Author: Robin Root

After meeting with the ever-sagacious Tamara, who provided excellent counsel that I stop trying to use everything but the kitchen sink, technically speaking, to engage students (okay, I’m paraphrasing), I’d like to focus on VOCAT for (1) students to annotate my asynchronous lectures and (2) enduring group work. But, I was unaware of the whole mobile-phone heavy aspect of VOCAT until last week, which has me a bit concerned. I don’t want to record my lectures into my phone and am not feeling too keen on students typing substantive annotations to one another’s work (or my lectures) over their phone (I could get over it, I guess), so, while still reeling from the positive effects of turkey tryptophan, I sent an email to the amazing CTL crew hoping for good news about a desktop computer-friendly modality. Pending that, here’s my artifact proposal for (2) enduring group work over VOCAT.

For the first two weeks, we’ll have some VOCAT warm-up exercises (self-introduction, thoughts about what might make an interesting research topic, annotate my pre-recorded lectures). In week 3, I’ll assign students to VOCAT groups based on thematic overlap in students’ research topics (= about 7 groups of 3 students each). VOCAT assignments will be hyperlinked (I hope) in our course homeroom, which is a B@B page.

Here are key parts of their research papers that I’ll be taking them through and their VOCAT analogues. I created a few of the assignments in the VOCAT course shell and will hopefully ask Christopher tomorrow how to properly set up group projects (individual and group?), enroll students to the course, and which project configuration boxes I should (not) be marking.

I guess I’m just not sure whether I’m scaffolding. I mean, I’m scaffolding the final paper because it’s broken into discrete parts…

1. Week 1: Having introduced yourselves over VOCAT, we’re all VOCAT experts now, right? (Not!) Here’s your next VOCAT assignment, and it’s CLASS-WIDE and always interesting. Conjure two ideas or questions about human existence and/or social life: anything you’ve every wanted to know more about but never had the time to pursue. These are called me-search ideas. Post a video of no more than two minutes (set that timer!) describing human experiences that interest you and that you might like to research. Only constraint? You kinda need to be able to access people who have experienced X, Y, or Z. Comment on at least one peer’s me-search idea by viewing others’ videos.
2. Week 2: CLASS-WIDE VOCAT: After viewing and annotating my pre-recorded lectures, you should know a bit more about the heart and soul, and mechanics, of qualitative research. So, select one of these me-search ideas and develop a research question. In a video of no more than 2 minutes, let us know what it is and how you plan on pulling it off. Comment on at least one peer’s research question by viewing others’ videos.
3. Week 4: GROUP VOCAT: Do background research through intensive use of library resources (academic journals, census databases, etc.). Post a video of no more than (you guessed it) 2 minutes, tellings us what articles you’ve found or frustrations you’re facing finding anything! Comment on both your peers’ video reports.
4. Week 5: No VOCAT. Write a 5-8 page (1.5 space) literature review summarizing other scholars’ research on your topic.
5. Weeks 6-8: CLASS-WIDE VOCAT. Design your research instruments: interview schedules and surveys. Tell the class how it’s going! What article that I’ve assigned about research instruments has been most helpful–why?
6. Weeks 9-10: GROUP VOCAT: Collect data: conduct your interviews and run your surveys. How’s it going? This is the most fun/frustrating part of qualitative research. Comment on both your peers’ video reports.
7. Weeks 11-12: GROUP VOCAT: Analyze your gorgeous data: this is called thematic coding. Comment on both your peers’ video reports.
8. Weeks 13-14: CLASS-WIDE VOCAT. Write and present a final paper that includes all of these elements = ~ 40 pages.

"Your thesis is like your first love: it will be difficult to forget."-- Hua Hsu, quoting Umberto Eco, in "A Guide to Thesis Writing That is a Guide to Life," New Yorker, April 6, 2015

How I use Posts: Usually, I just write a prompt for students to respond to, e.g., identify a point of special interest of confusion in my lecture. I'd like to make "posts" assignments more dynamic. Also, I'll be creating enduring work teams of about 3 students and would like to learn how to create the equivalent (?) of Blackboard's Discussion Boards, or something similar. 

Update: So I just came across another (?) description of what to post here for this assignment, so I've logged back in and clicked on block "verse" feature (I tried paragraph, but that didn't work) to update it. 

Aim for this seminar: to transform Social Science Research Methods 4110 from a hybrid to a synchronous fully online (Sociology and Anthropology Dept). I teach it in the spirit of a graduate research seminar. The 5 modules result in a whopping 40-50 page research paper Here's a link to an earlier version of the course--spring 2020. Yeh, that semester. 

Course learning goals: The goals of this upper-level course are to train you in the critical thinking, research, writing, and ethics skills that are the hallmark of social research* in sociology, anthropology, public policy, and some business research. You will acquire these skills through textbook readings, scholarly articles, diverse instructional media, and original research tasks that result in a final paper. I like to think of this course as “social” as well, because there is substantial peer collaboration in the production of your final paper.

* Social research makes grand claims to knowledge by using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to explain some aspect of human experience. While this course will focus on qualitative methods, the words (qualitative) versus numbers (quantitative) debate belies the dynamic and interlocking roles that qualitative and quantitative data play in how scholars investigate the social world. We will explore these issues at length.

Outcomes: The paper you produce for this course will equip you with core qualitative research skills and strengthen your ability to write clearly and persuasively. Moreover, by developing scholarly insights about your chosen final paper topic, you will be able to speak and write knowledgeably in job interviews and/or in graduate school applications when asked to discuss a subject that you know and care about. By the end of the semester, you will have acquired a valuable set of marketable research skills and, more important, a “sociological imagination” for understanding the most pressing issues of our day. 

My own research: Now I’m going to try to insert a video using the tools above. Ah, dead end. I got a notice that it’s not permitted for security reasons. Guess I’ll try posting an image of that dead end?

https://youtu.be/d2b7JKBWQTM

I tried inserting my YouTube URL instead and that seemed to work as long as I DO NOT USE the video embed feature of BLOCKS.

https://youtu.be/d2b7JKBWQTM

Short video of my 2016 field research in what is now eSwatini, interviewing chiefs and their advisors about their experiences of “traditional roles” assisting their communities with hardship, including famine and HIV/AIDS and TB.