This course will start with an examination of school contexts by comparing the thinking and reasoning that takes place in school contexts with thinking and reasoning that takes place in out-of-school contexts. We will examine what is unique about the school context and consider whether this is a good or bad thing. We’ll also consider the issue of transfer: how knowledge, thinking and reasoning transfers (or fails to transfer) from school contexts to everyday contexts. Then we will turn our attention to examining thinking and reasoning in particular content areas (math, science, reading and writing, technology, etc.). Students who have a background or interest in a particular content area will at times take the lead in teaching the rest of the class about thinking and reasoning in that particular subject area. The schedule will be flexible so that we may focus on those subject areas in which class members have an interest.

This course is also designed to help you develop as a researcher (this is particularly true for doctoral students). Course assignments will not only help you learn about thinking and reasoning in school contexts, but they will guide you through the process of planning a research project, getting approval from the Human Subjects Research Review Committee, conducting a mini-research project, writing a research paper, and presenting your work in a conference like setting.

Course Pack: Available at The Student Book Store (3059 W Bancroft).

Optional Course Pack: Will be available in the Carver Center (2002 Gillham Hall).

The course assignments are designed to help you to initially or further develop an area of research interest. There are basically two assignments: the writing of reflection papers and the completion of a course project. The reflection papers will help you to develop a greater conceptual and theoretical understanding of your area of interest. The course project will help you to begin conducting research in this area.

Reflection papers: For this assignment, you will choose an area of research interest and write 3 reflective papers about the area of interest. In each paper, you will relate a particular course topic to your area of interest. For example, you may write about ways in which the issue of transfer intersects with your area of interest. Each paper should be about 3 – 5 pages, typed, double-spaced. I’ll give more details with the assignment of each paper.

Course project: In addition to writing the reflection papers, you will complete a pilot study – in other words, a mini-research project which will help you conduct future research. This project should involve the same topic of interest that you chose for the reflection papers.

• Choose a topic that interests you. It should be a topic that you want to learn about and that relates to your career as a teacher, researcher, or other professional.
• Try to use this project as pilot study for a masters thesis/project, doctoral dissertation, or other research project. So for example, you many want to use this project to tryout a survey, interview protocol, teaching technique, etc. Or you may want to get some preliminary data on how students/individuals will think about a particular issue, respond to a particular task, etc. It’s a chance to do a real research project on a much smaller scale. That leads us to the next point.
• Think small. A reasonable project may be to interview 2-3 people (or even 1 depending on how in-depth you go). Asking all the student in a class just a few questions would be another reasonable project. Keep your project focused and simple.

1. Doctoral students will be required to fill out a form for the Human Subjects Research Review Committee. I encourage masters students to fill out a form as well. You can’t publish or present your research without going through the review committee and, as you will see, I am highly encouraging you to present your work.
2. Write a project proposal. This should be an informal description of what you plan to do for your project. It should include a simple argument of why your study is important, a statement of the research question, and a description of how you will collect and analyze data. After reading these proposals, I will meet with each of you to offer feedback, advice, support, etc.
3. Conduct the research.
4. Write a research article. There is no appropriate length for a research article. A good article can be under 10 pages or over 50 pages. What’s important is that you clearly articulate your argument and clearly present and describe you findings as they relate to your argument. For this project, keep the paper under 25 pages (typed, double-spaced). Try to keep it under 15 or 20 pages. That means you will have to be focused in your writing so that you can still include the needed details. Below I list some the major things that should be included in your paper:

• Theoretical framework with a literature review. This is not just a summary of the research related to your topic. Rather it is an argument; an argument for why your study is important and how it contributes to the work that has already been done. In this section, you should convince me that your study address an important problem or issue, that connects to past work (if there is any) while at the same time offering something new (in other words, your specific research question hasn’t already been asked and answered).
• Research question. The argument made in your theoretical framework should naturally lead to a research question. For example, you may argue that a critical problem in science education is that the students don’t apply what they learn about science. You may further argue that many researchers have addressed this problem, but no one has specifically looked at whether some students fail to apply the science ideas they learn because they aren’t interested in those science ideas. This argument naturally leads to some research questions: Do student fail to apply the science ideas they are not interested in? Are students more likely to apply the ideas they are interested in? Are interested students more likely to apply their science knowledge than non-interested students? Your study should have one clearly stated research question. A version of this question should involve an operational definition. In other words, it should specify how constructs such as "interest" and "apply" are to be measured. For instance, the last research question stated above could be written as such: Are students who score above 8 on the interest survey more likely apply the concept of evolution in their everyday lives by talking with other people about the idea than students who score below 4 on the interest survey?
• Methods section. Describe such things how you chose subjects, how you collected data, and how you analyzed the data. Also, provide a rationale for why you did what you did. Why did you choose those particular subjects? Why did you use a face-to-face semi-structured interview instead of a written survey? And so on.
• Results section. Describe the results you obtained. But don’t just list numbers or quotes. Explain and summarize your findings. Try to identify the most important and interesting findings. Make sure these findings are clearly articulated and easily accessible to the reader. Charts, tables, and figures are often very helpful.
• Discussion section. In this section you can discuss some of the general trends that you find in you results. You can also discuss the implications of you findings. But be careful not make claims or present implications that are not supported by your results (this is a common mistake).

*Participation 30%

Reflections 30%

Course project 40%

*It will be essential that you come to class prepared to discuss the assigned readings. The quality of the ideas and thinking generated during class is directly dependent on the knowledge and contributions of the individual students. It will also be essential that you be willing to take the lead in teaching the class about topics in which you have a background or interest. This may involve such things as selecting an article for us to reading, providing background information for us, selecting discussion questions, and other such things. Since I require you to do these things, I feel is only fair to give you credit (in terms of your grade) for doing them.

-----------

Students who experience special needs should speak to me early in the quarter regarding special arrangements for test taking, note taking, or other considerations that might improve learning.

back to EDP 6/8360