Research Design Workshop

 

To understand how to design a research project for this course and how to prepare the Research Proposal, please provide a rough draft and bring it to class. Please do this assignment individually. If you don’t have time to meet as a group before then, don’t worry. We will pull resources together in the class.

 

This rough draft consists of:

 

I. Tentative Answers to the following items

    • Preliminary Title: Should be descriptive, maybe in form of a question
    • Statement of the problem (100-150 words) : what is the question that your research project is posing?
    • How does your question relate to social justice: how does this subject affect various groups of people? (1/2page)
    • Scope of problem: how many people are affected, how widespread is the problem, what areas, institutions, etc. are affected (1/2page)
    • At which level will research be pitched, what is the level of analysis
      • f.ex. L.A. river: at the community level, at political level,
    • Contextual Background of your research question: history, political, ecological, social, racial, etc.: How can you tie it into the readings we have done – or will be doing in the course (1.5-2 pages)
    • Planned methods for further research (1/2 page):
      • Secondary sources: scholarly articles and books about the problem you study: either specifically about this site and issue, or about a comparative situation elsewhere
      • Primary sources  - for example: archival research, newspaper search, videotape reviews of city council meetings????  Are you able to generate these primary resources within reasonable time? How feasible is it? At least newspaper sources and online documentary sources should be fairly easy to come by
    • Preliminary Annotated Bibliography of (1 page, for instructions how to, see below)
      • works already consulted (these are the three references
      • works to be consulted
      • current events Almanac

II. Annotated Bibliography (see sample annotated bibliography below)

o       sources consulted, complete reference, and a brief summary what you learnt from this source and how it relates to your research project;

o       each person will submit at least three annotated references and turn them in.

o       Current Events managers, please (re)produce the current events infos you have collected and distributed to your group so far.

o       For a way of how to effectively communicate your selection of current events related to your research, please check this website of a team project of the previous class.

 

III. Schedule Team Meeting with Instructor:

o       T/Th 2:30-4:00. Team Manager contacts me to schedule meeting.

 

 

Sample Annotated Bibliography

 

The reference for your source: 

A brief description of what this source is about and how it relates to your research question, and how useful it is. If you find quotable aspects, put them in here too. This will come in handy when you start writing your paper.

 

 

Bernal, Ernesto M.

2002    Three Ways to Achieve a More Equitable Representation of Culturally and Linguistically Different Students in GT Programs. Roeper Review 24(2):82-88.

 

Advocates to get more minority teachers in the GT to attract more students. Reviews a series of recent lawsuits where white and a few Asian parents sued the district for their children not being admitted to GT's and who eventually, at the federal appeals court level won their cases. The court's decision - need to show intent to segregate, or accept the status quo as normal, therefore, this constitutes a move away from desegregation. About underrepresentation: he says there is not enough data available to say anything about that??? (Well, did not I find that within an hour or so? or was that question specific to minority-minority schools?

 

 

Cross, Tracy L.

2003    Examining Priorities in Education - Leaving No Gifted Child Behind: Breaking Our Educational System of Privilege. Roeper Review 25(3 Spring):101-102.

 

 passionate argument to create a more inclusive gifted program, inclusive in terms of poor children

"We focused early and hard on finding the easy ones--White people of the middle and wealthy classes from enriched environments. We kept focusing on this group until it became the modal group. Any child not fitting this early model and therefore form, became the nonmodal gifted. Not being like the norm group has serious consequences in American society." (102) But he also says that over time, there have been made big strides "toward identifying gifted students from minority backgrounds and twice-exceptional gifted students. Unfortunately, those from impoverished backgrounds often do not make it on the radar screen." (102)