June 27-July 8th

Sorry for the failure to write in journal.

Continuation of survey analysis, recently obtained 8 more participants, which will be pooled with the first 18 as well as kept separate. Simple observation seems to reveal a similar pattern in the two sample populations, the two most startlingly evident statistics are that the vast majority of both groups do not use any safety contract and that the vast majority have not had any formal training on the subject of science safety.

I am now proposing several modifications to the true survey, to be issued during the school year, in order to:

1. Make all questions as clear as possible. There are some questions that I believe were misleading as to whether they should be skipped if the answer is "no," or marked as "least like my situation or other."

2. Though I value qualitative data, there will be less open ended responses, especially for background questions such as "subjects taught." instead there will be a variety of choices to check all that apply.

3. The primary sorting mechanism will reduce the complexity of analysis greatly.

June 25

Today was a tedious but productive day, consisting of a lot of spreadsheet organization and data analysis. I decided that even though I lack the kind of sample size I would like, I would begin data synthesis on the quantitative portions of the survey such that I can easily add more subjects in as they come along. It is a very long process, but one that pays off when you take the time to set up your spread sheets correctly. Also, the online survey provider we use makes spreadsheets that are rather difficult to view without extensive modification.

Things that are currently driving me nuts while working with these data include: Why are people skipping so many questions? There not hard, thier not invasive, and there are no identifiers! Also, had it been my choice, I would have reformatted the survey to be more quantitative.

June 17th

Udiscover, Presentation of doctoral student on Nanoparticle technology.

Reading materials provided by Doctor Ezrailson on "Semi formal Interviewing techniques"

June 16th

Finished remainder of standard correlation, preparing to send electronically to teachers that attended workshop. Somewhat disappointed with a few of my colleagues that were supposed to assist me with the correlation process. Completed mostly by myself, but pleased with the result.

Dr. Ezrailson has proposed that I might teach a short course on the hands on aspects of what we learned at PAN during the South Dakota Governor's Camp meeting on July 24th. I am hopeful that this may also present an opportunity to survey and perhaps interview some science teachers who will already be on campus.

I am going to try to learn more about how I might obtain an audience for focus grouping. I also intend to write a timeline that I must have results, and what results I would like to have, soon, because I feel this will help Dr. E and I communicate better.

June 9-13th

PAN Underground Workshop on nuclear physics, Daily from 9-5:00.

This was an excellent experience for me, it was not only very rich in content that I was previously unfamiliar with, but presented me with on opportunity to observe the environment and format of a teacher education program. I was pleased to be able to help design some of the materials for the workshop, Including correlation of National, South Dakota, and Nebraska state educational standards to the new material presented. I would be pleased to provide anyone with a copy of this document; this would be a great way to find out what was covered during the workshop. Finally, I was able to gather much insight from being around so many experienced professionals.

I was also given the opportunity to practice my small group focus skills near the end of the workshop with the teachers that were present.

June 5

PAN Underground Workshop Prep

Created a daily debriefing flow chart and plans for creating a blogging network for workshop feedback, questions, and inter member communication.

Finished writing focus questions and implementation charts with Dr. E.

*If any are interested in viewing these materials, send me an e-mail.

More discussion on how we can help make the workshop meaningful to teachers, I know it probably does not make much sense to a casual reader, but the problem is that even though nuclear physics, particle physics, and radiation are very interesting to students and can be taught a level appropriate to them, most standards just do not address these areas in any depth. Teachers have a ton to teach already, and they will not, and can not, simply add on to their already crunched curriculum.

June 4

Called Jordan, met at 1:00 in Sioux City to talk about how we wanted to correlate the standards to what would be done in the workshop. We were both a little confused, as neither of us was one hundred percent sure what would be in the workshop based on the schedule alone. However, we were able to decide on a basic format for the draft. (Which I would later come to change many times)

At this point, I must say that I had some uncertainties as to the relevance of this teachers workshop on nuclear and particle physics to my research (remember I am still catching up in my journal and this is all over now) but, in addition to being an overall great experience in general, I got to help with, participate, and observe everything that goes into creating a continuing education program, the ultimate goal of my research.