Final Lesson Plan

Week 4 – Final Project

Lesson Plan—Sociology 465 One-Shot

Situational Factors

Sociology 465 is an upper-level class during which mostly college juniors will learn to design and conduct a small sociological research project.  This will include conducting a literature review.  There will be 18 students in this one-shot live library session. The professor believes that they are inexperienced researchers. Fortunately the session will be 75 minutes, so there is time to include some active learning. 

The library session the professor has requested is quite traditional. The professor has stated that she would like students to develop the skills to do a comprehensive literature search by using appropriate keywords, related citations and author searches.  She would like them to gain experience using a traditional database as well as Google Scholar.  She would also like a review of APA style citations.  The challenge will be to try to move the content beyond showing students where to point and click to the realm of significant learning as defined by Fink and which is in keeping with the Framework concepts, dispositions, etc.

Technology

My lesson plan calls for a combination of traditional pen/paper activities to some newer technologies. Even though this is a fairly low-tech class, one could argue that traces of the Horizon Report trends can be found.  The tutorials are a component of online learning.  The Google form lends itself to using some analytics, and the active learning components are part of the students as creators trend, as is using Padlet for sharing the citation maps.  The Padlet technology is really the only technology that could really enhance the class.  I think that it will help motivate students to complete the task by sharing their work with others, and being able to review all the results by looking at them together will enhance the discussion.

Motivational Theory

I will be using aspects of the ARCS Model for this class.  In general, this class should provide Relevance to students because it is based on helping them what they need to know in order to complete a specific class assignment.  Also, by “setting the scene” in describing a possible future scenario when they might need these skills, I can gain their Attention.  Providing the class agenda also provides motivation through the learning requirements component of the ARCS model.  The lesson plan also provides success opportunities, a component of Satisfaction, by giving students a chance to think about and assess the information in the articles they find.  Finally, given the nature of the class and its time constraints, I will mostly be able to provide extrinsic rewards by providing individual feedback during the class. 

Resources

            Paper and pencils to make the concept map.

            Video tutorials about searching 2 specific databases.

            Video tutorial about how to read a research article.

Google form.

Citation mounted on cardboard and cut into elements.

Slide(s) of APA citation elements.

Padlet site.

Class Introduction

Presentation:

Ask students to imagine that their first job out of college is to be a research assistant for a sociologist.  Their supervisor is designing a research project, but needs background information about the topic and asks them to write an annotated bibliography of what they find.  The activities in this library class will prepare them for this work.

Present a slide with the class agenda and discuss how this class will mimic major parts of the research process.

Learning Theory:

By “organizing the material by chunking it into meaningful parts” I am using a cognitivist approach.

           

Learning Goal: Students will identify their research idea and related topics in order to define their research question.

Presentation:

Using brainstorming, briefly illustrate how to make a concept map and how to decide on their question, then let them start.

Student Activity:

Using prior knowledge, make a concept map about your area of research.

Assessment:

Concept Map which includes writing their research question.  I will provide individual and group feedback as they complete these and all of their activities.

Learning Theory:

Activating prior knowledge is another cognitivist approach.

           

Learning Goal: Students will indicate the most important concepts of their research question in order to design database searches and find two relevant scholarly articles.

Presentation:

Discuss identifying keywords/search terms/search notation.

Student Activities:

Prior to class, review appropriate database tutorials.

Complete the Google form indicating their research question, and their database search strategies.

Assessment:

Evaluate this part of the form with the following rubric:

High Achievement	Moderate Achievement	Low Achievement
Students will successfully identify the key concepts contained in their research question on a worksheet.	Students identify more than one key concept of their research question on a worksheet, but also choose extraneous wording from their question.	Students are unable to successfully identify more than one key concept contained in their research question on a worksheet.
Students use a combination of their key concepts and proper search syntax to design and carry out a database search.	Students find any two articles, but they are not particularly relevant or they did not design their search properly.	Students are unable to find relevant results in a database search because they use improper search phrases and/or proper search syntax.

Learning Theory:

Asking students to design their searches is a behaviorist approach, though being able to identify the most important concepts in their research questions demands some reflection, a more constructivist activities.

           

Learning Goal: Students will assess two articles they find in order to decide whether they are pertinent to their research project.

Presentation:

Briefly review what they learned from a brief video about reading a research article.

Student Activity:

Prior to class, view a video about how to read a research paper.

Using the Google form, ask students to reflect about why or why not the articles they found will be helpful to their research.

Assessment:

Students perform self-assessment by reflecting about the articles and then share their reflections with another student.

Learning Theory:

Reflecting on the articles to determine whether they meet students’ information needs is a constructivist activity which is strengthened by sharing their thoughts with another student.

           

Learning Goal: Students will be able to identify APA citation elements in order to find resources from a reference list.

Presentation:

Describe and illustrate with slide(s) the elements of book and article citations.

Student Activity:

Participate in a kinesthetic activity.  Give students elements of a citation printed on cardboard and cut up and ask them to arrange themselves in proper order.

Assessment:

Students can determine whether they are physically in the correct places.

Learning Theory:

This is a behaviorist activity.

Learning Goal: Students will illustrate the connections among at least 5 scholarly articles in order to begin to understand the development of a scholarly conversation.

Presentation:

Discuss how one tracks citations and how they can be mapped.  Once students have posted their maps on Padlet, discuss what these illustrate about scholarly conversations.

Student Activity:

Students will choose one of the articles they found in the above activity and map 2 citations forward and 2 citations backward.  They will also identify the type of resource from knowing the citation elements.

Assessment:

Post maps to Padlet and discuss.

Learning Theory:

Constructing the maps is a behaviorist activity and reflecting on them and the scholarly conversations they represent is a cognitive activity.

Final Thoughts

           

This lesson plan is extremely ambitious for even a 75-minute class, so I have to be prepared to pare it down if necessary.  I will also need the support of the professor to require the students to watch the videos prior to class. 

Many of the ideas behind course design were familiar to me.  I have worked with learning outcomes, active learning, and assessment quite a bit.  However, thinking about incorporating learning theories and motivation theories was new to me and I struggled with figuring out how to fit them into the planning.  I will have to continue to think about those and  how they can continue to inform my teaching in the future.