Hi Everyone!
Well the semester is really starting to come to an end. The reason I can tell is that I have SO much writing to do! I have quite a few papers due this week as well as a presentation. Luckily, it was rainy all day today so I wasn't tempted by nice weather and I was able to do a lot of reading and writing throughout the course of the day.
This week will also be another busy one. Tomorrow is the big event that I blogged about last week...the accepted masters student preview day. I'm looking forward to meeting all of you that can make it and for those of you that cannot, please send me some questions!
I will also be busy with the Penn Global Development Initiative Forum this Thursday and Friday. For more information about the forum click HERE. One of my professors, Dr. Daniel Wagner has worked to organize the forum which seeks to enhance the University as a global player in international research, policy and development as well as to illuminate the potential of research universities (such as Penn) to contribute to the Millenium Development Goals (set forth by the United Nations) - and to enable new synergies across the Penn international community of students, faculty and staff. I am really looking forward to attending a few of the panels and I will be volunteering on Friday. This is going to be a great event and I'm glad that Penn and GSE are so interested in development efforts for the international community, as those issues are of great importance to me. There will be speakers from the World Bank, UNESCO, the United Nations, as well as faculty and students from all 12 of the graduate and professional schools at Penn.
I will be sure to let everyone know how the GDI Forum goes. I hope you all have a great week!
~Lezlie
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Sunday, April 8, 2007
Important Information!
I wanted to let all of my readers know that Monday, April 16 is the Preview Day for Accepted Masters students. I know that I have spoken to many of the accepted FPE students and I sincerely hope that all of you can make it--as well as the rest of the accepted students. It is a great way to see how the students, faculty, and staff at GSE all interact with one another. It will also be a great chance to meet other masters students. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the event last year and I really regret it. I heard it was a great day and I can assure you that we (the admissions staff) have put a lot of time and energy into making it a memorable and helpful day. Choosing a grad school is a big deal!!! By attending the preview day we will be able to show you that Penn is a great place in which to study, live, and explore!
If you plan on attending, please RSVP by clicking HERE!
Besides planning for the Masters Preview Day I have been busy doing some research for my Cultural Perspectives on Human Development course. I have decided to write my final research paper on language revival--specifically the revival of the Irish language in recent years and how it impacted schools and culture in Ireland. I studied abroad for a year in Ireland and I never met a single person who's first language was Irish, yet every person my age that was Irish all knew how to speak the language. I always found it so interesting that a language that is used by such a small group of people (comparatively) and in such a small place is still alive and well. All of the streets signs are in English and Irish, which surprisingly only happened in recent years. I'm looking forward to learning more about the impact that the language revival had on schools in Ireland, in particular the difficulties that occurred because of the division between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Besides doing some research I enjoyed some relaxing time with family for the Easter holiday. This is the first weekend in over a month that I wasn't either away for the weekend or out all day with plans. This will probably be the last weekend that I'm not going crazy trying to write a ton of papers or out trying to enjoy the last few weeks of grad school. It is definitely bitter sweet. Let me know if anyone has any specific questions for my next post and I'll try to accommodate your request!
Happy Easter!
~Lezlie
If you plan on attending, please RSVP by clicking HERE!
Besides planning for the Masters Preview Day I have been busy doing some research for my Cultural Perspectives on Human Development course. I have decided to write my final research paper on language revival--specifically the revival of the Irish language in recent years and how it impacted schools and culture in Ireland. I studied abroad for a year in Ireland and I never met a single person who's first language was Irish, yet every person my age that was Irish all knew how to speak the language. I always found it so interesting that a language that is used by such a small group of people (comparatively) and in such a small place is still alive and well. All of the streets signs are in English and Irish, which surprisingly only happened in recent years. I'm looking forward to learning more about the impact that the language revival had on schools in Ireland, in particular the difficulties that occurred because of the division between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Besides doing some research I enjoyed some relaxing time with family for the Easter holiday. This is the first weekend in over a month that I wasn't either away for the weekend or out all day with plans. This will probably be the last weekend that I'm not going crazy trying to write a ton of papers or out trying to enjoy the last few weeks of grad school. It is definitely bitter sweet. Let me know if anyone has any specific questions for my next post and I'll try to accommodate your request!
Happy Easter!
~Lezlie
Sunday, April 1, 2007
Hello readers!
This past week was another busy one...mostly revolving around the Accepted Doctoral Student Reception that the Admissions Office (my employer) held this Thursday. There was a lot of preparation early in the week and then the big event was an all day affair on Thursday. It was really nice to meet some of the prospective students and talk to them about their experiences, as well as what I have experienced here at Penn. It was also great meeting some of my readers, please leave comments or send me emails if you have any questions that I haven't covered!
This past weekend I went to DC to visit some friends from college. It was the start of the Cherry Blossom Festival and the weather was fantastic for the fun event. For those of you not very familiar with the event, check out the link. This year was the 95th annual celebration commemorating the cherry blossom trees given to the U.S. by the city of Tokyo. It's nice that Philly is so close to DC so even though I'm busy with school I managed to take a road-trip for the weekend.
Now it is back to reality. I have yet another busy week, including getting back into the ESL classroom at the Community College of Philadelphia because the faculty were on strike for the past three weeks. On that note, I have to get ready for tomorrow. Please keep the questions and comments coming!
~Lezlie
This past week was another busy one...mostly revolving around the Accepted Doctoral Student Reception that the Admissions Office (my employer) held this Thursday. There was a lot of preparation early in the week and then the big event was an all day affair on Thursday. It was really nice to meet some of the prospective students and talk to them about their experiences, as well as what I have experienced here at Penn. It was also great meeting some of my readers, please leave comments or send me emails if you have any questions that I haven't covered!
This past weekend I went to DC to visit some friends from college. It was the start of the Cherry Blossom Festival and the weather was fantastic for the fun event. For those of you not very familiar with the event, check out the link. This year was the 95th annual celebration commemorating the cherry blossom trees given to the U.S. by the city of Tokyo. It's nice that Philly is so close to DC so even though I'm busy with school I managed to take a road-trip for the weekend.
Now it is back to reality. I have yet another busy week, including getting back into the ESL classroom at the Community College of Philadelphia because the faculty were on strike for the past three weeks. On that note, I have to get ready for tomorrow. Please keep the questions and comments coming!
~Lezlie
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Another week come and gone...
Hello everyone! I hope you all had the opportunity to enjoy the fantastic weather (at least in the Philadelphia area) today. I love Spring and I am so happy that the weather is finally beginning to cooperate!
School has been quite busy, as usual, but on Friday I had the opportunity to participate in some of the events for the GSE Diversity Weekend. The event was the idea of Dr. Marybeth Gasman, one of the faculty members at GSE, and with the help of the Admissions office her ideas became reality. The entire event was planned by Jamie, another Graduate Assistant with the Admissions office. She arranged for 15 education undergraduate students from Historically Black Colleges and Univerisities and Hispanic Serving Institutions to come to Philadelphia for a weekend to learn more about graduate school and GSE, and specifically what we are doing to address issues surrounding diversity. I'm sure she will be blogging about the experience, but I think she (with the help of her "right-hand man" Sadiyah) did an amazing job. I only wish I could have spent more time with the students. I think the event was really an important step in developing relationships with this group of talented students as well as the institutions from which they come from.
Today I have been preparing for an interview that I am conducting tomorrow. I am interiewing Dr. David Larsen, the Director for the Center for Education Abroad at Arcadia University. I am interviewing him for one of my courses, EDUC 569 - The Organization and Administration of Student Life. The goal of the interview is to better understand the position he holds as well as what I can do to position myself to one day have a similar job. I have also interviewed the Associate Director at Penn Abroad, which I believe will give me a nice balance when looking at similar positions but at two very different institutions. On the advice of my advisor, I contacted Dr. Larsen during the Fall semester for some guidance regarding my thesis so it will be nice to have the opportunity to meet him in person and let him know that I am nearly done my thesis!
I hope all of my readers have a great week, please feel free to contact me!
School has been quite busy, as usual, but on Friday I had the opportunity to participate in some of the events for the GSE Diversity Weekend. The event was the idea of Dr. Marybeth Gasman, one of the faculty members at GSE, and with the help of the Admissions office her ideas became reality. The entire event was planned by Jamie, another Graduate Assistant with the Admissions office. She arranged for 15 education undergraduate students from Historically Black Colleges and Univerisities and Hispanic Serving Institutions to come to Philadelphia for a weekend to learn more about graduate school and GSE, and specifically what we are doing to address issues surrounding diversity. I'm sure she will be blogging about the experience, but I think she (with the help of her "right-hand man" Sadiyah) did an amazing job. I only wish I could have spent more time with the students. I think the event was really an important step in developing relationships with this group of talented students as well as the institutions from which they come from.
Today I have been preparing for an interview that I am conducting tomorrow. I am interiewing Dr. David Larsen, the Director for the Center for Education Abroad at Arcadia University. I am interviewing him for one of my courses, EDUC 569 - The Organization and Administration of Student Life. The goal of the interview is to better understand the position he holds as well as what I can do to position myself to one day have a similar job. I have also interviewed the Associate Director at Penn Abroad, which I believe will give me a nice balance when looking at similar positions but at two very different institutions. On the advice of my advisor, I contacted Dr. Larsen during the Fall semester for some guidance regarding my thesis so it will be nice to have the opportunity to meet him in person and let him know that I am nearly done my thesis!
I hope all of my readers have a great week, please feel free to contact me!
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Busy Week!
Well, my Spring Break flew by! And here I am, already one week has passed since the break. This was an especially busy week for me. I had to transcribe the hour long interview with the Community College of Philadelphia student that I interviewed over break. It was a great interview and I'm really looking forward to hearing his story. I realized something that we had talked about in class--I had made some assumptions about the experiences of this student that are very false. We talked about this in my Ethnography course, that it is human nature to make assumptions about people but after transcribing the interview and listening to the tape I realized this student's experiences were quite different than what I had expected. And for that I am glad!
I also had to hand in a research proposal for my for my Cultural Perspectives on Human Development course. I have decided to look at the experiences of immigrants to the U.S. and what factors affect the acquistion of English and the maintenance of first language by immigrant children and adolescents. I have to say that I feel lucky to have so much freedom in my courses to really explore topics that are of interest to me, as opposed to being forced to concentrate on an area that is chosen by the professor. More often than not I have been in control of the research that I conduct, which is empowering.
I had another paper due for my Globalization and the University course. This was a short paper in which I decided to look at the impact that distance education has on international education, from a U.S. perspective. Again, the topic was quite broad for the paper--the readings related to quality control for distance education programs, such as the University of Phoenix--and I decided to integrate my interest of international education into the paper.
After a busy week I decided to enjoy the social aspect of Penn and on Thursday I attended the GASPA (Graduate and Professional Student Association) St. Patty's Day Happy Hour at Roosevelt's in Center City, Philadelphia. It was nice to see classmates outside of the classroom and relax after a busy week.
Friday was just as busy, as I attended the Annual GSE Career Networking Fair at the Inn at Penn. I found the panel of alumni speakers quite helpful and it was nice to hand out some resumes to potential employers. I can't believe how soon I will be done with my Master's! Not only did Spring Break fly by, but so is this year! Only about six more weeks of classes!
On that note, I need to get some reading done!! As always, if anyone has any questions please feel free to post a message here or email me directly.
~Lezlie
I also had to hand in a research proposal for my for my Cultural Perspectives on Human Development course. I have decided to look at the experiences of immigrants to the U.S. and what factors affect the acquistion of English and the maintenance of first language by immigrant children and adolescents. I have to say that I feel lucky to have so much freedom in my courses to really explore topics that are of interest to me, as opposed to being forced to concentrate on an area that is chosen by the professor. More often than not I have been in control of the research that I conduct, which is empowering.
I had another paper due for my Globalization and the University course. This was a short paper in which I decided to look at the impact that distance education has on international education, from a U.S. perspective. Again, the topic was quite broad for the paper--the readings related to quality control for distance education programs, such as the University of Phoenix--and I decided to integrate my interest of international education into the paper.
After a busy week I decided to enjoy the social aspect of Penn and on Thursday I attended the GASPA (Graduate and Professional Student Association) St. Patty's Day Happy Hour at Roosevelt's in Center City, Philadelphia. It was nice to see classmates outside of the classroom and relax after a busy week.
Friday was just as busy, as I attended the Annual GSE Career Networking Fair at the Inn at Penn. I found the panel of alumni speakers quite helpful and it was nice to hand out some resumes to potential employers. I can't believe how soon I will be done with my Master's! Not only did Spring Break fly by, but so is this year! Only about six more weeks of classes!
On that note, I need to get some reading done!! As always, if anyone has any questions please feel free to post a message here or email me directly.
~Lezlie
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Ethnography is on my mind!
After spending a good part of the day on Friday at the Ethnography Forum, then writing a reaction piece and setting up observations and interviews for my Ethnography class it is only natural that I will continue my discussion on the topic here in my blog!
The forum was great! I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the two sessions that I attended and I only wish I had more time to attend additional presentations. While I don't really see myself going into research any time soon (I am looking to get out there and PRACTICE!), I really admire the dedication and perserverence of the researchers from the forum. I wrote a two page reaction paper where I talked about the how the forum related to my coursework and it really was astounding how much carried over. I think I connected most with a presentation from a woman studying immigrant education and literacy in a Washington, DC school. She worked with these students for more than two years, and in my opinion, told a wonderful story about the lives of these students and just how connected they still are to their sending countries through way of technology and communication. She really focused on the theme of transnationalism, which interstingly enough she did not even discover as an over-arching theme in her data until after the two year observation and interview period, because she was focusing mostly on literature and literacy. She also noted that some of her findings could have been influenced by the focus on immigrant issues, an extremely hot topic at the conclusion of her research in May 2006.
I think the fact that a person can spend two years doing research and assuming that it will go in one direction and then after analyzing the data find very different themes then originally anticipated just shows the intricate nature of research. I am in the process of conducting my own research with ESL (English as Second Language) students at the Community College of Philadelphia. I am starting out just trying to understand the motives for taking ESL and "regular" college courses at a community college for non-US residents, but who knows where my data will take me. I have already observed the strictly ESL class for two hours and tomorrow I will observe the Sociology class that all of the ESL students are enrolled in with other non-ESL college students. I am interested to see how the dynamic will change and how the students will act in a setting in which they are earning college credits.
I am on Spring Break next week and I will use that time to interview some of the students. I just heard on the news today that the faculty at the Community College of Philadelphia are planning to strike. I wonder how this situation will affect the interviews and the findings from my research, just as the national immigrantion debates potentially affected the data from the ethnographer in politically charged Washington, DC. I guess I will have to wait and see!
~Lezlie
The forum was great! I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the two sessions that I attended and I only wish I had more time to attend additional presentations. While I don't really see myself going into research any time soon (I am looking to get out there and PRACTICE!), I really admire the dedication and perserverence of the researchers from the forum. I wrote a two page reaction paper where I talked about the how the forum related to my coursework and it really was astounding how much carried over. I think I connected most with a presentation from a woman studying immigrant education and literacy in a Washington, DC school. She worked with these students for more than two years, and in my opinion, told a wonderful story about the lives of these students and just how connected they still are to their sending countries through way of technology and communication. She really focused on the theme of transnationalism, which interstingly enough she did not even discover as an over-arching theme in her data until after the two year observation and interview period, because she was focusing mostly on literature and literacy. She also noted that some of her findings could have been influenced by the focus on immigrant issues, an extremely hot topic at the conclusion of her research in May 2006.
I think the fact that a person can spend two years doing research and assuming that it will go in one direction and then after analyzing the data find very different themes then originally anticipated just shows the intricate nature of research. I am in the process of conducting my own research with ESL (English as Second Language) students at the Community College of Philadelphia. I am starting out just trying to understand the motives for taking ESL and "regular" college courses at a community college for non-US residents, but who knows where my data will take me. I have already observed the strictly ESL class for two hours and tomorrow I will observe the Sociology class that all of the ESL students are enrolled in with other non-ESL college students. I am interested to see how the dynamic will change and how the students will act in a setting in which they are earning college credits.
I am on Spring Break next week and I will use that time to interview some of the students. I just heard on the news today that the faculty at the Community College of Philadelphia are planning to strike. I wonder how this situation will affect the interviews and the findings from my research, just as the national immigrantion debates potentially affected the data from the ethnographer in politically charged Washington, DC. I guess I will have to wait and see!
~Lezlie
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Ethnography
Thanks again for all of the comments and emails! I really hope that I have been able to help all of you that have contacted me. PLEASE let me know if there is anything else that you'd like me to blog about, I'd be happy to write about what interests my readers...
So, this weekend is the 28th Annual Ethnography in Education Research Forum. The forum is sponsored by the Center for Urban Ethnography and is hosted by the Graduate School of Education. Some of my classmates are volunteering and others are just attending a few of the sessions in between working or studying. I volunteered as a reviewer last October, where I had the opportunity to read about a dozen proposals for the forum and give my opinions on whether or not I thought others would be interested in seeing any of those papers presented here. It is now interesting to see which of the papers that I reviewed are being presented.
There are two days of presentations, Friday and Saturday, where numerous ethnographers present their work. I will be attending the forum on Friday, for most of the day. I still haven't decided which presentations to go to, there are so many that seem really interesting! You can find the schedule here, which will give you a better idea of the critical subjects that these scholars examine.
I am currently enrolled in EDUC 672 - Introduction to Ethnographic and Qualititative Research in Education, so the forum will be a unique way to see the kind of work that ethnography produces. And admission is free to Penn students! I will write a follow-up post with my reactions after I attend the forum. Please let me know if you have any questions on this or other events at Penn.
~Lezlie
So, this weekend is the 28th Annual Ethnography in Education Research Forum. The forum is sponsored by the Center for Urban Ethnography and is hosted by the Graduate School of Education. Some of my classmates are volunteering and others are just attending a few of the sessions in between working or studying. I volunteered as a reviewer last October, where I had the opportunity to read about a dozen proposals for the forum and give my opinions on whether or not I thought others would be interested in seeing any of those papers presented here. It is now interesting to see which of the papers that I reviewed are being presented.
There are two days of presentations, Friday and Saturday, where numerous ethnographers present their work. I will be attending the forum on Friday, for most of the day. I still haven't decided which presentations to go to, there are so many that seem really interesting! You can find the schedule here, which will give you a better idea of the critical subjects that these scholars examine.
I am currently enrolled in EDUC 672 - Introduction to Ethnographic and Qualititative Research in Education, so the forum will be a unique way to see the kind of work that ethnography produces. And admission is free to Penn students! I will write a follow-up post with my reactions after I attend the forum. Please let me know if you have any questions on this or other events at Penn.
~Lezlie
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