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In the past eight years, there has been a strong national movement to tie funding decisions to research designated as scientific. In the class, we will examine the various meanings associated with that designation. At the same time, many practitioners find that changes in their practices are heavily influenced by other research based on other methodologies, for example, from the reading of case studies or ethnographies. Others see innovation as the source of the next wave of educational change and seek to see research based on engineering or design approaches as the most promising avenues for future research. It seems timely that we, as an educational community, engage in some discussions of these choices and share, with each other as members of one college, our views and perspectives. This is an opportunity to get out of the individual isolation of separate departments and to exchange ideas.
The class will be run as an intellectual community jointly clarifying our beliefs on the issues. We will use panels to present varied positions, plan for debates on specific issues, invite speak-outs for individual monologues and diatribes, and host a one-day conference on the topic with national speakers (sponsored by the Joseph D. Moore Endowment for support of distinguished speakers).
