BIS 300C

Interdisciplinary Inquiry:

The Aims of Education

David S. Goldstein, Ph.D.

Research Proposal Assignment

The purpose of this assignment is to develop an appreciation for knowledge production as practiced in an academic environment, to practice collaborative learning, to gain confidence in the use of academic resources, and to practice academic writing.

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, general suggestions about working in groups, please visit Prof. Michael Goldberg's web page at <http://faculty.uwb.edu/mgoldberg/students/groupskills.html>.  (Your cluster will need to decide which suggestions to heed.  Some might be more appropriate than others.)

Please use the Discussion Board in your cluster's Group Pages in Blackboard as you work together on your project throughout the course.  Please use only the Discussion Board in your Group Pages in Blackboard rather than personal e-mail so that everyone in your cluster has access to the same information.  If I do not see substantive postings from a cluster member, I will assume that the individual declined to contribute much.

Assignment Calendar

Thursday, Jan. 12: Assignment presented in class. Research clusters formed in class.

Tuesday, Jan. 24: Preliminary mapping of research topics in class.

Tuesday, Jan. 31: Guided research in class.

Thursday, Feb. 2: Guided research in class.

Tuesday, Feb. 14: Free time in computer classroom.

Thursday, Feb. 16: Free time in computer classroom. OPTIONAL working research question or annotated bibliography or both (in Microsoft Word) due to David as an e-mail attachment by 8:35 a.m.

Tuesday, Feb. 21, 8:35 a.m. sharp: Research proposal due to groupmates in Blackboard's Group Pages.

Thursday, March 9, 8:35 a.m. sharp: Final version of paper due in learning portfolio, AND required "roles" report due in Blackboard's Group Pages (but I strongly recommend submitting this earlier, by a deadline your cluster members agree upon), AND optional 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

January 12, 2006

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, not counting the required Works Cited page), you 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 might have changed somewhat since that paper was written, so your paper will not be quite the same).

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.

Research Presentation: Because I want your classmates to benefit from your learning, and because I want to give you the opportunity to practice oral presentations, you will present, along with your research cluster, a summary of your work in class on Thursday, March 9.  Each research cluster 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 (sites of study) 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.

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 Document:  No later than 8:35 a.m. on Thursday, March 9, your cluster will submit, in the "Group Pages" of Blackboard, a single Word document that describes, briefly, what each cluster member did for the cluster's research that led to your individual or collective proposals and collective presentation.  Optional: After your cluster posts its "Roles" document, you may e-mail me, separately, no later than 8:35 a.m. on Tuesday, March 14, 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.  Be sure to read your cluster's "Roles" document, which should be posted by your cluster before the deadline stated at the top of this assignment sheet, 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 approach makes sense to me, and to get advice about any particular difficulties you might be encountering.
• Re-read this assignment sheet just before submitting the final copy of your paper to make sure it meets all of the requirements.
• Remember to keep your graded paper for the graduation portfolio that you will complete in your senior capstone course.  (See <http://www.bothell.washington.edu/IAS/degrees/BLS/requirements.html#graduate>.)

This page last updated January 13, 2006.

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