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Capstone

Overview (David Marsh)

Goal for thematic dissertation

  • Resolve problems of practice (USC signature pedagogy)
  • Move to collaborative inquiry - rather than 1 time research project (traditional dissertation)
  • Build executive leadership
  • Adding to professional leadership capacity in districts
  • Evaluation: what does the capstone do to build leadership
    • Are they as good as Ph.D. dissertations? This is the wrong question - We should be asking what is the capstone doing to build leadership in education settings?

Faculty

Priscilla Wohlstetter

  • Guiding principles: draw on students' passion, contribute to field
  • Compendium of promising practices in charter schools in California
  • Solicit nominations of promising practices, develop interview protocols to interview principal, project lead
  • Methods are developed collaboratively
  • Develop interview practices
  • Principal, project lead, classroom observations, focus groups with parents
  • Every student asking the same questions about their problem of practice

Lessons learned:

  1. has panel of former students who have worked on thematic dissertation to communicate about learning experience
  2. Develop outline for everything students' write
  3. Value of collaborative work
  4. Peer Review
  5. Drawing on students' passion
    • Students who have finished are applying for jobs, working to incorporate practices of charter schools into the public school system

Rudy Castruita

  • Faculty at USC help one another; can access website and see how other faculty are doing their thematic dissertation groups
  • Partnership with David Marsh to study Broad participants
    • Goal: Understand how system leaders address 10 areas
    • Embrace students to be urban leaders
    • What did they learn?
      • Learned how to frame research questions
      • Thematic dissertation groups have team leaders
      • Strategies leaders use to address 10 areas
      • Outcome is report to Broad about developing superintendents
      • Common literature review and common methodology
      • Understand mechanisms to a good literature review, research
        • Peer accountability
        • Professional growth
        • Improved writing skills

Gigi Ragusa

  • Two projects
    1. Literacy factors in extreme poverty and the role of family - centered around multidisciplinary services of LA based organization
    2. Problems of practice in literacy development for children in urban settings focusing on pre-service or in-service teacher education
  • TEMS/K12/Ed Psych groups
  • Need for organization
    • Start with a goal, common set of ideas around the core
  • Fully implemented writers workshop to manage dissertation
    • Outside of class - used Blackboard postings
    • Students reviewed at least 2 other students' writing
  • Also used organizational tools (ex. Structuring literature review)
  • Structured timeline
  • Backwards planning
  • Importance of common goal and common ideas
  • Two students chose independent dissertation - engaged in a ‘mini-group' to support each other
  • Students now "don't rely on gut" they do things because they are based on evidence
  • Nearly all have been promoted or changed jobs
  • Some in higher education, some have published

Myron Dembo

  • Two important questions
    1. Can we enhance students' professional development?
    2. Can we contribute to the field?
  • If you allow students to choose their own topics, you will have faculty advising dissertations they know nothing about - how do you get a better product than this?
  • Met with director of institutional research at community college - to identify problems regarding learning and motivation
    • At community college - students weren't coming to learning center, writing center, etc.
  • Students studied help seeking, attribution, efficacy
    • Identified potential questions to address problem (in two weeks, shorter than traditional Phd would take to develop questions)
    • Went back to community college and presented questions
  • Want students to look at literature not for traditional PhD purpose of finding gaps, want students to look at literature to solve practical problem
    • Used single page worksheet - identify the variables, questions, procedures, analysis
    • Students critique papers - don't send them in unless they have been critiqued by a peer
  • Community college was 3rd member of dissertation committee
    • Helped obtain participants
  • Students wrote executive summaries of work and disseminated information directly to relevant members in community college
    • College paid for some data analysis, etc.
  • Publishing more with Ed.D. students than with Ph.D. students
    • 2 manuscripts accepted for publication
    • 7 AERA presentations
  • Quality of work not less than PhD, Ed.D. has different type of inquiry
  • Can help in marketing and recruitment

Students

Yvette Ventura

  • Didn't get first choice, got third choice - but turned out to be good match
  • Sometimes there were students who didn't come prepared. Didn't want to work with those students - they didn't get feedback. But we pulled them along in a positive way.
  • You have academic and emotional support. Knowing that you're not alone is helpful.
  • Peer review was very helpful

Leonor Vazquez

  • Expectations were very clear but not unrealistic
  • We knew there were multiple drafts expected, that adjustments to lifestyles were necessary
  • Chair pushed us but had faith in us
  • One person was designated as group leader to check-in and coordinate meeting times
  • Shared sources, encouraged each other
  • Dissertation support group - helped with writing process, weekly emails of schedules when there was proposal defenses, how to structure lit review, how to organize, how to focus on paper during holidays, how to collaborate. Emails helped keep us connected

David Haglund

  • Allowed for experience of speaking with urban superintendents that wouldn't have also been possible.
    • Able to learn about what superintendants across the nation were doing
  • Learn beyond own dissertation to benefit from others in team
  • Responsibility of leadership role was rewarding.
  • Worked to support one another to ensure meeting deadline.
  • Benefits of two advisors - challenged from two different critical positions.
  • Benefits of multiple perspectives in student group
    • Having 10 sets of eyes on the data was helpful; experience of everyone served to inform your interpretation of the data

Janice Myck Wayne

  • Didn't feel like fit into any of the groups - but picked a group.
  • While individual interests were different, shared literature review and met every two weeks for peer review.
  • Felt like team effort.
  • Kept on target
  • Blackboard web page - shared articles with each other
  • Process was broken down so that dissertation wasn't as scary. When I realized dissertation was five separate papers it was easier.
  • While we started in thematic groups professors knew us well enough to understand our personal goals and support us in that way as well
  • Completed a dissertation that looked more like a PhD dissertation
  • Wish I knew it was all about publication (in higher ed); didn't do enough of that here

Marie Morelock

  • Principal at charter school - member of the group that studied charter schools
  • Appreciated that professors encouraged us to choose something we were passionate about
  • Structure, support was very helpful
    • Developing common parameters for research together was very helpful
    • Common purpose but all chose topics that were relevant to us
    • Liked that there were timelines and that we were accountable to one another.
    • Emotional and academic support amongst students and faculty
  • Match between personalities - faculty and students
  • Challenges
    • difficult when you think some people are not meeting expectations; hard in very small group.
  • I can directly apply my research to my work.

Questions/comments

  • Oral defenses
    • Oral defense at end is individual
    • Committees of 3, one member is usually a person of practice
    • Chair and students worked together to figure out when you are ready to defend
  • Proportions of shared/individual work?
    • No one held us up
    • Want to be accountable to each other
      • Monitoring process, address social loafing
  • Each dissertation stands on its own
    • Methodology is the same, but the dissertation is different
  • Faculty load
    • Do a group every other year, like doing the average of 4 dissertations per year (8 members in a group)
    • 2 courses/year
    • Modeling and explaining - once faculty understand it they do it very well
  • Feelings of readiness amongst students (to defend)
    • Depends on the person - if you felt very interested the defense was not as scary
    • Did not defend until they felt ready - worked on a schedule; chair helped them feel ready

USC Approach

  • Faculty membership working with groups of 8 students
  • 1st year - one day summer institute.
    • Faculty present ideas for capstone projects, students choose from among groups.
    • 80% get their first choice
  • 2nd year - Research class and Dissertation seminar - Prof's work together with student group.
    • Students interview someone from program who recently completed program to share lessons of how to manage workload.
    • Build time management, self-efficacy
    • Look at other thematic dissertations to understand underlying schema
    • Build common methodology; by end of summer usually have draft of Chapters 1-3.
    • Qualifying exams at end of summer
  • 3rd year - dissertation
    • At least 80% of students must be in thematic dissertations. Exceptions for individual dissertations 1. Good student 2. Good purpose 3. Match up with faculty member
  • Faculty receive support
    • Faculty role - expectation that every faculty member will chair thematic dissertation. 2nd year is equivalent to 2 course load.
    • Increased efficiency because faculty are working with more than one student at a time.
    • Students can also learn from each other
    • Hold each other accountable
    • Problem-solving process
    • Lots of modeling, build group norms, dynamics

Challenges

  • Student support and completion rates
  • Socialization and fairness - How do we make integration of new faculty work?
  • Building credibility
  • How do we manage size and quality of all of the groups (and work with the demands of faculty to make it convenient)?
  • How do we evaluate quality of thematic dissertations?