Month 6 Trials and Tribulations

How is your AR cycle 1 unfolding for you?

Although I haven’t completed my first cycle of writing at the time of this posting I feel a lot of things are starting to look up and that the research and the project are starting to gain momentum and, if you don’t mind the cliché, the project is starting to gain a life of its own. My greatest delay in the completion of my first cycle comes from my inability to narrow my focus on Asperger’s Syndrome and with such a broad scope I found myself gathering great information but not knowing how to apply or use that information. Soon the stress of the project and the lack of a defined direction caused me to find myself swimming in a sea of doubts and really questioning whether I could even finish my program at Full Sail. Here out west we have a saying that “sometimes it’s hard to see the forest for the trees”, that phrase basically described the place where I found myself in my research, too many trees and no forest. Sometimes when you’re lost the hardest thing to do is ask for directions, maybe it’s a guy thing, maybe it’s a pride thing, I suspect it’s a little of both, in any event I needed a GPS to find out where I was in the AR universe. My GPS was not named Garmin it was named Roxanne; Roxanne not only helped me find out where I was but she also calmed my fears and gave me some confidence that I was not that far off the path. She helped me thin the trees to find the forest. With renewed focus and a great direction I am now able to fine tune my cycle and get specific information as I research and conduct interviews.

What has been a surprise with your results?

I can’t say that my preliminary results have given me any earth shattering revelations but what I can say is that I never realized how emotional the response would be from the parents that I interviewed. In most cases the parents have been really grateful for this type of research and for the hoped outcome of the website to instruct teachers in communicating with Asperger affected students. Perhaps the greatest surprise that I have personally encountered is how my research has challenged and changed me personally, making me more sensitive and more focused on trying to effect change in the classroom.

What tweaks are you making for your next cycle of research?

Having yet to finish my first cycle I can’t specifically say what my tweaks will be but if I had to guess I would say that most of them would be to focus on clarity and fine tuning the direction of communication.


What is the overall participant’s response?

The response of everyone I have worked with has been overwhelmingly supportive and they are really hoping that my project succeeds.

Problem Statement Asperger's Education

As my research on Asperger’s Syndrome has deepened I’ve learned a lot about the issues that those afflicted with Asperger’s face daily. Unfortunately I’ve also learned that a lot of the issues that Asperger students face could be eradicated with base line knowledge and with communications strategy training. In my research I found that there is ample information on both Asperger’s Syndrome and strategies for working with and communicating Asperger students.
The problem that I encountered was that the information was scattered with no real cohesive websites that covered more than one aspect of Asperger’s Syndrome. What especially hoped to find was a website dedicated to educating teachers on Asperger’s Syndrome, a site that not only informed but also trained teachers on strategies and methodologies for classroom achievement. There is great need for an Asperger’s website that is dedicated to the education of those who teach the Asperger’s afflicted.

Sometimes the failed plan is the plan. My meeting with Robert to talk over my action research plan didn’t happen due to previous engagement that Robert had forgotten about, so we rescheduled for next week. The time I would have with Robert I did researching for my current groups proposal and project during that I stumbled across a lot of materials for my own action research. I’m finding out rather rapidly that my reading list is starting to grow like a bamboo in the monsoon season. I have also come to realize that the delay in my meeting with Robert has allowed me to become more knowledgeable on my subject of Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) and the socialization issues that students inflicted with AS face. I really believe that the delay in my meeting has allowed me to become more of a student of AS and will take my meeting time with Robert more productive because of the groundwork we won’t have to cover. Often, it is said that a little bit knowledge can be a dangerous thing but I would argue that a little bit of knowledge is also a starting place or a key that may unlock the door to great knowledge and without that knowledge we may never ask the questions how and why.

Why Asperger's Syndrome and the Critical Focus Question

Asperger’s Syndrome has recently been brought to the forefront of my attention due to great number of young people who continuously cross my path in education. One of these young people captured my heart one morning, often this young man and I struggled to communicate and connect with each other. One day for some reason I asked him what was on his mind and he told me that he had joke book and he was excited that he had learned so many jokes to tell, for the next twenty minutes we spent sharing jokes with one another. My relationship with this young man was forever changed that morning and all because of changing my approach in communications and simply asking what was on his mind. All of my earlier attempts to connect with this young man were failures, simply because of my approach, all my motives were right but the method I used was all-wrong.

So after a lot of soul searching I’ve come to this critical focus question. Is there teaching and communications training for traditional classroom teachers who have mainstreamed students with Asperger’s Syndrome?

So What is Asperger's Syndrome?

An autism related developmental disorder characterized by severe and sustained impairment in social interaction and nonverbal communication and by restricted, repetitive, pedantic and stereotyped activities, interests, speech and routines.

Sometimes my mind is my worst enemy, I love to dream big dreams but that’s is usually where my dreams end, because the next step is always the hardest one for me, I don’t always know how to make my dreams come true. So, what’s my dream? I want to have an action research project that shows through media what it’s like to have Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) to really be able to convey what it is like to live and function in an AS world. What an amazing starting point it would be to show the world that an AD child lives in, what a powerful teaching tool this could be, what a connecting point. I hope that this one dream that will come to life.

Somebody once said, “ The more I know the more I realize I don’t know” and so it is with my research on Asperger’s Syndrome (AS). The deeper I dig the more I find, the more I find the deeper I dig. Sometimes oddly enough it is the search itself that changes the course of the project and then when you least expect it, an epiphany strikes you and realize that the information you’ve been looking for is the project. In essence my action research has become the charge to share with my colleagues what AS is and how to communicate with students afflicted the disease. Hopefully, my passions won’t cloud my desire to have other commit to communicating and entering the world of the AS learner. So off I sail, in a new direction, I hope that waters are smooth and the journey is a rich one.

Hopefully my absence on the blog has been missed but since this is only my second posting, I probably overestimate my importance to my own blog, so where have I been? My Father and believe it or not his twin brother both passed away and I was to their memorial service in Montana. Sometimes delays have wonderful unintended side effects and for me the time away allowed me to step back and get a new perspective on my action research project. Often, I can get so near sighted, that I forget that the project is a larger more encompassing endeavor than my gaze allows it to be.

Oddly enough one of the first people that crossed my path was Robert Tadjiki who is a nationally recognized Life Skills teacher. I told Robert of my action research plan and that the object of my research was Life Skills students and their interaction with electronic media. Robert was excited to say the least and wanted to schedule a coffee date and so Friday afternoon Robert and I are sitting down to plot out a strategy.

In the mean time the ADDIE system has really caught my attention and I find myself thinking about this framework of curriculum development and have caused me to really rethink the way I develop lesson plans and scope and sequence. I’m still looking for tutorial software to start my research with and I have also started to look for training software that has a higher level of cognitive challenge.

Over the many years that I have been teaching adolescents, I have constantly been struck with the amount of time and energy I spend trying to connect with students and their culture. The cornerstone of my teaching has been based on the premise that if I can’t speak the language of my students, I can’t teach as effectively as I should and the learning process is hindered. You might even say that connecting or engaging students has always been my greatest passion throughout my teaching career.

As I reach the twilight years of my career I still have another connection to make, one more language to learn and another culture to enter, the culture of the Life Skills or Special Needs learner. Over the years I’ve noticed a unique connection between my Life Skills student and electronic media and so it is to this observation I make my inquiry and start my research. As I launch into this field, I am as anxious as a first grader on his first day school. I am nervous, excited and entering the experience with some trepidation, but in the final result, I love adventure.