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Problem Assignment and Revision
Guideline: Foster critical thinking - Encourage a critical approach to doing research. Develop assignments that require students to integrate knowledge from a variety of sources rather than rely on just one source, and encourage them to evaluate everything they find.
Assignment: A very general assignment to find books and articles on a topic of choice using a variety of research tools (library catalog, scholarly article databases, newspaper databases, etc.)
Problem: No mention of comparing the kinds of information found in a variety of resources and evaluating the appropriateness and usefulness of the resource for the topic. Tendency is to just "report the facts."
Revised Assignment:
- Assignment Objective 1: Identify the types of resources available to a researcher (primary, secondary, tertiary; scholarly, trade, popular).
- Assignment Objective 2: Identify the usefulness (overview vs. detailed; lay-oriented vs. scholarly) of a type of resource for a topic and evaluate the appropriateness (authority, currency, audience, bias, etc.) of a given resource.
- Assignment Objective 3: Integrate information from a variety of resources.
- Assignment Description: Compare and contrast the treatment of a controversial topic (stem cell research, single-payer healthcare, death penalty or appropriate discipline-related topic) using information found in a variety of types of sources. Specific questions to address can include 1) How does author bias affect the presentation of information? 2) How does the intended audience influence the author's argument? 3) Can the topic be fully understood without looking at pros and cons? 4) Does the author cite other research that supports his/her argument? 5) Does current information add anything useful to the argument? Use at least 2 types of information resources and at least 4 sources.
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