“ building & dressing your pedagogical mannequin! (aka preparing for & passing your...

“Building & Dressing Your Pedagogical Mannequin!

(AKA Preparing for & Passing Your Comprehensive Exams)”

Dru Tomlin

September 22 2011

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• Dr. Peggy Albers, Professor, Language and Literacy, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA, [email protected]

• Online interactive and participatory web seminars with a purpose to prepare doctoral students to work in the Academy

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present; Please contact Dr. Peggy Albers, [email protected]


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Tonight’s Presenter: Dru Tomlin

• Doctoral student• Research interests in

body as text; multimodalities

• Completed his comps in the spring of 2011

• Doctoral advisor: Peggy Albers

Building & Dressing Your Pedagogical Mannequin! (AKA Preparing for & Passing Your Comprehensive Exams)

Dru TomlinSeptember 22, 2011Georgia State UniversityWebinar

Who’s Dru?Educational Career:

10 as high school & middle school teacher 7 as a middle school and elementary school administrator

Other “stuff”: Presenter: Georgia Middle School Association and National

Middle School Association conferences (2003, 2005, 2009, 2010)

Faculty member: National Middle School Association Leadership Institute (2008 to current)

Somewhat dutiful graduate student at GSU: too many years to officially document at this point

Father of two excitable squirrels, Parker & Holden (4 & 7). They are my joyous lifetime, at-home literacy project.

Husband to one very patient wife, Laura –who is part saint, therapist, psychologist, and dear dear friend.

Why Building & Dressing your Pedagogical Mannequin?

Power of metaphors: helps to have a concrete symbol! For me: My coursework helped me build the mannequin:

my epistemological viewpoints, my educational interests and philosophy my theoretical interests my specific study interest(s) These make the steady form around which I tailor my

interests. My experience with comprehensive exams helped me

dress and tailor the mannequin. I continue the “mannequin dressing process” today.

Remember! You wheel your mannequin wherever you go, explain it, and continue to add clothes, change clothes, remove clothes, etc.

Important Logistical Things to Remember!

Comps are taken when all (or almost all) of your coursework is done….but they should always be on your mind!

There are 6 key pieces in the Language & Literacy Comprehensive Exam outfit!

Document

Due DateSubmit to

a. Memo of Intent

Semester before taking your comps

(April 15 or November 15)

Your major advisor

b. Written Exam

(deciding on your question areas)

Semester before writing your exam answers

Major Advisor and committee

members

c. Writing your

answers

10 days after you get them (except your

research methodologies question, which you will get in EDCI 9900). Due date typically coincides

with 1st day of PAW.

Your committee members

d. Manuscript

for publication

9am on the Wednesday of PAW


e. Syllabus for mock course



f. Orals2 to 3 weeks following

PAW (TBD by you & your advisor)


More 411 about Each Piece for the Mannequin!

Document Due Date Submit to

a. Memo of Intent

Semester before taking your comps (April 15 or November 15)

Your major advisor

Key questions, thoughts, concerns:

1. Are you ready?

2. Are you really ready?

3. Have you finished your coursework (or almost all of it) to the point where you have a solid (or semi-solid) sense of your key educational areas?

4. Have you kept easily accessible files of your course readings, articles, presentations and papers that you’ve written?

5. Are there other people who are at the same stage?

6. Have you alerted your friends and family?

7. What’s your plan with the rest of your life –especially work?



1. Are you ready to choose the areas for your questions?

2. You must be able to write about:

a) Research & theory in your cognate area

b) Research methodologies (quant, qual and mixed methods)

c) Research & theory in 2 major fields of Language & Literacy:

• Reading (teaching, learning, development, curriculum)

• Writing (teaching, learning, development, curriculum)

• Literature and/or Media (teaching, learning, response, curriculum)

• First/Second language issues (teaching, learning, development, curriculum)


b. Written Exam (deciding on your question areas)

Semester before writing your exam answers

Major Advisor and committee members

PleaseNote!



1. Have you chosen the major fields with which you are the most comfy?

2. How well do you know the historical aspects, the key people, and the current trends of your major field choices? How much refresher work will you need?

3. How will you write yourself into your answers? How will you weave your perspective into the work?

4. Do you have many, varied, and easily accessible resources to write your answers? Are they organized and how?

5. How well do you know APA style at this point?

6. How are you going to plan out your life for the 10 days that you have to write your answers? Take off work? Leave the country? Join a monastery? All of the above?


c. Writing your

answers

10 days after you get them (except your research methodologies

question, which you will get in EDCI 9900). Due date typically coincides with 1st day of PAW.




1. Have you already submitted something to a journal for publication? Do you have the emails, etc. from the journal to show that?

2. If you haven’t already submitted something for publication, what journals interest you (and possibly your committee, too)? Do you know their guidelines for submitting an article?

3. Do you have papers that could be revised as articles for submission? How much time will you need to revise, etc.?

4. Does your possible article “represent you as a literacy scholar”?

5. Remember that you don’t have to actually be published in the journal –just show evidence that you have submitted something of worth. Hence, being rejected is okay!


d. Manuscript

for publication





1. What courses/subjects have you taken at GSU that have really excited and engaged you intellectually, emotionally, etc. –in both your major field and your cognate?

2. What elements of those courses/subjects (assignments, classwork, readings) did you really enjoy –and what elements didn’t you enjoy? What could have made them even better?

3. What articles, books, and other readings did you enjoy and how do they all relate?

4. To what educational theory (or theories) do you subscribe? Do you know them well enough to teach them?

5. Do you know the different elements for a syllabus at GSU?


e. Syllabus for mock course



In some ways, this part of theprocess is like play! Have fun!



1. Are you ready? Are you really ready?

2. How well do you know your own work –as well as the journey that got you there?

3. Can you just talk about your answers –and expand upon them to show that you can go beyond the page?

4. Are you prepared to defend your answers –especially if there are aspects that are missing?

5. Do you have someone with which you can practice this part?

6. Are you prepared if you have to rewrite a section?


f. Orals2 to 3 weeks following

PAW (TBD by you & your advisor)


Top 10 Things Not to Do When Preparing For your Comps!

1.Let it sneak up on you –and your major advisor, family, etc.

2.Don’t talk to anyone before you start your comps experience –you are alone and you better like it!

3.Have your course readings in various folders that are unfiled, defiled, or otherwise scattered, smothered, and chunked.

4.Whatever you do, don’t organize your readings by theme and don’t worry about creating annotated bibliographies for those readings!

5.Make sure your life is extremely full and complicated.

Top 10 Things Not to Do When Preparing For your Comps!

6. For at least one of your major field questions, choose one about which you are only somewhat confident already.

7. When you have your questions, don’t spend time researching to find additional articles to help you answer them. You have everything you need!

8. When you get ready to write, don’t consider space issues. You should be able to write in a cramped cubicle –that’s just part of the experience.

9. When you get ready to write, don’t worry about time. Heck, you’ve got 10 whole days!

10. For your oral comps, just wing it.

Honk.

Questions, comments, concerns?

Thank you for your kind attention!

Good luck as you journey on into the world of

comprehensive exams!

Merci!Gracias!

Thank you!

Thank you to Thank you to

Dru Tomlin

September 22, 2011


Please join us for our next Please join us for our next Doctoral Web Seminar Doctoral Web Seminar

FeaturingFeaturingHeather LynchHeather Lynch

Preparing, Writing, and Defending the Prospectus, Oct. 13, https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=221&password=M.EF2FBAAAE9B729C8A9B473B37F9979


Upcoming Web Seminars: Fall 2011

•Writing for Publication, Oct. 27,

https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=221&password=M.DCEA30C3D167657385102E3CC6E786

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“ building & dressing your pedagogical mannequin! (aka preparing for & passing your...

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