Help much appreciated! (1 Viewer)

[jessdub96]

Hi everyone,

I know this is asked SO MUCH, so I apologise... but I am really struggling with refining my topic area for my PIP to something that isn't so broad and moreover, is an appropriate PIP question/topic.

I'm really quite set on doing my PIP about education or possibly the arts in education. I have come up with a number of ideas some of which I've pitched to my teacher who has rightly said that they are too broad or not quite right for the PIP.
The best I've come up with so far and something which also gives an idea into what I'm wanting to focus on is:

The route to higher education marginalises the individual (how we are being educated to have a sense of cultural identity whilst being part of the process of globalisation and how in the process of that children are alienated who do not fit the mould the education system creates- through standardised testing and traditional operation of schools etc etc).

And these are some of the ideas I've mulled over in trying to figure out just what I'm getting at.. D:

-Attitudes towards education within Australia
*teachers operating within a culture which fundamentally does not value education as other countries such as Finland do.
-Changes within educational institutions are due to changes in society’s cultural relationship to knowledge (focus on Australia specifically?)
-Standardised testing in the 21st century as an instrument of government policy- overshadowing the benefit of the student
-changes in society creating pressures for school change

If anyone can help in any way I would really appreciate it, I really feel like I'm struggling to grasp a tangible and not-too broad research-area/question.

Thanks so much

 

[bec3]

You sound a lot like me when I started my pip, all of those ideas are making my head spin too ^
Generic advice: Read. Reading about your broad topic area (education- perhaps across different cultures) will lead you on to new areas within that broad area. From there you can narrow it down to one topic.

For example, I started off with a broad area of interest to me: Diabetes Type 1 and 2, from there I read and asked fellow diabetics a few questions on what matters most to them, and as a result managed to narrow my topic

Best thing to do right now is to make a mind map, plot down areas of interest and look them up.
Many of us had this problem, you end up stumbling across your topic eventually I know I found mine and I STILL couldn't quite grasp it until I began researching and writing up the PIP

Try not to worry, you have a broad area which is more than some at this stage!
Happy to help if you want to try and sort through some more cemented ideas

(IDEA: Perhaps you could even look at something like what is a student? Is the education system targeted at rote learning and high results? Is it training individuals to be active members of society? just some further ideas)