July+4,+2012

=Thinking about my individual research...=

Thinking about research started about a month ago, when I was pondering areas of possible study. I contacted Joanne with the initial ideas:

1) Technology in the classroom  How do we encourage effective technology integration in the classroom? 2) Reading comprehension strategies  What factors affect reading comprehension strategy learning?

Because I have taken two courses on technology throughout the program, I felt that it was best that I focused my research on reading strategies and comprehension.

I have thought over my research question at least a dozen times. I knew I wanted to research the topic of reading, but wasn't quite sure how to nail down a specific question. In yesterday's entry, I was very much "thinking on the fly" and came up with a more specific question:

Does gender affect reading comprehension strategy learning?

During this thinking process, I'm constantly being connected back to my Inquiry class that I took in 2010. We had a lot of discussion around how to generate topics and formulate questions. I have recently peeked back inside my textbook so that I could be refreshed about the inquiry process.

Based on our assignment, I've been pondering a few questions: What is an abstract or annotated bibliography? Is there a difference? Does it require a summary of an article? Is it a critique of the findings? Do I need to provide the location of the research I'm finding? How do I know that an article is worthy of annotating? Most of my answers were found in the information provided on the course page in Moodle. I have concluded that we are providing a list of relevant reading recommendations for our topic, with APA citation, brief summary, why we are including it (critique). The annotation/abstract will provide the reader with information that will either guide their own research or decide then that the article is not relevant to their topic.

Once I settled into the question and became more clear on the task at hand, I began seeking out any immediate information from my textbooks and other familiar articles. I continue to connect myself back with the students at school when they are conducting research.
 * 1) discover topic
 * 2)  confirm assignment details
 * 3) subtopics - what do you need to know/find out?
 * 4) start in a familiar location
 * 5) branch out to new information in a variety of formats

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Since I have never done any previous research on reading comprehension strategy learning, my research ended thereafter. I knew I needed to begin to seek out research articles that would lead me to finding out if, in fact, gender does play a role in how children learn reading comprehension strategies. I headed to the online University of Alberta Libraries Guide Database. Thinking about my question at hand, I began to brainstorm possible search terms:


 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">gender
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">reading
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">reading comprehension
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">elementary
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">reading strategies
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">factors

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">After speaking with a few online colleagues,I began to ponder what my goal truly was - //<span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Does gender affect how children learn and use reading comprehension strategies? or Who reads better, boys or girls? //