Apology section: 1/3 of you got your essay #2 grades Thursday night, 1/3 will get them by sunrise on Saturday, and the remaining 1/3 by
For those who missed class Wednesday, here are the two exercises we did.
1) Search Term Scattergories... explain your project to a partner, and have her come up with at least 10 search strings (words or phrases) that you haven't thought of yet.
2) Thesis Formation... again, explain your project to a partner, and have her write a they say I say style thesis for you. She'll be less hesitant to commit than you are since it isn't her project.
Important: If anyone is having off-campus library access issues, let me know. Most other research problems are pretty easy to fix at this point by using a better subject area database, a better search string, a subject specialist librarian, or a slight shift to the topic. Oh, and do not rely on those Mason e-links embedded in your database search hits. Take the journal title and put it back into the E-Journal search on the front page of the library site. That always seems to work better.
Iffy thesis model: Most people think topic X is one way, but I say it's another way.
Why iffy? Because this is a research paper. What "most people" think is nothing more than a starting point. We are looking for different theys within whatever research community(ies) you've chosen.
Better thesis model: Most people think topic X is one way, but I say it's another way. A growing body of research literature backs this up, but within that research we find many different models/controversies/differences of viewpoint. Some favor explanation A, some favor explanation B, and some favor explanation C. Each of these is compelling, but I will argue that B seems to be the most useful way of framing the issue.
Other better thesis model: Most people think topic X is one way, but I say it's another way. The research literature about topic A backs this up, as does the research literature about topic B and topic C. These ideas naturally fit together, but their convergence has not been well recognized or well stated, so I want to show how they can combine to form a good model for understanding the topic.
Actual student example of better thesis: The common consensus among educational researchers and scholars today is that methods of tracking and ability grouping negatively impact students, especially those that would be considered to be grouped in the “lower” track. I agree that the the methods used for grouping students may have been skewed in the past, such as for racist reasons, and that even today, ability grouping may be just as harmful to
students and educators as tracking once was. Jo Worthy, former elementary and middle school teacher and present University professor, believes that there is no foundational difference between tracking and ability grouping, and that, as she refers to in one of her scholarly articles, “only the names have changed.” On the other hand, methodological studies from organizations such as the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness and the Journal of Education Research have found some positive correlation between within class ability grouping and elementary reading achievement. Tracking has been strongly related to the negative view of tracking, there is much controversy on whether or not implementing ability grouping in today’s school systems would create more harm than help. After further research, I agree with researchers such as Jeannie Oakes, one of the founder of the great tracking debate, but argue that at some level, within class ability grouping for elementary learners may be particularly helpful when teaching foundational subjects such as reading. Aaron's meany-pants footnote: All studies are methodological because all studies use methods. So that word doesn't really mean anything the way she's using it.
Reminder: All Thursday and Friday proposal conferences are in SciTech II, room 008. Please arrive 5 minutes early and please make sure that both you and I can read your proposal at the same time.
Reminder: By Monday you need to be up to 15 total sources with at least 10 of those annotated. For those who want to reverse an incomplete grade on the proposal, I will let you resubmit a new proposal on Monday, but for full credit it needs to be caught up to speed to the 10/15 point rather than just this week's 5/10 point.
Link: For those working on education related research projects, this is an interesting article about Obama's civil rights watchdog in the U.S. Education Department.
Link: David Simon gets himself tangled up in a real live city planning controversy in New Orleans.
Because Google Docs Keeps Defying Me: Here is the proposal template in PDF, and also the conference schedule.
Dear Anonymous Rate My Professor Commenter or Commenters: Although your appraisal that I "relish the sound of [my] own voice, ooze arrogance, cut people off to talk more about [my]self" and that my class is a "boring" place where students "learn very little" because of my "extremely irritating... ego" is the single most negative thing anyone has said about my teaching in eight years, I have to admit that at my worst moments this is disturbingly true. Especially the cutting people off point, which I struggle with, and which my wife is constantly smacking me for. So I thank you for this bracing look in the mirror. However I do want to take issue with your comment that the course is somehow not appropriate for English majors. The course is not an English course; it is a required writing course for everyone on campus which just happens to live in the English department and be staffed by the English department. So I think you may misunderstand what the course is. Further, for you to complain, of all things, that the scene analysis exercise doesn't help you develop skills related to your English major is surely your most bizarre and unexpected twist. I am not clear what English majors do other than try to link detailed analysis of the technical features of an artistic creation to some kind of broader historical or theoretical framework that might explain them and be explained by them. So that really threw me for a loop. I was kind of expecting you to say, "what does any of this have to do with writing?" or "why the unrealistic workload?" Which are the more cutting criticisms, and the more fair ones, though I am doing my best to address them this month. I also hope you will reconsider your non-chili pepper rating in light of today's festive spring wardrobe, but here again you may be maintaining a tough but fair appraisal. In conclusion, and with all intended irony, what the fuck did I do?
I am looking for a source that can provide me with information about the violence that goes on in high schools. Also that can help me show that the schools are not doing anything to help prevent the violence. If they are doing something it is not helping. Changes need to be made to help prevent the bullying and violence that goes on in schools.
ReplyDeleteAn ideal research source for my project would be a study of the effects 'alternative' teaching environments/methods on at-risk and inner-city students. It would cover influential curriculum modifications, classroom set-up, and teacher involvement. It would also be great if it spoke about the benefits/problems with using standardized testing in curriculum (backing all opinions up with statistical findings, of course).
ReplyDeleteBecause a source like this would be 1) very long and difficult to read or 2) overly generalized with the purpose of including all pertinent information, three separate sources (about curriculum, classrooms, and teachers) would be even better.
I am seeking someone who is completely interested in critical pedagogy, doesn't like politics and enjoys school-aged children(because I have one, get your mind out of the gutter). Someone who already has a degree so that higher education is not an issue. Career wise I am looking for an educator, one who has his own experiences so I can really understand his work and one who is truly interested in his students lives and tries to incorporate them into his classroom learning. And finally someone who doesn't mind being reviewed by my friends so he can meet or exceed their standards of excellence.
ReplyDeleteI am looking for a primary source from children of color dealing with the hardships of urban education. I have a lot of sources from educators and outsiders, but I would love a source from a student themselves who first hand experience the challenges of the Boston Public Schools.
ReplyDeleteI am searching for a source that will offer me a deep look into profiling and school violence. I'm hoping to avoid sources that focus mainly on bullying or profiling outside of schools and hope to find one that will tell me how students are profiled and who does the profiling.
ReplyDeletemy ideal source would be some sort of primary source that comments on an experiment the author or authors completed prior to them writing this specific hypothetical source. the experiment would include the topic of after school programs and their specific positive and/or negative impact on the kids who attended the after school programs. the source would also include ststistical information on the kids who did not attend after school programs. lastly, a report on the youth crime rates would be included to see whether the after school programs helped reduce that rate.
ReplyDeletep.s. "Devin" is actually Patrick
ReplyDeleteI am looking for a recent article that emphasizes a rational argument against health and medicine.I would like this source to have a two sided perspective and offer an alternative as to how people, KNOWING that there is no correlation between medicine and health, actually deal with being sick and when do they seem fit to go to a doctor?
ReplyDeleteI'm looking for a source that would tell me in detail the opinions of the African American community about homosexuality: surveys from all different social/economic classes so I could see the difference between their opinions, statistics on generational differences in opinion, interviews that found detailed descriptions of why this black homophobia exists, and words from black, gay men who were both accepted and discriminated against throughout a 15 year period so I can see if homosexual acceptance is on the rise or decline. I would also want a scholar's opinion in this source telling me if there were any historical occurrences that might have caused a rise or decline in male homosexual acceptance, as well as just giving me a researched, scholarly opinion on the subject in general.
ReplyDeleteI am looking for a source that contains statistical information on political money laundering in the United States over the last decade, preferably in a graphical representation. This would allow me to analyze the trends generated in recent era and establish an idea on how factors such as government policies or internet technology have positively/negatively accounted for the data presented.
ReplyDelete