Final+Project+Fall+2010

=﻿ Final Project: Educational Issues Research and Lesson =

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 Our final project of the course provides you with an opportunity to deepen your understanding around a particular issue that is related to American public education and relevant to a school or schools in Rhode Island. Your research and instruction will help the rest of the class appreciate the issues involved as well. =====

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 For this project, you will work in a team of three or four students to complete two different project components, an online background research summary and an in-class lesson on your team’s issue. The background research consists of a collection of article citations and summaries dealing with questions related to your issue. =====

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 As a team, you will decide on at least four research questions that are related to your issue, and each team member will locate and summarize at least five articles related to one of these questions. The team’s background research page will combine these summaries to form a collection of articles around the original issue. Each individual’s research as well as the team’s background research page will be posted in on this wiki to serve as a resource for class members as well as for future education students at URI. =====

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 The second component of this project is a teach-in, i.e. each group will have one class period to teach the class as much as they can about their particular issue. Each class must include both background information and an engaging activity. Background information can include presentations, videos, powerpoint slides, etc. Activities can include application tasks, games, discussions, skits, you name it - you are the teachers! Assessment should be creative and should not include a simple "did you pay attention?" regurgitation test. Since time is so short, each group will also moderate a discussion online about their research and what they taught us in class. =====

 Part 1: Background Research
 Each team should complete its background research and represent their results on URIOPENMINDS by Wednesday, November 24. Each team’s Background Research page should be linked to the Final Project Fall 2010 Page and should be created using the Final Project Research Template. Each team member should complete his or her background research on a separate page created from the Student Template. Each person should follow the instructions on the template page and link to his or her team’s page.

 Each researcher should include the following types of articles to investigate his or her research question:
 * 1) At least one editorial or opinion essay from a a locally or nationally recognized print or online news source (e.g., //The Providence Journal, Slate, The Washington Post// - not your mother's best friend's husband's blog).
 * 2) One analysis article from a magazine such as //Newsweek, Time//, or reputable newspaper such as the //NYTimes.//
 * 3) Two articles from a scholarly or professional journal, such as //Educational Leadership, The Science Teacher, The English Journal//, etc.
 * 4) One summary article such as an ERIC Digest or CQ Researcher Report.

 For each article, you should include the following:
 * 1) Its citation in APA style.
 * 2) One paragraph that summarizes the article.
 * 3) <span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 130%;">One paragraph that presents your reaction to the article, including how you think it informs our concerns about Rhode Island schools.

<span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 130%;"> Part 1 o﻿f the project will be evaluated based on this rubric.

<span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 130%;">Resources for Conducting Effective Research
<span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 130%;">To prepare our presentations, we'll research specific questions related to our issue. To do this well, we'll use research guides created by Dr. Neibala, the URI Curriculum librarian. Each person in each group is responsible for completing background research.

<span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 130%;">1. General Search Tips <span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 130%;"> 2. CQ Researcher Database <span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 130%;"> 3. Academic Search Premier Database <span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 130%;"> 4. Using the ERIC Database to locate ERIC Digests

<span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 130%;"> Part 2: Teach-in
<span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 130%;"> As your team is completing its background research, you should meet often to decide what is important to share and how you will engage the class so that we learn what you think is important. Class time will be available, but you may also need to meet outside of class. Your goal should be to push us beyond a “common sense” understanding of your issue and present more than one side of any controversies that exist.

<span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 130%;"> You will teach on either November 29 or December 6. We will decide on who presents on each date during our next class. Part 2 will be evaluated on how effectively it informs and engages the class. The evaluation rubric is posted here.