Course Outline
ED507: Research Project: Design
Professors: Ashok Mathur and Rachel Nash
amathur@tru.ca / ph: 852.6284 / facebook: Ashok Mathur / OM1487 (CiCAC) / Hours: by appt
rnash@tru.ca / ph. 371-5913 /facebook: Rachel Andrea Nash /AE 359C / Hours: MTW 11:30-12:30 or by appt
Course website: www.cicac.ca ("Graduate Courses" link)
Preamble: Education 507 will provide you with the opportunity to begin designing and writing your thesis proposals in a feedback-intensive environment, while continuing your exposure to educational theory, especially critical pedagogy. A student-driven seminar, this course will focus on developing thesis proposals and projects through readings, discussions, consultations, and presentations. By investigating which questions matter to you as a researcher and educator, and discussing strategies for making those questions matter to the academic world, this course will enable students to speak to various communities (thus investigating/re-visiting the feature and conventions of academic discourse in the context of an academic community: why do we have to communicate like this? Do we have to communicate like this?). To these ends, we will read and use the work of academic discourse and critical pedagogy theorists such as Rick Coe, Janet Giltrow, Michel Foucault, Elizabeth Ellsworth, Henry Giroux, Paulo Freire, Jennifer Gore, Jane Tompkins, and others who are or become relevant to student interests. As we “master” the techniques of effective academic discourse, we will also train our critical faculties on the process and the institution itself, simultaneously learning and unlearning.
Practice: In working groups of 4 or 5, you
will select readings of interest from the course bibliography
and begin to build your own discourse community around the ideas
and how they reflect on your own lived and intellectual experience,
and, ultimately, how they may help you address your research
project. In each of the five class meetings subsequent to the
introductory session, a student group will take responsibility
for leading discussion and interrogating possibilities, a pedagogical
practice of mutual learning. A number of guests will augment
the class materials through presentations, visits, and dialogues
focussed on ethics, theory, and various disciplines. The course
culminates with a public symposium, in which students present
their research in progress to classmates and to the larger community.
As well, as your interests emerge we will assist in the process
of identifying possible supervisors from the Arts and Education
faculties.For further information, see the Primer
on Undertaking a Research Project handout (Word doc).
Course Dates:
Sept. 7-8
Sept. 28-29,
Nov 9-10 (note change)
Nov 30
Symposium: Dec. 8
Assignments: Students will compile a portfolio
of work over the course of the term. At the beginning of term,
you will sign a contract
indicating the general nature of work you intend to produce
and the relative weighting of grades.
Required assignments include:
1) Research proposal and bibliography (500 words plus 25 or more sources)
2) Symposium presentation (approx 20 minutes or ten pages) related to research proposal
3) Group-led discussions - Sept 28, Sept 29 (2), Nov. 9, Nov. 10 (2)
4) Participation
5) Students should also include one or more of the following options as part of the portfolio:a) Critical journal on articles and seminars
b) Annotated bibliography
c) Creative work addressing articles/seminars (2D, 3D, writing, performance, video)
d) Community, activist, or interactive projects springing from the course
e) Alternative presentations to the seminar or elsewhere
f) Any other work relevant to the course