Lesson dissemination: a lesson for DPI! (we’ll see)

First of all, I just read through everyone’s lesson dissemination posts and am so inspired! You all have been doing fantastic things in the classroom with your Kenan work. I hope it also inspires others in your schools and districts.

Like the other DPI fellows have stated, Emily, Sue, and I have been doing a different kind of work for our projects, but it has been satisfying nonetheless. We finished and submitted the survey results presentation for review last week (!!!). I’m actually getting flashbacks right now just thinking about it. Thursday night, I was sitting in front of the computer scrolling mindlessly through the presentation for the billionth time until Nathan dragged me away.

The process wouldn’t have taken as long for some, but because I was tackling the data analysis itself, I had to concurrently learn how to…um…do it. Luckily my fiance is a research scientist and so does this for a living (and, unfortunately for him, always nearby for my million questions–hah!) and was a patient teacher. Even though it was frustrating at the time that what I knew he could do in 10 minutes took me an hour plus, I’m glad to have gone through the process. It taught me patience and made me realize that I’m actually capable of more than I thought I was. Pretty soon, I didn’t need to ask him how to best figure out an equation for what I wanted it to do—I was figuring them out myself. My friend is having to do the same thing right now for her master’s thesis, and I’ve actually been able to help her out with some tips from my experience!

Our big dissemination is still to come—April 8th is the big day for the DPI presentation—but on the same day of the submission, I have already received an email from someone at DPI with initial positive feedback. I truly believe that this will have a direct impact on DPI, and we are lucky that our mentor believed in this project (and us) so much that she is giving us “ins” to make it all happen.