After reading others posts, and doing some research on my own, I have realized that I want to focus on diversity and disabilities in education. The main question that is guiding my research is: What is inclusion, and why does it matter in education? I believe that this is a very important question because many people do not know exactly what inclusion is. In the field of education, inclusion is a very talked about topic. My major at Syracuse is inclusive elementary and special education, and most of my classes so far have been about inclusion, and why it works. The work that I have done so far in my previous courses will help me with my research because I now have some background information about inclusion, and I know the benefits when it is done correctly. This topic is important for me to understand for my future career because I want to be the kind of teacher who accepts and supports all of her students. I want each and every child to feel welcomed and safe in my classroom. I believe that inclusion is important for everyone to know about, not just teachers and teacher candidates because it can help people understand why it is essential to try to include others in our daily lives. Maybe if everyone understood inclusion, our world would be a more accepting place. The fields that matter most to my inquiry are education, and possibly psychology/science. This is because I am focusing specifically on education, and a lot of the articles I have found so far have studies that prove a certain point, or help explain inclusion.
Research is a creative endeavor
As you’re continuing with your research, I encourage you to remember this: research is a creative process.
Here’s why that matters:
- whatever your topic, whatever your motivation, when you research you are making something new–a new set of ideas, new questions, a new collection of perspectives
- because research is a creative endeavor, there isn’t a single *right* way to do it–you’re not assembling an Ikea bookshelf; you’re creating something brand new that hasn’t been before and that is unlike anyone else’s project (and it’s totally fine to have leftover parts đ )
- when you’re entering new, uncharted territory, it’s helpful to have models and maps–tutorials for different search tools (such as the SU Libraries how-to pages) offer a lot of value, in addition to the notetaking and analytical reading work we’ve been doing in class
- you can have fun with this work–you’re charting your own course to a large extent, and you can be inventive with your choice of sources (inputs) and products (outputs)
The note-taking work that you’ve been doing this past week is part of this generative process. As you read, think critically, and respond to your sources’ ideas in your notes, you are beginning to shape your own perspective on the subject at hand, and ultimately your own contribution to the larger body of thought on this subject. That’s why I’m asking you to spend some real time on taking notes. Note-taking is where your creative thought-work begins.
A few suggestions to keep in mind:
- use tools for what they’re good for: the SU Libraries website is good for finding specialized material by scholars and other experts. It will also give you full-text access to newspapers from all over the world. When you’re looking for that stuff, go there. Primary sources sometimes pop up there, but are more likely to be found on the open web, where anyone can publish. When you’re looking for that stuff, it makes sense to start with Google.
- keep in mind that sources come in many forms–not just articles and books, but radio features, podcasts, images, documentaries and other videos, interviews/Q&As, etc. You’re not limited to traditional kinds of texts.
- jump straight to Advanced Search–filter your results more on the front end, and you’ll have fewer to sift through. Consider adding multiple search terms and placing limits on date, type of publication, language, etc. Note that when adding search terms in Advanced Search, you have a dropdown menu that defaults to “All Fields” (term appears anywhere in the text). You can also select “abstract” (term is significant enough to appear in the summary of the text). See the image below:
- use sources to leapfrog–check out authors’ bibliographies for ideas, pay attention to the Subject headings or Keywords in the citation entry of a database search. Check out the image below–in your list of search results, hover over the Preview+ option to pull up the full citation, and then check out the Subjects listed–these are the terms this database uses to catalog related material. You can incorporate these as search terms, and it’s kind of like browsing the physical shelf in the library for other similar materials.
Types of sources
As you see on the unit 2 assignment sheet you will need to have at least 1 primary source and 1 scholarly source in your research portfolio.
We’ve talked a bit about scholarly sources already–take a look back at this post for a refresher:
Now let’s talk about what a primary source is. A primary source is typically one based on direct first-hand experience or observation of an event or issue. What constitutes a primary source will vary by discipline/research topic. For example, in history, a primary source might be a document or artifact that dates to the time period under consideration (a letter written by a soldier during the Civil War, for example, or a photograph taken at that moment in time). In literature, a primary source might be the poem or other literary work that the author is analyzing. In the sciences (both social sciences and “hard” sciences), primary sources might be data from experiments conducted or field notes recording one’s observations or actual artifacts from that research process.Â
There are certainly situations in which opinion polls/surveys constitute primary sources, as well, providing fresh, direct insight into attitudes on a topic. Similarly, narrative sources (blog posts, interviews, autobiographical writings) might constitute primary sources, too. The basic idea is that a primary source gets us as close as possible to a particular phenomenon or topic, providing us information that is as unfiltered and direct as can be had.
By contrast, most of the sources you find yourself working with are secondary sources, which include primary sources among their evidence. Such sources provide you with commentary and analysis that is at least one step removed from the topic itself. Note that both types–primary and secondary–are valuable in any research inquiry. Primary sources, because they are so individualized, really don’t work in isolation. They need the context of additional analysis, such as is provided by secondary sources, to be meaningful. This is yet one more reason why an array of sources, serving different functions and representing different perspectives, is so critical to the success of researched writing.
And one more note on the subject of source types: it’s worth striving for a “balanced diet” of information. Scholarly sources are kind of like broccoli–maybe not as tasty and easy as some other types, but with a lot of valuable nutrients. They’re good for the overall health of our inquiry, even if they’re not our favorite go-to item. For more on this analogy, I encourage you to watch this really accessible and interesting TED talk by JP Rangaswami:
Discussion prompts for week of 6/15
As we move forward into Unit 2 this week, our focus will be twofold: identifying and practicing rhetorical strategies (thinking about how we say what we do) and working to articulate the specific issues we’re interested in exploring further beneath this big umbrella of organizational culture. This will be foundational to the larger work of Unit 2: exploring.
For this weekâs discussion work, please respond to question 1 and either of the other questions. Your posts are due by Thursday, 6/18–an extension from the original date, as you have a brief analytical exercise due by Wednesday (see the Unit 2 schedule of assignments and the associated dropbox on Blackboard).
- Our primary purpose in Unit 1 was to expand the body of shared knowledge on the subject of diversity and organizational culture, and each of you has made an individual contribution to that effort. Now I’d like you to review your classmates’ contributions to see what they’ve added–click on “canon” in the tag cloud to read these. What have you found interesting and significant in what you’ve read in their posts? Please be specific in naming the issues that have stood out to you and in pointing us toward 1 particular media element (graphic, video, link, etc.) that really made an impression on you. Taking these contributions as a set, how are you seeing the idea of “diversity and organizational culture” differently?
- âFlashpointâ is one of those buzzwords used in lots of different ways, in fields as far removed as management and gaming and exercise and chemistry. And since itâs proven to be so flexible, in rhetoric, too. For our purposes, it refers to a sort of rhetorical spark, a moment in the text when we see an important genesis or shiftâwhen something important suddenly becomes clear. Pick such a flashpoint in “The Problem with Diversity in Computing,” and walk us through your chain of thought using one template from TSIS thatâs designed for presenting the reaction you want to capture. (Chapters 4 and 5 of TSIS offer lots of ideas)
- Crafting effective transitions can be a real challenge for writers, but we can learn a lot from examining how others approach the task. Consider how Bogost uses transitions to develop his argument by focusing on a specific passageâthe movement between one paragraph and another or between one section and another. How does he lay the groundwork for the move? How does he pick up on one of those pieces to move forward with? Be specificâquote and analyze in detail.
Please categorize your posts as âDiscussions/Homework,â and Tag with âunit 2,â âweek of 6/15,â and [your name]. Read through your classmates’ posts later this week, and respond where you see fit.
Wrapping up Unit 1
Letâs start pulling some things together. Here are a few lessons from our first unit of the course that I hope you will carry forward in our next projects:
- We need to understand a textâs rhetorical situation before we can work with itâover the last few weeks, weâve been looking at some sets of texts that talk around some of the same issues but from different angles. Looking closely, we can trace many of these differences to facets of their writing situation: i.e. different audiences, different purposes, different credentials/experiences of the authors, different contexts. In order to figure out how much stock to put in folksâ ideas, what ideas of our own we might build upon them, or how to use these sources to help explain ideas to other people, we MUST first understand the texts themselves and where theyâre coming from.
- Understanding a textâs rhetorical situation also gives us a window in to whether and how it works, and what we might learn from its example as writersâwe can see how writers try to appeal to their readers (using 2nd person, anticipating and responding to their concerns, styling their text to be visually engaging). We can see how writers build their arguments (linking evidence to claims, providing the reader with opportunities to follow their chain of thought back through hyperlinks to sources or citations). We can see writers drawing on their personal experiences to tell us stories about how they came to wonder about something and how they developed their understanding of it. By watching how other people do this work, we prepare ourselves to do it, too.
- We need a variety of toolsâweâve examined how-to texts (from Harris and TSIS) and content-focused ones; weâve watched videos; weâve discussed. Weâre coming to appreciate the complexity of our big topic area and to see how weâre only really going to make progress toward our understanding by engaging with a variety of resources and voices. Thatâs not just an academic exercise for us in this course; thatâs a core guideline for research. As researchers and writers, we will also need that multi-faceted set of perspectives if weâre ever going to make progress toward understanding. AND we need to use a multitude of tools in presenting our ideas to our readersâwhether thatâs templates, graphic representations of data, varying levels of formality, etc. Furthermore, this sort of diversity of perspectives and approaches is a core value for organizations–an essential component of fair and effective collaboration.
So letâs continue. Weâre growing our body of knowledge this week through accretionâeach of you is adding something to it with the article youâre going to explain to the rest of us, and reviewing your classmates’ posts will be an important part of this week’s work. As we move forward, weâll continue to learn from each other even as we head down individual research paths.
One final point, summary isnât just a hoop for you to jump through. Itâs how you test yourself to ensure that youâre conversant enough with the text to work with it in your own writing. If you canât effectively summarize it, you probably shouldnât be working with it in a project, because you canât be sure youâll fairly characterize its perspective and utilize its full value. A careful definition and description of a source (as part of a summary that also details its main take-away points) is a necessary precondition to be able to work further with that material.
Ready to move on? The unit 2 assignment sheet is available here and on Blackboard. Take a look, and let’s get ready to go.