Reading 3

The third reading for Weeks 1-2 was an interesting journal that read almost like a story.  It began with a preview of common hurdles and structures found in doctoral programs.  A good description of the difference in doctoral goals vs previous academic goals was perhaps the highlight for me.  It then went on to provide what read like anecdotal experience in their group.

The article does a good job of providing scholarly sources on doctoral group dynamics and support mechanisms.  If I find myself with time, I might follow up on some of the citations.  It seems the writers were trying to show how their group followed these identified systems.  But it sure read like a lot of conflict and frustration were the most common items between the members.

The takeaway I had from this reading was that a lot of what made the group function was the guidance from Danling (the group's professor).  This professor reorganized the group into one that required the students to interact more with each other than with her.  As the participants were all language arts instructors themselves, they did find commonality there and used it as a starting point until new territory needed to be covered.  I'll be interested to see if this is a tactic that our doctoral professors will employ: set the conversational framework and force the students to do the learning together rather than as a professor-to-student setting.

Hadjioannou, X., Shelton, N.R., Fu, D., & Dhanarattigannon, J. (2007). The Road to a Doctoral Degree: Co-Travelers Through a Perilous Passage. College Student Journal, 41, 160-177.