EPSE 601b: 2001

Apprenticeships in Research: From General Principles to the Specific Con/text of Your Doctoral Dissertation

E-Mail: brys@unixg.ubc.ca	Telephone: 822-5284
Readings	Assignments
Course Calendar	WEB-CT 601 site, including the Bulletin Board, and Tools pages
Publish Your Web Page: Get Free Server Space on Geocities.com (don't forget to email Dr. B with your URL: She'll be so proud!)	Search the WWW: MetaCrawler - Powerful and Fast HotBot - All-purpose Altavista - Great Images Search Tool Google - Academically-oriented
WWW Authoring Tutorial: Netscape Composer PowerPoint Tutorial #1 PowerPoint Tutorial #2 (good tutorial, strange representation of gender) PowerPoint Tutorial #3	Download Netscape Communicator WWW Authoring Tutorials: DreamWeaver http://www.macromedia.com/support/dreamweaver/ http://www.law.berkeley.edu/computing/howto/dreamweaver/ http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/98/27/index1a.html http://idm.internet.com/articles/200002/dream_index.html

Course Description/Purpose:

This is a seminar course. Student experiences, interests, and active participation are fundamental.

The primary purpose of 601a and 601b is to provide advanced graduate students with an organizing forum where your ongoing research experiences and perspectives are shared, shaped, elaborated, and refined. The doctoral program's research experience does not start and end with isolated courses and sequences, but is viewed as more systemically linked with both formal and informal opportunities and experiences and more pervasively manifested in what faculty and students say, do, and think.

We embrace a developmental approach to honing research perspectives and tools. One of our primary goals is to prepare individuals able to not only meet today's needs for awareness about current research and theory but with the determination, perspective and capability to lead the ECPS field of tomorrow. Research is integral to these goals. ECPS graduates must be both well-informed consumers of the research and theory that guides today's field, and capable of and committed to shaping the knowledge base of tomorrow's field.

How do we support doctoral students in meeting these goals? Becoming a researcher involves more than simply collecting formal knowledge and skills through courses. It involves developing analytical perspectives, understanding the synergy between research and theory, knowing how to identify important problems and the methods to study them, and the like. It involves a fundamental shift in personal and professional attitudes and goals from being principally a consumer of others' theory and research to being an interpreter, analyzer, and producer of original scholarship. These skills need careful attention during formal coursework, but they require more.

Research skills, like other skills, require time to develop, lots of opportunities to both observe and participate, and a culture in which the influence of research is pervasive. We have attempted to identify milestones in the developmental progression of research competence, and support varied ways these (and other program) goals can be accomplished.

ASSIGNMENTS:

Readings:

There are two required texts which you need to buy- APA publication Manual 4th Edition, and Joan Bolker: Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day: A Guide to Starting, Revising, and Finishing Your Doctoral Thesis and a series of readings both required, and recommended, that are online, and linked on the course calendar.

601 classes will combine traditional lecture format with seminar discussions, small group activities, and multimedia work periods that focus on applied aspects of the topic for any given week, providing, in particular, opportunities to discuss topics raised in chapters from the texts. Regular attendance, careful preparation for class, participation in the WWW Bulletin Board, and informed discussions are required.

	Course Calendar
January 3	Course Overview Surfing (in class): Kevin Hughes, "What is the Internet?";  Hypertext and the Web;  HTML and URLs Recommended: A Beginner's Guide to HTM Tech Workshops: PowerPoint #1 PowerPoint Tutorial #1 PowerPoint Tutorial #2 (good tutorial, annoying gender stereotyping) PowerPoint Tutorial #3
January 10	Graduate Student Careers Reading: How to be a successful graduate student Reading: Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day (chapters 1, 2 and 7 ) Surfing: Graduate Student Information Center Tech Workshops: DreamWeaver #1
January 17	Intructor away at Conference Work on your proposal
January 24 NB: from 10:30-12, class meets in 1007 today	From topics to questions to problems Reading: How to Write a Doctoral Dissertation Reading: Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day (chapters 3 and 4) The problem is the problem, How to theorize, Identification of a research problem, Surfing: The Hunter College Writing Center, the Purdue Writing Center, Univ of Toronto Writing Resources (Engineering Department, yet a very good site), Tech Workshops: DreamWeaver #2, 1007, 11-noon Due: Major Project Proposal
January 31	Mastering the APA Manual Guest Speaker: Linda Siegel, Dorothy Lam Professor of Dyslexia Reading: APA publication Manual 4th Edition Browse: APA FAQ's Browse: APA Style Helper Browse: APA Tutorial Browse: APA StyleSheet Tech Workshops: DreamWeaver #3, 1011, 11-noon
Feb 7	Narrative voice and rhetorical responsibility Reading: Constructivism http://www.cudenver.edu/~mryder/itc_data/constructivism.html Reading: SocioCultural Theory Reading: Postmodernism Positivism and Post-Positivism Tech Workshops: Digital Video, 155, 10:30-noon
Feb 14	Collecting/Constructing, Analyzing, and Interpreting Your Data Browse: Research Methods Tech Workshops: EXCEL, SPSS, Atlas, PC Lab (not 1011), 10:30-noon
Feb 21	Class Cancelled. Reading Week
Feb 28	Guest Speaker: Shelley Hymel, Associate Dean, Graduate Studies and Professor, ECPS Publishing Reading: TBA Reading: TBA Recommended: Tech Workshops: Audio and Video, 155, 9:30-noon
March 7	Information Management Reading: TBA Reading: TBA Recommended: Tech Workshops: Scanning and GraphicConverter, 155, 10:30-noon
March 14	Methodology How-to's Reading: TBA Reading: TBA Recommended: Tech Workshops: More Graphics, 155, 9:30-noon
March 21	Getting Research out into Communities and Used Reading: TBA Reading: TBA Recommended: Tech Workshops:
March 28	Presentation of Projects #1
April 4	Presentation of Projects #2

DESCRIPTION OF ASSIGNMENTS

 WWW Bulletin Board: 20 %

• Throughout this course, students will be asked to contribute to a WWW bulletin board on which to post reflections, read entries by other students, discuss contradictions, insights and so on. The bulletin board can also be used to communicate with the class about any appropriate topic; e.g., an interesting WWW site, an upcoming lecture, scholarship information, etc.
• Each week, students will be asked to make a minimum of two contributions: (1)You will make one contribution to the WWW Journal every week. The first contribution should deal explicitly with what you perceive to be critical linkages between your own research/graduate program/dissertation and the readings for any given week. (2) Your second message will be in response to a message posted by a fellow student. When you come to class, you should have completed at least two entries.

Participation/Tech WorkShops: 20%

Learning how to use new information tools is a labor-intensive activity. Expect to struggle, become frustrated, and feel overwhelmed by new information. When in a bind or just generally confused, ask for help from your colleagues, classmates, or your instructor. Classroom experience with both theoretical and performance-based practices is critical to understanding of how new technologies might become a part of professional and pedagogical practices. Regular attendance and effortful participation by students is necessary to effectively meet course objectives.To achieve the goals of this course, it will also be necessary to spend time outside of class working with these new tools. Each student will present at least one workshop using digital tools. The purpose of the workshops is to help teach and learn new media skills and educational uses of digital media. You will instruct 2-4 people during your workshop. Areas that you may teach (not an exclusive list) include: using digital video (imovie, illustrator); working with text and graphics (cd-roms, fireworks, illustrator); manipulating images (fireworks, photoshop); creating and using sound (mp3); developing digital learning, MOO/MUD stuff, search engines beyond hotbot.com, Chat worlds, gaming, etc. All students are expected to come to class having completed the readings and having prepared to discuss them. In addition, students are strongly encouraged to work with their peers daily to solve in-class and out-of-class technological "troubleshooting".

In-Class Discussion Facilitation and Participation: 20%

• Regular attendance and effortful participation by students is necessary to effectively meet course objectives.To achieve the goals of this course, it will also be necessary to spend time outside of class working with these new tools.
• All students are expected to come to class having completed the readings and having prepared to discuss them.
• Each week, one student will be responsible for leading a discussion on that week's topic.
• S/he will generate a brief summary of the main ideas, and a critical/reflexive analysis of the major themes in that week's readings, noting points of agreement, disagreement, and the like.
• The facilitator will add one new reading/WWWSite to the week's allocated texts, which can be available online, or distributed the week prior.
• The facilitator will discuss the significance of the conceptual framework used by the authors of the week's articles/chapters, and generate a critical analysis of both theoretical and methodological strengths and shortcomings.
• Prepare about 20 minutes of material.
• The facilitator will animate an open discussion.
• If you cannot attend class on the day for your facilitation, please remember that it is your responsibility to switch with a colleague and to inform the instructor.

Major Project: 40%

• Your major project will take the form either of a dissertation proposal or a pilot study, or a substantive literature review. The medium will consist either of a Power Point presentation, or a website. The central purpose of this project is to share with readers your specific and purposive organization of the key theories and models that pertain to an interesting and significant problem/question.
• Your main tasks are to make it clear to a reader how the key arguments in your specific field are organized, and to persuade the reader that one particular way of interpreting the myriad evidence and ideas in a particular area is more compelling than another. Additional purposes for a research website are to educate the reader, and to share resources by means of a list of annotated weblinks etc...
• Websites should include the following sections: literature review, statement of the problem/question, key theories and models, educational/research implications and an annotated list of weblinks.
• All projects should (a) demonstrate general knowledge of the current literature in the domain covered in the research, (b) prioritize reflexive analysis over "knowledge-telling", and (c) should communicate the key concepts and major arguments effectively.

WWW Authoring and Power Point tutorials (http://www.educ.ubc.ca/faculty/bryson/wwauthor1.html) will assist you in this task, as will in-class tutorials.

• It is strongly suggested that you create your website with Netscape Composer (web authoring module in Netscape Communicator), which is available for free download on the internet, is usually included amongst the free software distributed on the CD-ROM that is included with many PC and MAC magazines, and is also available on the Education Lab's computers. An alternative program is DreamWeaver.
• Use scanners in the Education multimedia lab, or at Kinko's or elsewhere in order to create image files and/or download images from other web pages (no matter the source, credit the author/source of every image).
• Test all your links, and label your diskettes carefully.
• Choose one platform, either MAC or PC for your site, and stick to that platform.
• Explore lots of web sites before designing your own in order to determine do's and don'ts of web-page design.
• Create a one page Home Base for all the site's pages.
• Include and test links for entire web site.
• Prepare to present your web site to your colleagues on March 28.

Projects will be assessed using the following scale:

• Breadth of knowledge/information/concepts 0-10 marks
• Depth and rigor of knowledge/analysis/argument 0-10 marks
• Reflectivity 0-10 marks
• Innovativeness 0-10 marks
• Design quality: use of images, colour, sounds, layout 0-10 marks

Required format for final draft: (a) web site of 4-6 web"pages" (*.html files) or 15-20 PowerPoint slides with graphics, internal links and links to other sites (b) correct spelling and punctuation, and (c) citations and references using APA Guidelines published in the 3rd. Edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association.

The assignment will be done in two stages (as described below) with feedback leading to refinement of the conclusions and production of the final product.

Due January 24 Problem Statement (length 3 type-written pages)

In this text, you should try to formulate a cogent summary of the particular problem/question that you will deal with in your major project. Make sure that you effectively summarize a domain literature and researchable problem that you intend to deal with in your work- i.e., do not describe a general topic or generate an unreflective and non-critical summary.

Due March 28 (presentation version) and April 10 (final version) Major Project . You may hand in your final project at the final class, April 4., or submit the project to the ECPS office in a clearly marked envelope, that is addressed to Dr. Mary Bryson, by April 10th.