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Goals & Objectives:
The primary goal with article critiques is to teach students the contents
of the articles at an evaluative level. They also learn how to internalize
current studies in the field and develop such a habit. It also introduces
them to the appropriate journals for the given field.
Prerequisites:
Students need an adequate reading level as well as enough background into
typical methodologies in the field or the language of those methodologies
in order to interpret the article. In some cases, learning those methodologies
may be the goal of the article critique however.
Materials and Resources:
What needs to be prepared in advance by the teacher? - The instructor should
have questions prepared to help guide critiques of difficult articles. The
instructor should also be able to provide questions following student submission
of critiques and any necessary summarization to highlight critical points
in the article and what students may have missed.
What does the student need to bring to the lesson? - The time and ability
to carefully read and analyze the given articles.
Guiding Questions for this Activity:
Is there a main question being answered by the lesson? Usually, there will
be a general topic that articles in a group will address. If the instructor
is trying to target multiple topics, students should address at least one
article from each topic. Questions can range from how a given methodology
performs, how generalizations are conducted in a given study, and what are
the lessons learned.
Activity Outline and Procedure:
- Students are provided a list of readings. Students are usually responsible
for reading all of the articles, however, they only report on one. A report
outline may be provided that specifies what it is about the article that
the students are to critique or analyze so as to report back to the course.
- After a set time, students post their article analysis in a public forum
(it may also be a private post to the instructor who then leads a discussion
over certain questions).
- Each student then has a set time to comment
on the posts of other students to both their own article and a set number
of other articles (often all articles).
- The instructor provides scaffolding
remarks for the discussion and may post a summary. Students may also
be responsible for the summary statements for their selected article.
Teaching Strategies:
What are some tips to help the lesson run smoothly?
- Patience is a key. Provide
the students time to guide the discussion on the article assigned to them.
- Possibly link this activity to a presentation, where the students teach
the article as a group in a synchronous session or asynchronous forum.
- Allow the students time to answer questions concerning their given article.
Rather than provide direct answers, guide students to the answers of
their questions.
- Try not to let misunderstandings linger, but at the same
time allow for students to self correct or correct others.
- Have summaries
prepared for the articles ahead of time. It can also be helpful to
edit these prepared summaries so as to personalize by pointing out which
student may have brought up a certain point or other technique.
- You can also
let students choose their own articles or even find their own on a given
topic.
- Initial student responses should utilize proper grammatical norms, but
the followup discussion may take a less rigid language form.
Accommodations:
What accommodations may be needed for students with disabilities or other
special needs? This lesson requires few if any accommodations. Most text
to speech and speech to text programs can function within most asynchronous
discussion tools. Students with reading disorders such as dyslexia may need
additional time in the article reading phase. The bandwidth requirements
are also low.
Timeline:
Typically, about 3 days should be provided at a minimum between the time
the articles are assigned and the time the first student posts are required.
Then an additional minimum of 3 days can be given for counter analysis if
it is asynchronous. A synchronous session may occur in this interim.
Ideas for Activity Evaluation and Teacher Reflection:
How did the students like the lesson? End of semester evaluations should
ask about the usefulness and learning accomplished through such activities.
How was student learning verified? An assessment should be performed on
the quality of both the initial response by students, and any counter responses.
Furthermore, retention of the knowledge should be tested by students ability
to build on this knowledge with later units.
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