Remember your blogging prompts

Hi all,

Please remember that while you are able to blog about anything related to your research, there is a specific blog post to which you must respond each week.

BLOG PROMPTS
Use the following prompts to guide you with your research. You are expected to contribute to your blog within the identified lessons. You will complete a Personal Reflection as your final blog entry.

Lesson 2: Reflect on Research Topics
Your first task is to provide a brief description of the research question(s). What is the experiment or study attempting to demonstrate? What phenomena are you studying? Provide a brief idea(s) for your topic and explain how it relates to your professional practice and life. Explain with supporting citations.

Lesson 3: Summarize and Reflect on Previous Research
The second task of your introduction is to provide a well-rounded summary of previous research that is relevant to your topic. So, before you begin to write this summary, it is important to thoroughly research your topic. Finding appropriate sources amid thousands of journal articles can be a daunting task, but there are a number of steps you can take to simplify your research. Explain with supporting citations.

Lesson 4: Reflect on the Method of your Research
It is important to thoroughly explore possible research methods for your topic. Reflect on potential data sources and methods that you are considering. In addition, discuss your reasons for using various methodologies. Explain with supporting citations.

Lesson 5: Identify Opportunities for Additional Research
Once you have summarized the previous research, explain areas where the research is lacking or potentially flawed. What is missing from previous studies on your topic? What research questions have yet to be answered? What research methods seem particularly interesting that you might consider using? Explain with supporting citations.

Lesson 6: Rejoice, Reflect, and Repose
I'd like you to synthesize possible research topics, methodologies, and opportunities for additional research to this point. By "synthesize," I don't mean putting together summaries of individual articles, but rather discussing -- as coherently as you can -- a tentative proposal.
Since I as well as your committee may be unfamiliar with most of your sources, I'll need you to accommodate me as much as possible by unpacking terms and concepts from what you read. Educate me as much as you can so that I know why and what you are drawing from, and the basic direction of your research proposal. It will probably take you several pages to do this (2-4, with separate works cited page), but I think it will give you some momentum before you finalize with your committee your research proposal. And, I'd like to challenge you -- just a bit -- by asking you to draw on at least 2 sources from this class.

Lesson 7: Personal Reflection
Write a personal reflection (1200 word MAX) on the work you have done in this course. Use your experiences, readings, and/or specific questions or responses from your colleagues that
were posed in this class as examples within your reflection. Perhaps look back at your written response to the first topic. Taking the time to properly reflect on your research work as a result of this class, will help better understand your research as part of your professional practice in the future. You should use readings and class responses (from your peers) to support your claims.
Consider some of the following questions:
What did you learn? So what now? What do you see as the next steps in your research process to complete your degree and continue to do research? Imagine you are updating your committee or securing a committee. Be creative and feel free to use parts of your maps or notes from the semester. Remember to properly cite your sources.

Cognitive. Your new understandings and knowledge? What is the most important single piece of knowledge gained? What will you remember in a year? Five years? How has your knowledge grown about research? Changed? Become more sound for your research practices?
Skills. New skills gained? Old skills improved? Your ability to solve problems, think, reason, and research? Did you actually use these skills? What skills do you need to develop next for your research practice in the complete of your MA project or thesis?

Affective. (Emotions and feelings) Did you change your beliefs? Values? What part of this class seemed most worth your time? In what ways do you feel good about where you have gotten with your research proposal this semester? What was the single most important thing you learned about you and your research? Evaluate your participation in discussions and/or contributing to a research community. Did you discuss and learn with other students? How has the course altered your behavior in regard to a research community? Did you grow, drift, shrink, hover, stagnate, or float for the research process? Why?

Judgment/Evaluation. Can you apply principles to evaluate research? If you took the class again, what would you do differently? Has your way of thinking about research changed?