Reflection #4-ResLAB
- Nov 28, 2019
- 2 min read
Today in resLAB we had the task of writing a research proposal about a random topic we were assigned in one hour. Before we started our task, we came up with a list of all the parts a proposal needs to include in order to have enough information:
- Title
- Question
- Aims (why you are interested)
- Methodology
- Bibliography
- Literature review
- Format
- Ethical considerations
- Reason for the research
- Grants
- Purpose (how it will be used)
With my partner, we were assigned the topic of Curriculum Design. First, we went online to research what 'curriculum design' meant. After reading multiple sites to get a rough idea of the definition, we determined what part of curriculum design we were interested in. We came to the conclusion that we were most interested not in the design of curriculum itself, but in the people who determine what is in the curriculum. We continued to research this and wrote a basic proposal to share with the class. The resources we used were:
Wikipedia for the definition of Curriculum Theory
National Center for Education Statistics (US website)
LinkedIn Slide Share
This process was very eye-opening for me. I had already written my proposal for my personal project, but this process made me re-think how I wrote my proposal and made me question if I included everything needed. The process of narrowing down a topic is much harder than I expected it to be. With my personal project, I already had an idea of what I wanted to research, but taking something from just a topic to an idea to a research question and title was incredibly challenging.
The other part of this process that I found interesting is my partner didn't really have an idea of what curriculum design was whereas I have studied it a bit in my undergrad-however, my version of curriculum design is a very "American"viewpoint. When we were initially trying to narrow down the topic, we had very interesting conversations about our views of curriculum design and how the school systems work between England and the U.S. We determined the school systems are incredibly different! It also reinforced the idea that talking to someone who has less knowledge about a topic is very useful. When communicating with someone that know less about a topic, you have to find the words and explain in more detail. This way of communicating helped with this project because after explaining more and more, my partner and I were able to narrow down the topic and find exactly what we were both interested in which helped us focus our research.
Outside of resLAB, I have found talking to people that have little understanding of teaching strings especially helpful in my research for my personal project. The more I explain my project to others, the more questions I receive. The more I have to think about my answer to the questions the more it helps me understand exactly what I would like to cover with my project and why.
Comments