to a more demanding and specialized curriculum. These changes have created a recent discussion and inquiry on incorporating assessment into the field of Special Education. The balance of accommodating student needs and gathering measurable performance data has been incredibly difficult. This paper explores the topic of alternative assessment and the web of obstacles that comes with it that teachers encounter everyday, highlighting the variables that go into assessment procedures and the series of questions that are only recently being asked

response to peer editing.

Honestly, I did not get as much feedback as I would have liked to. Most of the comments were for grammatical errors and the like. There were some points where issues of clarity were noted, which I really appreciate because its easy to overlook those. As the writer of my paper, it is so easy to understand the point that I am trying to make and to overlook that fact that there is major ambiguity with the point I am actually making. This weekend I plan to really dissect and analyse my paper. I plan to read it aloud several times to find the errors and to physically break the pages apart into their sections and try to find the best fit for them. Also, I will try to receive feedback from more than one of my peers when it gets closer to the actual paper deadline. My work is still a work in progress and I hope this weekend to hammer out a lot of progress.

So, I changed my topic...

Though you may not be surprised since I mentioned this fear in the initial proposal, I recently decided to shift my research topic and focus in on something a bit different. After researching a few articles on the Common Core Standards, I did not feel any real interest or attraction to the topic. I still wanted to choose a topic that could be of some value to have researched in my field and to have to add to my portfolio later, but the Standards were not doing that for me. I have really enjoyed researching my new topic on the assessment and evaluation of student performance in special education because it is a topic that has had a lot of recent discussion and attention. With the reconstruction of many aspects of the educational system, the discipline of special education has had much attention and research driven changes. I have found a lot of cutting-edge and current research of the matter and a lot of influence in the topic by a lot of new voices in the area of education. I hope to continue my research and focus on the state of Ohio specifically, and try to steer away from making national generalizations. Because I recently decided to steer my topic in this other direction, I still have a lot of research to do and catch up on. I spent the last few days making connections between the five or six documents  I really zoomed in on, but I now have the time to explore how these articles and books relate and comment on one another, and also how they are based on research and theories established in the past 10 or so years. Overall, I feel good about where I am at in my research and writing process, and unlike before I am interested in what I have been reading about assessment in special education which I hope will be translated into an interesting final paper.

So, I've got an Idea!

As boasted above, I have an idea for my research paper and its one I have liked for more than a week. My constant worry with a project like this is to wake up midway through the quarter and to completely hate my research topic..to hate it so much that even the idea of continuing with said topic seems impossible. Hopefully that does not happen. Since I have only written about 2 different papers in my educational history that have exceeded fifteen pages, I want to this project to produce something useful for my interview portfolio.

Anyways, my plan is to write about the Core Standards that are used in the educational system and their creation and history. Early research has led to me to discover that a group of very smart researchers in Palo Alto, California create and provide the basis for standards. It fascinates me that the students in Cincinnati, Ohio conform to standards and philosophies created and tested over 2,000 miles away. I think this topic is extremely relevant to me as a future educator because the standards are things that will haunt me when creating assessments and lesson plans in my classroom.