The Real World (Virtually):An Alternative Research Assignment by David Beach, Assistant Director, English Composition Education research points to learning by doing as an effective pedagogical method. We all try to find ways to make the research project more an opportunity to discover and less a drudge-filled task. Here is the story of one successful six-week project. Summer 2004. Course assignment: Online Advanced Composition – Business. Course objective: Develop advanced research and writing skills. In the news: Athens hosting the Olympic Games and seven cities vying to host the 2012 Games. What if the students wrote a bid to host the Olympic Games? This task would focus on composition and rhetoric, naturally, but also business, marketing, design, globalism, and collaboration, all in an online environment. Students would work individually and collaboratively, and the final product would be a “mini bid book” similar to the official Bid Books submitted to the International Olympic Committee. Production of the mini-book book, however, would involve research, writing, business, and, importantly, navigating technology. Preparation Prior to Course In developing the course, I created resource web sites with information about the Olympic Games and other international sporting events, the seven official Bid Books for the 2012 Games, municipalities for the course project, and research/writing resources. These would serve as preliminary resources for students. Two weeks prior to the start of the course, I sent students an email detailing the scope of the project and asking for their choices: Summer or Winter Games? Bid city? Research area? To make the project manageable from my perspective, I selected the bid city options: Buenos Aires, Cape Town, or Chicago for the Summer Games, or Anchorage, Québec, or Östersund/Åre (Sweden) for the Winter Games. The research areas included: accommodations for athletes and guests, competition and non-competition venues, culture and entertainment, general conditions and logistics, or transportation. From their choices, I formed five teams of four or five students. (No student wanted to work on Anchorage.) All students received either their first or second choice of bid city and research area. Then, the class commenced. What Students Learned Students’ tasks during the project involved assessing their current knowledge of business proposals and the Olympics, accessing information from distributed sources (instructor, library, business, Internet), assessing the relevance of information, reflecting on processes, creating proposals, and reviewing and providing feedback to teammates. What did they learn? These six things: research, writing, reflecting, designing, presenting, and giving/receiving feedback. Students wrote four substantial reflections before commencing the final project: (1) What do we need to consider for this project? (2) How do we write a bid proposal? (3) What is the role of the Olympics and other international sporting events? (4) What is the difference between a winning bid and a losing bid? These four reflections counted 30% towards the course grade. Twenty percent of their grade was based on their individual project work, and another 20% was based on a course analysis in which they detailed what they learned about writing, research, business, design, presentation, and feedback. All their individual research culminated in the mini bid book which counted 20% of the grade. Students had to collaborate using synchronous or asynchronous communication in the course management system (WebCT). The bid book had to be available in electronic form (PDF or HTML) and integrate images into the design (and reference sources for all images). Thus, students also learned to design their work to be presented online. A motivating factor (though it did not count in the evaluation) was the competition; thirty colleagues around the world agreed to review the final projects, provide feedback to the students, and vote for a host city. Knowing their work would be read and evaluated by an international audience encouraged the students to perfect their research and writing both individually and collaboratively. My colleagues’ feedback, sometimes brutal and harsh, provided students with the reality of what is valued as persuasive writing in business. Course materials and final student-written mini bid books can be viewed on the Internet: The students loved this project, partly because of the challenge, partly because of the competition, partly because they learned useful skills in research, writing, design, and collaboration. As an instructor, I found participation increased, collaboration bloomed, and the research and writing were considerably better because students solved a real-world problem (how do we win this bid?), had models from which to work, and desired to have their bid chosen. The course and its materials can be viewed at http://classweb.gmu.edu/dbeach/su04xb/, and the five bid books can be viewed at http://classweb.gmu.edu/dbeach/su04xb/projects.htm. (The top vote-getters were Chicago for the Summer Games and Östersund/Åre for the Winter Games.) |