With the research project looming over the next couple of weeks our main focus today was to go over anything that we were unsure of. I was struggling with this project so I found this lesson extremely helpful as it clarified things for me. I personally was confused over the structure of the proposal, what it’s supposed to look like as it’s not structured the same way as an essay. For anyone who missed this lesson or didn’t make any notes, I have decided to post my notes within this blog. So here is how the proposal is supposed to be structured, it can/should have different headed sections (as it would make it a lot easier).
Name:
Full Title of the project:
Introduction:
What it is that you’re doing?
Back ground?
Why you’ve chosen to do this?
Context:
From my understanding the context should be your own ideas or personal experiences about whatever it is that you have decided to look into and the literature review should provide arguments to either back up (or not) the points that you have raised.
Literature Review:
There should be articles that can support (and again or not support) your argument. Don’t make the mistake of copying down word for word, taking on what this person has said as gospel as it’s not. These articles should support your argument, not the other way around. You should look at arguments from a Philosophical, Psychological or Sociological point of view, you do not need to use all three, you can do use just the one or two.
Method:
The method should be on what you are planning to do?
How you plan to carry out your task and what methods you have chosen to use and why?
How you picked the volunteers that are participating within your project?
Ethics:
Guarantee anonymity.
Guarantee that the volunteer will come to no harm.
They have the right to withdraw at any time.
The volunteer must be over the age of eighteen.
Anyone doing this project should refer to BERA. You can find their site at www.bera.ac.uk.
We then moved on from discussing the research project and started an activity set by Tom and Sandra. The topic was called “Topic Mediated Dialogue” and we were prompted with a set of questions which were around “Cheating: Friend, foe or scapegoat?” The prompts were left up on the board and in pairs or threes we had to discuss them within 15 minutes. The prompts were as follows,
How does the notion of cheating of cheating help you think about and understand education – the what, the why, the how?
What does it say to you about learning?
About teaching?
About the relationship between students, teachers and the university?
About the wider social and culture context were working in?
About the purpose of higher education?
Giulia and I decided to work in pairs and one by one we went through the topics and made notes. We decided that someone who goes to the lengths of plagiarizing someone else’s work tells us that you are struggling and / or is incredibly insecure as you don’t want to submit your own work.
Relationships between students and teachers – We feel that no idea is original as previous years have been set the same questions with subtle changes and there is tons of work out there which others have done on the same subject. We both agreed that there is nothing wrong with using someone else idea to either support your own or help you form your own idea, just as long as you make it your own idea and you don’t copy their work word for word.
That is as far as we had got just because we spent too much time talking about the first two and didn’t get around the talking about the rest just as the discussion got bigger and we began speaking to other people. After our time was up, we then continued to work in our pairs and continue with a writing activity. For this activity we had to write a poem about cheating, Giulia and I are still working on our poem however I also wrote my own. So here is my poem, I’m a little rusty!! I haven’t written poems since I was a kid.
When you’re in a rut and feeling stressed and know full well, your works not at its best.
“Why did I leave it to the last-minute?” you say? Whilst looking up at the ceiling in dismay.
If only I hadn’t spent all of my time dossing and more of my time glossing, over those books and that dictionary.
Then maybe the due date wouldn’t loom over me as if I had my own flurry and I wouldn’t have rushed this essay in such a hurry, thinking that I could outsmart Turnitin and then wouldn’t have had to turn it in, in the state that it was in.
If I could rewind the time and have a do over, I’d turn off the Jeremy Kyle show and have a proper look over, the essay question and what was required. Instead of growing tired, I could and would have made more of an attempt and would have hopefully received a better mark but unfortunately I have now made my bed and now I have to lie in it.
There you have it guys, my rusty poem. Moral of the story is, don’t cheat, simple as.
NOBLECHLOE 