Research Portfolio, Benjamin Fisch
Benjamin Fisch
7/15/20
Research Portfolio
Unit 2 Reflection
My topic for this portfolio is neurodiversity in the workplace. I definitely learned a lot about the topic and felt passionate about the research I was reading. I have a passionate connection to this research, because my little brother was showing signs of autism when he was young. he turned out to just be developmentally slow, and he’s a high functioning healthy young man now, but that scare of him being autistic has allows remained with me for some reason. This is why I picked the topic of neurodiversity in the work place. My choice in sources depended on which publications I found that focused on autism in the work place, rather than the other neurological disorders, such as dyslexia and ADHD. I used the tool of the SU Library summons to locate these sources that I have used. At first I was experimenting with finding material via google searches, but the sources I found through this medium were lacking in information. The sources I found through our library were much more through and well written. My research plan was to use google search and the SU library to gather research sources. Yet, only one of these options proved to be productive, the library. The plan has began to evolve, because some sources I find actually relate to one another in topic or content. This will allow me to easily use these sources to write my own thesis driven essay, because the topics I found are so related. The contrary is also true. I found sources that clash in topic and content, because they are different. However, I can still use them together by doing comparing and contrasting between the two different sources. I would like to find research sources that explore specific examples of individuals with neurological disorders in the work place. I want to find a study of individuals with autism for example, and see first hand how they benefit companies.
Annotations
1.) Creighton, K. (2019). Understanding neurodiversity in the workplace. Singer Island: Newstex. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.libezproxy2.syr.edu/docview/2293972585?accountid=14214
Kelly Creighton’s, “Understanding Neurodiversity in the Work Place” addresses how autistic individuals and other people who suffer from different neurological issues, find it extremely difficult to find employment post their college graduation. “85% of college grads who fall on the autism spectrum are still unemployed.” This statistic proves that companies are not willing to hire people with neurological disorders for the most part.
Why is this though? Do companies have something to fear at the thought of hiring people with autism for example? What do they fear? They might fear that these individuals are not competent enough to get work done, and be a part of work place community. However, rather than fearing the thought of hiring an autistic employe, they should be excited to, because autistic people for example, have rare capabilities that could benefit a work place.
2.) Cassidy, M. K. (2018). Neurodiversity in the workplace: Architecture for autism (Order No. 10991788). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (2124411834). Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.libezproxy2.syr.edu/docview/2124411834?accountid=14214
Mary Kate Cassidy’s, “Neurodiversity in the Workplace: Architecture for Autism,”shares in interesting perspective on the topic of neurodiversity and how it applies to the work place environment. “In the workplace, architecture ideally serves as a tool to achieve the highest level of productivity, efficiency, creativity, and safety.” The objective of Mary Kate’s research is to introduce architectural solutions for high functioning adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder in the workplace.
If individuals with neurological issues, like autism, struggle to fit into a work place and contribute to the company’s objective, then what can be done to fix this? Questions like these are addressed in Mary Kate’s research, and she conducts many studies and experiments to find a solution that would allow autistic employees to be able to express their contributions to a compony’s goals.
3.) Burnett, K. (2019). EMBRACING NEURODIVERSITY IN THE WORKPLACE. Training Journal, , 28-29. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.libezproxy2.syr.edu/docview/2304074885?accountid=14214
kate Burnett’s, “EMBRACING NEURODIVERSITY IN THE WORKPLACE,” addresses how individuals with neurological disorders struggle to find employment by major companies. She states that only 16% of adults with autism are employed fully. This statistics proves that there is a huge issue in our country. Corporations do not want to hire individuals on the spectrum. This perspective by companies is one of ignorance. Companies are currently blind to the intellectual advantages that autistic people have. Kate Burnett addresses how hiring people with neurological issues could benefit a company.
To increase employment rates within the neurodiverse community, the Neurodiversity Initiative is helping organizations learn how to become more neurodiverse friendly, ensuring they are able to choose from a wider talent pool and seek out the most capable individuals for their roles.
4.) “Neurodiversity in the Workplace Program Named a Mutual of America 2017 Community Partnership Award Winner.” Investment Weekly News 2 Dec. 2017: 513. Business Insights: Essentials. Web. 15 July 2020.
Sparc Philadelphia, a family of organizations that advocates with and for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, forged a partnership with software-giant SAP in 2013 to help employ 1% of its total workforce (roughly 650 people) with adults that have an Autism Spectrum Disorder. The program, which works holistically to place individuals with Autism into high-level technology-based jobs, begins with a month-long hiring process that includes a series of opportunities for applicants to showcase their talents. Successful candidates then participate in a training program aimed at strengthening interpersonal and other skills that may have been a barrier to achieving employment.
New hires are then paired with a mentor to ensure a smooth transition to full time work. “We have placed 26 individuals with Autism in the Philadelphia area, and 100% of them continue to be employed in those positions,” said Laura Princiotta, CEO of Sparc Philadelphia. Our collaboration with SAP has served as a springboard, allowing us to expand our reach to other companies.”
5.) Johanna Hamilton, How Neurodiversity is Changing Work, ITNOW, Volume 62, Issue 1, March 2020, Pages 56–57, https://doi-org.libezproxy2.syr.edu/10.1093/itnow/bwaa026
Nancy Doyle PhD has been working with social exclusion and disabilities since she was 18 years old. She discusses why neurodiversity is a boon in the workplace and why mental health isn’t necessarily a work-issue.
We’re focusing so much on neurodiversity and people with neurological disorders, but lets rewind a bit. What is neurodiversity? Neurodiversity is a broad concept referring to the diversity in thinking styles and neurological profiles that exist between all humans. In the same way that we have bio-diversity or personality diversity, we also have diversity in thought.
What neurotypical people have in common is that when we look at their intellectual capacity, their skills tend to be pitched at the same level. Their verbal skills are around the same level as their memory skills, as their processing skills, and their visual skills, whereas people with neurodiverse conditions tend to have areas of thinking in which they excel and areas of thinking in which they struggle. We call this a spiky profile because if you plot their abilities on a graph it will be a big spiky line going up and down. This tells us that neurotypical people are largely generalist thinkers and neurodiverse people are specialist thinkers.
6.) Ortega, F. (2009). The cerebral subject and the challenge of neurodiversity. BioSocieties, 4(4), 425-445. doi:http://dx.doi.org.libezproxy2.syr.edu/10.1017/S1745855209990287
The neurodiversity movement has so far been dominated by autistic people who believe their condition is not a disease to be treated and, if possible, cured, but rather a human specificity (like sex or race) that must be equally respected. Autistic self-advocates largely oppose groups of parents of autistic children and professionals searching for a cure for autism.
The article discusses the positions of the pro-cure and anti-cure groups. It also addresses the emergence of autistic cultures and various issues concerning autistic identities. It shows how identity issues are frequently linked to a ‘neurological self-awareness’ and a rejection of psychological interpretations. It argues that the preference for cerebral explanations cannot be reduced to an aversion to psychoanalysis or psychological culture.
Aaron, Research Portfolio
My research focuses on ethnic and racial diversity in education. The question I am concerned with is: what effect does implicit bias have on academic performance of students? I was lucky enough to find a very interesting topic in the very first source that I looked at while conducting this research. I stumbled upon a chapter of a book (the chapter was titled “Diversity”) and in this piece of writing I was introduced to implicit theories of intelligence. This essentially is where someone has biases towards people and treat them differently depending on what their ethnic background is: for instance a teacher may treat white kids better because they assume they will be “smarter” and do well with classwork, while a group of indigenous kids get overlooked. The indigenous kids may not fare as well on exams, but may have a whole different sphere of knowledge and intelligence, one that the white kids may not have.
Looking for sources (mostly through Syracuse Libraries Summon site, and JSTOR, but also Google Scholar) I found a lot of different chapters, articles and studies about diversity in education. From there I specifically looked for biases within academia and found quite a bit- sources that had to do with university administration and their attempts at installing diversity coalitions at school (and ultimately failing for the most part), professors picking out students to advise (based on their ethnic background), groups of college students and how their grades were while looking at what their classroom environment consisted of racially, and rural school districts dealing with what is known as “white flight” and how their districts are coping with rapidly changing demographics.
What I would like to find more of are peer reviewed studies that are not skewed a certain way: The best study that I found (and am using) makes a really convincing argument that racial diversity has little to no impact whatsoever on how people perform academically. This would be a good piece to use if I was playing devil’s advocate- but when I reread the study, I picked up on the statistics being skewed and not really impartial at all. Most other studies that I have looked through seem to be in the same vein.
The more I look into implicit theories of intelligence and biases that people have, it’s certainly opened my eyes. It’s scary because this almost seems to be an inherently natural behavior that people have and commit subconsciously, and me being someone who plans to go into education and am a white male, I don’t want to fall into this sort of behavior, it seems like systemically there is a disservice being done to women, people of color, disabled people, and people who are part of the LGBTQ community. I plan on digging as deep as I can to find more about this phenomenon.
Dominique Van Gilst Research Portfolio
When I began my research for my portfolio, I knew immediately that I wanted my topic to be about inclusion in schools. This is because my major at Syracuse University is inclusive elementary and special education. In most of the classes that I have taken in college so far, I have learned about inclusion, and what teachers should do to make classrooms welcoming for each and every student. The research that I have been doing for this class has definitely expanded my knowledge of inclusive education, and I am excited to use this new information for my future career.
The main purpose of my research was to find out what it truly means to be inclusive in schools. Sometimes it can be tough to really understand a complex term like inclusion when you do not have background knowledge on it, so I think that the sources I found could be extremely helpful when it comes to defining this word. In order to find my sources, I mostly used Syracuse Library Summons. This website is very helpful because it has many options to specify a search in the advanced search section. I was able to select the type of source I wanted by using only a few words as well. I think that one of the most important things to think about when researching is what you want your sources to convey. This will help in the process because you will only need two to three words typed in the search bar to find what you are looking for. The assignments that I have done have also helped with my research. For example, the annotations and the rounding out the conversation assignment allowed me to think about the value of my sources, and why they are important to my topic. Overall, the exercises and assignments that I have done have helped me to specify my research, and find value in my sources.
Overall, I think that my research covers a lot of what I wanted it to cover, but it may have some holes. During my research, I tried to find sources that are told in the perspective of someone who has a disability. However, it was very hard to find articles like this. Most of the articles were in the viewpoint of an expert in the field of education. I did find studies that included the perspectives of children though, which I think is important. In addition, I was able to find sources that talked about the same topic in different ways. For example, one of the articles is about inclusive relationships in physical education, and how gym class can promote these friendships. Another source I found is about inclusion in two completely different countries. All of these sources help me to define inclusion because they come together to create a big picture of inclusion.
Supporting Materials:
WRT 205 focusing flowchart Assignment
WRT 205_ Complicating Research Assignment
WRT 205 rounding out the conversation worksheet – Dominique PDF
Annotations:
Overview for Week of 7/13
We’re wrapping up Unit 2 this week, and your primary focus will be on assembling your research portfolio. This set of texts is kind of a checkpoint on the way to your research project, an opportunity to assess what you have to work with and what you might be able to make from it. It’s not an end in and of itself, but rather a stopover.
A few reminders about the items that the portfolio will contain (taken from the unit 2 assignment sheet )
- at least 6 annotations (2 paragraphs each, 1 of summary, 1 of discussion)
- focusing flowchart
- research plan
- complicating your research activity
- rounding out the conversation worksheet
- your unit 2 reflection (see assignment sheet for prompt)
In short, this portfolio will represent your research progress, from the inception of your idea, through locating and considering sources, and including your efforts to broaden that conversation to better understand the issues under consideration.
As you advance towards this goal, then,
- be sure to read through feedback on the above assignments and your discussion posts (I’ll get you feedback on your draft annotations ASAP)
- refresh your memory on writing an effective summary (review this handout on summary)
- review the rubric and assignment overview on the unit 2 assignment sheet
- email me with any questions
Read on for the week’s agenda.
Reading
- “Individual change won’t create gender equality in organizations”
- your assigned jump-out link from that text (check out the announcement on Blackboard for details)
Writing
- write your unit 2 reflection
- complete your source annotations
- assemble your research portfolio. This will come in as a single blog post with embedded PDF files. Check out this post for instructions on how to do that:
Instructions for creating a blog post with embedded links and files
- respond to this week’s discussion prompts by the end of the day on Friday (this is a 1-day extension). See post below:
Note that I’m pushing back the next assignment (the research proposal) to next week, so that you’ll have some more time to work through your ideas. You can look for more info on that in next week’s overview on Monday.
Discussion prompts for Week of 7/13
In this article, Alison Wynn (a researcher at Stanford) summarizes her own recent article, in which she analyzed the findings of a year-long case study of a Silicon Valley tech company’s gender equality initiative.
As is typically the case with summaries, an author is trying to do justice to the original text (representing it for what it is), while also working toward their own distinct purpose. Here, for Wynn, that is bottom-lining the findings for a different audience and objective–trying to open up a new kind of conversation around the role that organizations (and not just individuals) must play.
Pay attention to how she works with research in here. Within this article, Wynn provides a lot of linked resources, which function both as a sort of bibliography (here are some of the sources I’m working with…) and as a reading list for those who want more (if you think this is interesting, check this out….). Consider the first one, which links to this article, itself a compendium of a whole bunch of different sources.
Giving her readers access to this lets Wynn build upon that informational foundation without taking up a lot of space in her text. It also gives interested readers a lot more to work with (and a lot more reason to trust Wynn as knowing her stuff). Each of you will follow up on one of the other resources she links and give us a sense of what’s in there and how it’s valuable (both to Wynn and to us, readers who might be looking to use this new knowledge).
Also pay attention as you read to her section headings–she’s setting up a careful logical chain. These headings are kind of like breadcrumbs (think Hansel and Gretel) for the reader to follow 
We can learn from that, of course, about a way to organize our ideas to make them as usable as possible for our readers. As we head into Unit 3, that’s going to be an important consideration–not just writing for ourselves or for me (a teacher reader), but for an audience who needs to hear what you have to say and needs to be able to act on it or make use of it in some way.
Once you’ve read through Wynn’s article, follow up on your assigned link (see the announcement on Blackboard for those assignments). Then, post your responses to these 2 questions (everyone should answer both):
- Give us a capsule summary of the linked article/resource that you explored. What is it? what’s in there? what’s valuable about it? what does it add to Wynn’s article?
- Who do you think would most benefit from reading this article, and why? (in other words, who do you think her target audience is or ought to be?) Select one passage (a sentence or two) from the article, and explain why you think this segment would work especially well for that group of readers. Please quote the passage in your response.
Discussion Posts Week of 7/6
- An article that I want to add to my research portfolio is titled “Work-Life Balance: The Generational Divide.” Authors Kathleen M. Nelville and Kelly Brochu go on to explain the four different generations at work which are Traditionalists, Baby Boomers, Generation Xers, and Millennials. They performed a study to determine whether there are fundamental differences in how student affairs professionals interpret the meaning of the work, and the study focused on those in the Northeast region of the United States. Their study proved that all 4 of the generations define the terms “work ethic,” “professionalism,” and “work-life balance” differently. In conclusion of this study, the two authors of the article noted that professionals on student college campuses need to be opened to the assessment and ongoing evaluation of policies and structures of departments within student affairs.
I believe this source will be useful to me because of its focus on student affairs professionals and the need for change on college campuses. It also just so happens that this study was based off of schools in the Northeast region of the United States, and while the article does not state any specific university, it’s a coincidence that SU is in the same region the two authors talk about. This is one of my few sources with an actual study and a table, so I think finding a source with this approach will be beneficial to my research as well. While I have other sources that go into depth on these 4 generations working together, none of them center of student affairs professionals which as a current college student, is a topic I am very interested in and so happy I came across this source.
2. One response I would like to choose is Lauren T’s response. She builds upon the ideas in the original article by continuing to discuss sexism in an open office atmosphere. She extends the conversation, though, beyond that by discussing how her particular office was designed by a female and that the office itself is wonderful. What she says to justify her point that the actual environment is not offensive or degrading to women, and that it’s the “entitled, sexist men being unwilling to evaluate their own behavior and how it impacts their women colleagues” is where Lauren opens up a new line of inquiry. In Lauren’s last paragraph, she explains that it’s not the fault of the open office space as these kind of things happen commonly in gyms, transportation systems, and the street, which intrigued me because in a way she sort of contradicts the blame of an open office and she illustrates the idea that sexism exists everywhere else too.
Instructions for creating a blog post with embedded links and files
For the research portfolio, you will be submitting multiple documents all in a single post. Please follow these instructions to get everything in there so that it’s easy to read.
Your Unit 2 research reflection (answering the prompt on the assignment sheet) will be the body of the post–just create a post as you usually would on the blog.
- Title your post with your name and “Research Portfolio”
- Categorize it as “Research Portfolios”
- Tag it with [your name], “unit 2,” and “portfolio”
Add these PDF file attachments within the same post:
6 different annotations (please post them individually, so I can easily see what’s there)
Your supporting materials: focusing flowchart, complicating your research, and Rounding out the conversation exercises (the same things you submitted on Bb, but saved as PDFs and attached here)
Here’s how to do this:
- make sure your documents are saved as PDFs (this makes them easier to read because they will just open without a download)–you can do this in Word or Pages or Google Docs in the “Save As” options
- make sure you’re using the regular text editor window on Expressions–what you see when you click +New -> Post (so that you have full functionality)
- when you’re ready to insert your files, click on the “Add Media” button
- you’ll have 2 options–“Drag files anywhere to upload” or “Select Files.” Choose “Select Files”
- Choose the first file that you’re uploading–then you’ll see the Attachment Details menu on the right side of your screen.
- Name the file using the Title box in that Attachment Details menu–choose something usable and easy to understand like “Annotation 1.”
- Click the blue “Insert into post” button on the bottom right–this will take you back to the regular text editor window, where you’ll see your file as an embedded link, listed by the title that you gave it
Repeat this process for each of the file attachments (there should be at least 9 attachments–6 annotations and then 1 for your focusing flowchart, 1 for complicating your research, and 1 for Rounding out the conversation)
Add this embedded link:
link to your Research Plan post (updated if need be to reflect current direction of your project)
Here’s how to do this:
- Locate your Research Plan post on the blog (this was due back on 7/5). If it doesn’t reflect the direction you’re currently heading with your research, please add a comment to the original post that explains what you’re doing now. Go to this post (not just to the list of posts), and copy its url. You’ll need that for the next steps.
- Working within the same text editor window as the above process, click “Add Media” again–you’ll see the same screen you were just on
- Click on “Insert from url” in the left menu–a box with “http://” will appear on the screen
- Paste your url into that box (note that you might end up with two “http://”; delete one if that happens)
- Enter a usable name into the “Link Text” box–something easy to understand like “Research plan”
- Click blue button “insert into post” on the bottom right
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask!
Week of 7/6 – Discussion
- One article I’m looking to add to my research portfolio is called “Linguistic Diversity in the International Workplace.” In his article academic researcher Dorte Lonsmann explains what language ideologies are and the dangers it can develop into such as leading to issues of exclusion and language competence. He goes onto describe this in six written sections that draw varying forms of attention to a type of diversity that is underrepresented and should become more characteristically addressed in the workplace. Adopting an ethnographic approach for research, Lonsmann evaluates a modern international company in the context of Denmark observing and surveying employee’s language differences.
The article is useful in reinforcing the research I’ve previously done given its findings apply in a different international environment (in short that there is an essential connection between language and individuals and failure in recognizing this can inadvertently have consequential effects on performance). Similarly, Lonsmann’s ideologies explain individual behaviors through insider-outsider group relations, status perceptions, and social identity which overlap with many of the articles we’ve read in the past. Lonsmann also identifies the gaps of research there are which his current study is designed to better address by revisiting initially perceived diversity conceptions. Lastly, the article’s best strength is in the extent/intent of inclusivity by surveying the companies employees at all organizational levels (adding more voice to support the perspective of why we should care on the issue).
3. Being an architecture student this week’s readings fell right in my line of interest. There were a lot of illuminating points made between the news article and reader responses which quite frankly are seldomly touched on in school. Sexism being a product of design, particularly in the layout of a floor plan, caught me by surprise however after reading the numerous sources I began to empathize with the given perspectives.
To add a bit of background to this discussion, I’d like to share that the architectural industry has increasingly expressed the inequalities and gender gap between men and women architects. The career path and work to obtain an architectural license is especially difficult and significantly lower for women. When you consider gender roles, wage differences, power structures, award recognition, etc. it becomes more evidently clear why the system is unjust. Architect Denise Scott Brown probably best sums up this in this short video clip which can add more scale to the issue. Its also been the reason more organizations have come together to support practices led by women and host forums to openly discuss this.
The reason I share this is that the article noted all the floor plans from the study were designed by men. While this a credible facet, I don’t think the article accurately represents the issues at large (which might suggest placing all responsibility on men i.e. one-group fits all). One reader added,
“I should also mention that a woman designed our office, and I think she did a wonderful job. I don’t think this issue is a product of open office plans, I think it’s an issue of entitled, sexist men being unwilling to evaluate their own behavior and how it impacts their women colleagues, and an issue of companies not challenging this problem beyond just sticking a page in the HR manual about sexual harassment”
I found this response from Lauren best describe the nuanced reality of the situation. The problem is when people don’t hold accountability for their behaviors and when those in management positions don’t use their power to enforce anything about it. This is an issue of communication and a lack of better understanding others points of view. Being more conscious of our actions is a place to start, but that can only begin with a conversation on the subject matter.
Discussion Prompts Week of 7/6
- The first source I’d like to do an annotation on is an article titled “Why some principals say screening students can actually help schools hang on to diversity.” Throughout the article, the author argues how the entire screening process can actually increase diversity rather than past beliefs that argue how it actually hinders it. Using statistics and quotes from faculty and staff of various schools, the author does a great job at getting his point across to the reader. One principal said it was difficult to ensure diversity through screening because the city doesn’t provide the schools enough information such as the socioeconomic status of the student. However, the process can still be integrated to help diversify schools. I feel that the incorporation of the quotes helped the article flow nicely and the quotes raised interesting questions. One of them being what factors do schools priories the most when trying to diversify schools better?
This article raises the question whether screening is good or bad for schools. I am going to use this source to argue why it can be beneficial and use another source I found to show why it may not be. I feel that it is important to show both sides of it because it is a heavily debated topic. I would also like to show how beliefs may be different across different types of schools and depending on where it is. This article also includes the importance of diversity and why it is so essential in schools. I want to show why diversifying the education system is important so this source helps with that.
2. The section under the subheading “A lack of privacy makes anxiety worse” intrigues me because I feel like I can resonate with it. Just from prior experiences, I tend to feel more comfortable doing work while no one else is watching or judging. When people are, I feel pressured and as a result, makes the work lesser quality because I just want to get it done as fast as possible. When I am by myself, I have the time to think through and hopefully produce better work. The author is doing a great job at explain responses by people to then prove her points. The author is explains how women tend to be more comfortable when they aren’t in a large open spaces and how there are often places they go to settle down a bit and avoid all the eyes on them. The author uses the responses and builds upon her argument which is really effective.