JA 325: Research Design

Theresa Hayden, Ph.D.

Fall 2008 i2a Faculty Learning Community on Critical Thinking (FLC-CT)

As a result of participating in the Fall 2008 FLC-CT, Professor Hayden implemented changes in the way she approached her course and assignments. She realized that students were not prepared to perform the scholarly research in her course: she found herself devoting too much course time "re-teaching" basics. Through her work in the FLC-CT, she clarified the description of course work, emphasized the basic concepts needed in the course at the beginning of the semester, and related course topics to those basic concepts as the semester progressed. This allowed her to spend less time in class providing basic, sometimes repetitive, instruction for each assignment. Through focusing on improving assignments and activities, she was able to see improvements in the quality of work students turned in as compared to previous semesters. View an example of Professor Hayden’s clarified assignments below.

Professor Hayden also began to regularly use the Classroom Assessment Technique (CAT) of the One-Minute Paper. At the end of selected class periods, students would take one minute to write a short synopsis of the information covered during that session. This form of formative feedback allowed Professor Hayden to evaluate the effectiveness of the methods she used for conveying information.

View Professor Hayden’s Original  and Revised Reading Research Assignments [PDF].