So far I have managed to write almost 1500 words. That’s nearly a third of the total word count so I’m on the way.
It is very hard to stay focussed on the subject though. Even just writing the introduction and rationale I found myself getting sidetracked. First of all I got interested in how the rise of the IWB and ICT generally has coincided with the reduction in use of concrete apparatus. That could probably be a whole assignment in itself but I really had to delete the 200 or so words that I had written as not really being relevant.
Then I got interested in the area of attitudes and beliefs and the work done by Dweck. This is probably something that I can include but I really need to refine my ideas more before I put it into the final paper.
Finally I got sidetracked into how and why we devise tasks for children and how we make sure that they are worthwhile after spending most of the afternoon reading ‘Designing and Using Mathematical Tasks’ by John Mason and Sue Johnstone-Wilder. Again, there is a lot in here that is relevant to what I am writing about but I need to be very selective about how much I put in.
We have been given approximate word counts expected for each sections and I’m not sure how rigidly they need to be adhered to. At the moment I am interpreting them quite liberally in order to include everything they ask for but still make a coherent story.
I have now virtually finished the introduction and the rationale and so next I have to actually get onto my research. This is where I need to start to ‘analyse and synthesise’. I suspect progress from now on will be a bit slower. Still, there’s over 2 weeks of the holidays left yet 🙂