BIS 300B

Interdisciplinary Inquiry:

The Aims of Education

David S. Goldstein, Ph.D.

Research Proposal Assignment

You will complete this assignment in stages throughout the course. The final result will be a research proposal outlining and justifying the knowledge project that you would pursue were you able to continue your exploration after this course. You may choose to continue to collaborate with your group as a whole, or you may work in smaller affiliations if your research interests take you in different directions.  In my experience, the more collaboratively you work, the better the final product will be.  For some excellent suggestions about working in groups, please visit Prof. Michael Goldberg's web page at <http://faculty.uwb.edu/mgoldberg/students/groupskills.html>..

Assignment Calendar

Wednesday, April 6: Assignment presented in class. Research groups formed in class.

Monday, April 11: Preliminary mapping of research topics in class.

Wednesday, April 20: Guided research in class.

Monday, April 25: Guided research in class.

Wednesday, May 4: Free time in computer classroom.

Wednesday, May 11: Free time in computer classroom. OPTIONAL working research question and annotated bibliography (in Microsoft Word) due to David as an e-mail attachment by 5:35 p.m.

Wednesday, May 18, 5:35 p.m. sharp: Research proposal due to groupmates in Blackboard's Group Pages.

Monday, May 30, 5:35 p.m. sharp: Final version of paper due in learning portfolio, AND roles report due in Blackboard's Group Pages, AND e-mail message to David evaluating other cluster members' contributions.

The Goldstein Foundation

Riches for Research.™

c/o Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences
Box 358530
18115 Campus Way NE
Bothell, WA 98011-8246

April 6, 2005

Dear Sir or Madam:

We understand that you are on your way to earning a bachelor's degree at the University of Washington, Bothell. We know that the graduates of that institution are consistently bright, well-rounded, thoughtful, perceptive, and creative (perhaps partly as a result of the outstanding professors there). We therefore believe that you have all the makings of an excellent researcher. We are prepared to offer you $100,000 to conduct research on an education-related  topic of your choice if we select a proposal that you submit. Please carefully review the documentation below. We look forward to reading your proposal.

Sincerely,

David S. Goldstein, Ph.D.

Founder and President

In your proposal, which should run from 1250 to 1500 words (according to the word count tool in Microsoft Word), you should be attentive to the territory we have explored in this course. Your proposal should cover the following four elements, and each section corresponding to these parts should be clearly labeled as such:

1. Describe and justify the problem or problems you will be posing, that is, the question or questions you will be asking;
2. Describe and justify the specific secondary sources you will be reading in order to orient your inquiry, that is, the conversation you will be entering into based on your preliminary research into the topic;
3. Describe and justify the methods of inquiry you will be using (and not using, if appropriate to discuss);
4. End your proposal with a tentative hypothesis concerning what you think you will find at the "end" of your research (or explain why a hypothesis is not feasible yet), as well as a sense of the audience that will be interested in the knowledge that you produce. Give a sense of how and where you would like to "publish" your research (e.g., a scholarly article in a specific journal, a documentary film screened at a specific location, or a performance piece enacted at a strategic site).

I will place a sample proposal in Course Documents area of Blackboard (but keep in mind that the assignment has changed somewhat since that paper was written, so your paper will not be quite the same).

Because I want your classmates to benefit from your learning, you will present, along with your research group, a summary of your work in class on May 25 or June 1 (to be determined). Each research group will have approximately five minutes of class time per member in order to present and discuss the knowledge travels that have led you from the course materials, through various (inter)disciplinary archives and methods of inquiry, to new knowledge and questions. You can think of your presentation as a travelogue, a slide show, or picture album. But remember how difficult it is to make one's own travels interesting to others. You will need to edit the documentation of your experiences, and use your time well. As you edit, focus on two points of interest: how and why the original question/problem posed by your group may have changed during the course of your travels, and how your work has expanded what you think about when you think about the aims of education. As always in good presentations, try to balance the information and ideas you will present to the class with opportunites for open discussion.  I strongly recommend reading Prof. Michael Goldberg's "Tips for Oral Presentations" at <http://faculty.washington.edu/davidgs/Oral.html> as you work on your group's presentation.

As a group, you and your colleagues will decide how much feedback to provide one another on your research proposals. I ask only that every group member agree to the group's decision and follow through with it. Your goal is the same as mine: we both want your paper to be as good as possible by the time the final version gets into your portfolio for me to grade.

Criteria for grading the final version of your research proposal. Please carefully read "Criteria for Assessing Writing" at <http://faculty.washington.edu/davidgs/WritingAssess.html> for an explanation of these items:

Content	50 percent
Organization	10 percent
Reasoning	20 percent
Rhetoric	10 percent
Conventions	10 percent
TOTAL	30 percent of final course grade

Roles Report:  No later than 5:35 p.m. on May 30, you will submit, in the "Group Pages" of Blackboard, a single Word document that describes, briefly, what each cluster member did for the group research that led to your individual or collective proposals.  By that same deadline, I also want each cluster member to e-mail me, separately, to give me a very brief, narrative evaluation of what each cluster member contributed, which I will use as a "checks and balances" in conjunction with the self-reported descriptions and my own observations.  If you do not know what a particular cluster member did, please just say so.  Your comments will remain confidential, although if the majority of members of your cluster share an opinion about a cluster member that differs from that cluster member's self-perception, I will point out the discrepancy to that individual so he or she will have a chance to respond.  Be sure to read your cluster's "Roles" document before you write your evaluations.  Some of your cluster members might have done work that you did not know about.

Some additional advice:

• Get in the habit of saving your work often (maybe every ten minutes) so you do not lose everything when your computer freezes. It also is a good idea to keep multiple copies in different places, such as on a different computer, on diskettes or Zip disks, or in your electronic "shell" on the Dante computer server. I usually e-mail important files to myself at the end of the work day, so if my computer blows up, I still can retrieve my work.
• Visit the Writing Center (see <http://www.bothell.washington.edu/writingcenter/>). They are professionals trained to help you become a better writer, so visit them! Remember that their goal is to help you become a better writer, not to make this particular paper better, so you are responsible for applying what they teach you to this paper and others that you will write.
• I do not have time to read rough drafts, but I am very glad to discuss your paper as you work on it. You would be wise to visit me during office hours (see syllabus) to make sure you are on the right track, to see whether your thesis makes sense to me, and to get advice about any particular difficulties you might be encountering.
• Re-read this assignment sheet just before printing the final copy of your paper to make sure it meets all of the requirements.
• Remember to keep your graded essay for your learning portfolio due at the end of this course and for the graduation portfolio that you will complete in your senior seminar if you are an Interdisciplinary Studies major (see <http://www.bothell.washington.edu/IAS/degrees/BLS/requirements.html#graduate>).

This page last updated May 4, 2005.

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