Evaluation

After finishing my Extended Project Qualification, I completed an evaluation, (linked below), including both strengths and weaknesses of things that I did well and would change in different categories.

Evaluation

By completing this project, I believe that my main strength is that I gained more confidence and independent learning skills, by having to organise meetings with my mentor and working individually, with my main weakness being a lack of time keeping and organisational skills.

Presentation Evaluation

On 2nd May, I presented my EPQ findings to a group of governors, teachers and the other students that had also completed the Extended Project Qualification.

I used a PowerPoint presentation, (linked below), to use as a guide in order to prompt what I was going to say, instead of just reading straight off of the board.

PowerPoint Presentation

Prior to my presentation, I was quite nervous about standing in front of people and talking about what I had learnt on my project, however I found that by the time I asked for questions, I was a bit more confident as I was able to answer them with my opinions and take into consideration the points that they were making.

By choosing a topic that I was already somewhat familiar with, and was able to get more familiar with over the course of my EPQ, this made me more confident as it allowed me to have the knowledge to answer questions that were asked to me through using facts found and opinions that I had developed through my qualification.

During my presentation, the group I presented to completed feedback forms on my presentation, such as things that went well and things I could improve. I have included some of these feedback forms below, however my main comments were that I presented my information clearly and had knowledge on my topic, but could have been more confident.

('detailed, sophisticated ideas, use of appropriate knowledge', 'With time and practice, Katie could improve her speaking skills')

('thought provoking, really interesting and challenging, copies of the dissertation to read would be good')

('shows clear passion about the course')

May Reflection

In the final month, I have:
- Presented my EPQ to a group of people
- Finished my evaluation successfully

I believe that, after leaving the weekly timeline and creating a revised, monthly timeline, this helped me to follow a more lenient structure in order to finish the tasks I had set myself without getting disheartened or feeling pressure if I missed a week due to coursework or revision set in my other subjects.

Source Evaluation

Throughout the course of my EPQ, I kept an evaluation of each source that I looked at and used within my dissertation, focusing on what I had learnt from it, along with the reliability of the source and what I planned to do with it. (This is linked below).

Source Evaluation

By completing this as I went along in a table, this allowed me to follow a clear structure for each source, allowing me to quickly evaluate each source and keep on track.

Primary Research - Results and Conclusions

In my last post on my primary research, I stated that I would present my results and come to conclusions after posting some responses I got to the questions asked.

In reality, this was harder than I expected it to be. Initially, I was going to individually count each response I got to the first three questions (on the texts they could recall teaching previously), however this proved to be difficult to keep track of and was very time consuming. I ended up having to come to a consensus of which texts appeared the most, being 'A Christmas Carol', 'Of Mice and Men' and 'Lord of the Flies', along with plays by Shakespeare, such as 'Macbeth' and 'Romeo and Juliet'.

With these results, and the comments that were made by teachers, (seen in the previous post), I am able to conclude that the curriculum includes a majority of authors that are white males, along with characters that are white males, having a lack of culture, where there are differing opinions by teachers (with some believing that there needed to be no change, and the majority wanting change to include more BAME characters). I believe that this reinforces my point as it shows how many people want change within the curriculum, with the additional point of the lack of time when teaching being raised.

April Reflection

This month, I completed what I had planned to do, through:
- Finishing research that needed to be completed (through a final TedTalk on YouTube that highlighted firsthand experience of travelling the world to find different cultures)
- Starting and completing my 5000 word dissertation, with help from my mentor
- Beginning my presentation to complete in May

In May, I need to:
- Present my EPQ and complete the evaluation

'Why cultural diversity matters' - Ted Talk

Notes
- 7,000 languages approx.
> as many as half of those languages will disappear as people don't learn cultural diversity -> loss
- 'when we're talking about cultural diversity were talking about thousands of different ways to see the world and our place in it'
- 'culture involves the rights of people [...] to determine the future of their cultures'
- 'we need to recognise that culture is not static. [...] It belongs to people'
- 'Increasingly, [...] small number of cultural groups are determining the shape and fabric of society. These groups are determining the systems of law, of education, of economies'.
> imbalance of power in society driving the loss of cultural diversity
- Schools: taught in English in the majority of other countries - imbalance of power
> the systems constrain kindergarten teachers
>> lessons are embedded in culture (increasingly in one culture - Western)
- power spread unevenly across our societies
- create system which celebrate cultural diversity, explore differences and embrace multiple ways of thinking

March Reflection

This month, I managed to follow my blog, through:
- Distributing the questionnaires to teachers, collecting the data and publishing on my blog - I completed my questionnaire on Survey Monkey and had a mentor distribute them on the schools twitter, where I gathered opinions from teachers across the UK.
- Continue to look at additional secondary data from more reputable sources (such as the BBC) - I looked at both blogs and a podcast from BBC Radio 4, which were both instrumental to my dissertation in creating more of a balanced and fair argument


Next month, I need to:
- Finish any research that needs to be completed
- Start my dissertation
- Begin my presentation

'Decolonising' the Curriculum

This week, I decided to focus on the BBC Radio 4 debate on 'decolonising the curriculum', in order to get perspectives on why the curriculum should be changed to be more inclusive or be kept the same.

Notes: 'Decolonising the Curriculum'

By listening to this debate, I was able to gain different perspectives, of which I was able to use in my dissertation to evaluate whether the topic of ethnic diversity is an issue when looking at the English Literature curriculum taught in England.

A link to the clip is provided here: 'Moral Mazes' - BBC Radio 4

Primary Data

When considering on how to get a fair and unbiased judgement within my EPQ, I decided to conduct primary research in the form of a questionnaire, which was sent out to teachers in order to gather different opinions on the diversity of the current curriculum. I used Survey Monkey in order to do this, which was sent, through social media, to teachers around the UK.

Within my questionnaire, I used a mixture of both open and closed questions, in order to allow the survey to be quick and practical for teachers taking it, but also to allow me to gather comments and opinions on the national curriculum. The questionnaire that I sent included these ten questions:
'Can you name up to ten novels/plays/poems you taught in the last year?'
'Can you name up to ten other novels/plays/poems you taught in the last five years?'
'Can you name another ten novels/plays/poems you taught in the last 10+ years?'
'What are your opinions of the diversity of the current curriculum? (in relation to ethnicity and nationality, focusing on the writers and the stories themselves)'
'On a scale of 1 to 10, how more diverse do you feel the curriculum was when you began teaching in comparison to the curriculum now?'
'Has this changed throughout your career?'
'If so, do you feel that this has made the curriculum better or worse for students?'
'Thinking of the diversity of texts you teach, are there any changes you would like to see in the future?'
'Do you have any further comments about the diversity of the English Literature curriculum?'

When reviewing the answers to these questions, I noticed some limitations, one of which is shown in the first three questions. I left these questions open to see the diversity of the different texts stated, however got many short answers such as 'no' or 'yes'. If I was to do this primary research again, I would word the questions in a way that would allow me to only get examples of texts that have been taught in the past year(s).

However, there were many strengths within my questionnaire, such as the sample being the target population of teachers, (over 1-10+ years), allowing me to gain insight into a different view of my topic, along with multiple comments from teachers on how they believe the curriculum should change in order to make it more diverse and inclusive.

However, in many responses, such as the one pictured below, teachers tended to leave helpful opinions on if/how the curriculum should be changed, along with background information of the differences between when they taught in the past compared to present day.

In my next post, I plan to post the results to my primary data in order to analyse them and come to conclusions based around these.

'Learning from my Mistakes' blog

This week, I decided to focus upon a blog of a teacher who believes that the canon should be focused on what is intellectual and engaging, over whether it is representative of the ethic minority groups, as these students who are under-represented can simply look for people similar to them on the Internet.

Research: 'Learning from my Mistakes'

This allowed me to not only see views on the current curriculum from a different perspective, but also allowed me to evaluate my thoughts in my dissertation and debate against the teacher on why my views are different to the ones that he put forward, allowing me to have another answer to my topic question and look at the topic from a different opinion, rather than having my judgement clouded by finding articles that only agree with my point of view.

You can find the blog I am referring to here: 'Learning from my Mistakes' blog