EDUC.SP21

Course Title: B240 Qualitative Research
Professor: Kelly Gavin Zuckerman
Semester: Spring 2021
Modality: Online
Synchronous Meeting: Wednesdays 9:40-12:30 pm

Course Overview:

An elective offered through the Education Program, this course explores qualitative approaches to educational research. Qualitative methodologies share the goal of access, representing, and acting on the meanings that people give their experiences within particular contexts, formal and informal. Qualitative methods also emphasize the central role of writing in the process, credibility, and impact of the research. In educational and community settings, qualitative methods are used by educators and increasingly, students to explore and revise teaching and learning, to identify learners’ interests and perspective, and to link individuals, institutions, cultural knowledge, and social change. Focal methods under study will include observation, interview, focus groups, and document analysis, as well as arts-based methodologies. Research teams will work together to meet course goals and learn together.

This course will enable participants to:
•Characterize qualitative research within the field of educational research more broadly and explain the range of problems addressed by various traditions of qualitative research;
•Complicate and refine assumptions about objectivity, culture, and personal experience as they pertain to scientific research;
•Develop critical insight into research design, methods, and choices in representing data and findings;
•Generate “researchable” questions for qualitative study;
•Identify the appropriateness and purpose of particular research methods for addressing particular questions;
•Recognize and experience the complexity of qualitative data analysis;
•Recognize and apply ethical standards to the conduct and critique of research processes, studies, and publication;
•Collaborate with research team members

This course is limited to 22 students. Priority goes to students who are completing the teacher certification program or the minor in educational studies.

Broad Overview of Pedagogical Experiences/Methods:

•Consistent "structure" of online sessions over the course of the semester (opening writing/thinking/creating exercise, pair/share, some framing by me, small group work, full group discussion)
•Use of multimedia during each session
•Variety of groupings (in size, in participants) over the course of the semester and tasks to be completed/topics to be discussed in small group work
•Encouragement for you to draw connections to your own lived experiences during each class session