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GCRD 6353
Teachers as Informed
Consumers of
Educational Research
Colin Lankshear & Michele Knobel
c.lankshear@yahoo.com &
micheleknobel@gmail.com

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Research as systematic inquiry
p. 29 of your textbook

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Relationship of Research Logic to
Evaluation Template
 Context of study (purpose,
question, problem area, relevant
other research)
 Framework (theory and concepts)
 Design and methodology
 The evaluative template
(Appendix 1 in your syllabus)

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Tasks for today
 Forming work groups (teams) & sending
names and email addresses to Michele &
Colin
 Kitting up (key resources for the semester)
 Becoming familiar with the evaluative
template
 Practising with the template in work
groups using the Gainer article we’ve
supplied
 Locating a literacy research-based paper to
critique (that all members of a group can
“relate to”)

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Forming work groups
 Ideally 4-6 members
 Likely to share some common
interest to help with article
selection
 Likely to be able to work together
online and offline and contribute
equally to the final analytic paper

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Kitting up
Using Google Docs to write
collaboratively (http://docs.google.com
)
Using the internet to communicate
between meetings (e.g.,
www.skype.com or messenger/chat,
blog, Twitter, email)
Resources for finding a suitable article
(e.g., http://scholar.google.com ; MSVU
online article archives)

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Using Google Docs

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Google Docs (cont.)

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Google Docs (cont.)

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Google Docs (cont.)
Title your
document here

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Google docs (cont.)
 Share your Google Docs with
Colin and Michele:
colin.lankshear@gmailcom
micheleknobel@gmail.com

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Using Scholar Google as a meta-
search engine
Select “Scholar
Preferences”

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Scholar Google (cont.)
Write out uni
name in full

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Scholar Google (cont.)
Place check
mark in
box

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Scholar Google (cont.)

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Critiquing Gainer article
 In groups, work through the Gainer
article, using the analytic template
found in Appendix 1 of your syllabus
to guide your evaluation
 Discuss as a whole group
 This is a sampling of the kind of
process you’ll go through for writing
your final paper

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Finding a focus article
 The article must be relevant to literacy studies.
 The article must be a peer-reviewed and formally
published research article.
 Ideally published within the past 5 years.
 You need to be truly interested in the focus of the
article. Focus must be good and “meaty”
 The focus of your article needs to have a prior history
of research – be part of a research area or field
 Your final paper must engage with debates, present an
argument, and include critique (your group needs to
take a theorised position and you’ll be reading well
beyond your focus article)

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Course website
& additional resources
https://sites.google.com/site/ourmsvupages
/halifax-2012-consumers
There are 3 examples of final papers
posted here.