Assignment 1: Weekly Participation in Online Discussions

20% (5% for each week for 4 weeks = 20%)

 

Our online discussion will be active during weeks 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 however you will only be graded on your discussion participation for four of them because during one of these weeks you will be part of a facilitation team (see assignment 2).

 

During online discussion you are required to offer a primary post and one or more secondary posts during each week our online discussion is active.

 

All posts should comply with the following ethical and practical criteria.

1. If interpersonal misunderstandings develop during our online conversations, all involved should make an honest effort to clear them up as quickly as possible. 
2. Learners should be ethical in their discussion of their workplaces and life settings and insure confidential information is not shared in the online classroom.
3. Learners should strive to be sensitive when expressing alternate viewpoints to those their classmates have already expressed but they should also be willing to critically challenge the ideas of their classmates with a view to deepening the conversation.
4. It will be deemed appropriate for the instructor to contribute to the discussion at any point in order to provide depth, insight and locate the conversation within the greater landscape of theory and practice associated with the topic at hand. These contributions will not be intended to lessen the obligations of the facilitation team assigned to generate a meaningful and interesting learning experience for their week.
5.   Primary discussion posts should range in length from 200 - 400 words. Please do not go over 400 words, bear in mind your classmates wish to follow the conversation without the task becoming tedious. An ideal primary post is about 250 - 300 words in length. Secondary posts which encourage classmates and critically reflect on their ideas can be shorter than 200 words but should not be over 400 words. In online discussion, less is definitely more. Please take the time to make your posts concise, on topic, and meaningful.

Assignment 2: Facilitating Online Discussion

20% (all team members will be assigned the same grade)

 

Look ahead at weeks 2, 3, 4, and 5 and select the one that appears to be the most interesting and/or relevant for you. Stake a claim as early as possible to join the facilitation team which will guide us through the discussion during that week. Each facilitation team will be considered filled when ¼ of the class has committed to facilitating for that week. As a team you must rise to the following challenges.

 

a) Select a team coordinator. The team coordinator's job consists of three parts. First, insure all team members share the workload evenly. Second, insure each team member is clear as to his or her personal role within the team. Third, insure all tasks are completed satisfactorily and on schedule.

 

b) Your team is to develop brief introductions for each chapter. These introductions should prepare your classmates to more easily absorb the reading and tell them in advance to watch for any particularly important insights, vocabulary terms, potentially controversial ideas, and so on. The introductions should be 200-300 words in length and should be posted in the appropriate discussion forum a day before your week begins.

 

c) Two intriguing and significant discussion questions are to be developed and posted the day before your week begins in the appropriate discussion forum. (See comments below on adding creative touches to your week.)

 

d) At least one team member is to be 'on duty' each day of your week to insure every post is meaningfully responded to with a view to deepening the discussion. These posts should be both encouraging and critically reflective. Some team members will have to be on duty more than one day during the week, and it is even better if two team members are on duty each day. Of course they are not required to monitor the discussion for the whole day, but they should try to drop in several times during the day to insure all participants are being encouraged and enlightened.

 

e) One or more team members are to be assigned the task of summarizing the key points of the week's discussion after the week concludes. The summary should be posted no later than 2 days after the week closes. This summary should take the form of a resource that other students can save in order to capture the key learnings that emerged during that week. It should be concise and valuable.

 

Note: There is some room for creativity as the team determines how best to facilitate the discussion for their week; however, bear in mind how intense a summer course can be and do not needlessly overtax your classmates. Also bear in mind that all discussion for your week should be targeted at exploring the readings as assigned. If you choose to be creative during your week's facilitation be sure the conversation does not wander off theme. Here are a few suggestions to get your collective creative juices flowing.

 

Instead of asking a straightforward discussion question, create a hypothetical situation and ask your classmates to respond to it. For example, you could describe a researcher who is confronted by an ethical dilemma and ask your classmates to determine how best to respond. Or you could describe a context which definitely needs some research and ask the class members to describe how best to proceed.

 

You could imagine you are an interview team about to offer a wonderful research opportunity to one of your classmates. The classmates could be asked to build a case to show why they should be selected for the opportunity.

 

You could ask your classmates to imagine they are the author of one of the readings and they are to respond to some online interview questions which you create which challenge the content of the reading.

 

There is no need to 'force' creativity into your week. As a team you may conclude that some well developed discussion questions and reading introductions are all that is needed.

Assignment 3 (parts a, b, and c)

60%

Learning to critique and evaluate qualitative research, based on the tenets of good qualitative research, is a central outcome of this course. Your final assignment will be developed in three parts.

 

3a. Tenets of good qualitative research

30%

Write a paper of about 2500 words, without exceeding 3000 words [8-10 pages], in which you succinctly outline and explain, from what has been read and discussed in this course, your understanding of the tenets of good qualitative research, including the theory [referenced] that informs such tenets.

 

Your final assignment will be graded primarily on content; however, factors such as overall presentation, clarity, grammar, relevance, organization, spelling, referencing, and so on will also be considered. More information will be provided on formatting and referencing as we approach week 6.

 

3b. Critique of research article

20%

(Note: This assignment has been altered slightly from the original instructions. All students will review the same article as opposed to each picking a different one. This change has been instituted for the Spring and Summer versions of this course with a view to making the course more manageable for students and instructor.)

 

Read the following research article: "Changing Instructional Practice: The Impact of Technology Integration on Students, Parents, and School Personnel" located at http://ejite.isu.edu/Volume2No2/AlexRay.htm.

You are asked to critique this article according to the tenets which you have outlined, explained and referenced in "part a" of your paper. Your critique should be about 1000 - 1500 words [4-5 pages] in length and no longer than 2000 words. This article leaves plenty of room for you to point out how the research project could have been improved.

3c. Self evaluation as a learner/practitioner/researcher

10%

Write an evaluation of yourself as a learner/practitioner/researcher. Your self evaluation should be about 1000 words in length and no longer than 1500 words [4-5 pages]. During this evaluation you should address the following questions and issues.

 

·   What were the most helpful elements of this course for you personally?

·   What elements are you still struggling with?

·   What elements of the course do you feel you will actually apply in your future learner/practitioner/researcher journey with a view to making you more successful?

·   What are the key challenges you must rise to if you are to be a successful learner/practitioner/researcher throughout the remainder of your journey?

·   What are your preliminary plans for rising to these challenges?