Using Scholarly Sources (Synthesizing Sources) Sample Lesson Plan

Before Class

Have students review the Popular, Scholarly, and Trade guide, including the video on peer review: http://guides.lib.utexas.edu/popularscholarlytrade.
TA finds 3 related articles for students to synthesize and prepares worksheet/slides.
TA creates or finds sample synthesis (librarian can help with these 2).

Other options - students can use 2-3 articles they’ve found for their research (each student can do this individually with his/her own articles)

Use class readings as the articles - students can fill out chart as they read for homework.

During Class

10 Minutes - Discussion of scholarly articles/how to read an article (go through slides)

What’s special about scholarly sources? What process do scholarly journal article go through that is different than other types of articles? Students might mention that they are written by experts, peer review, they present research
Review Peer Review Process - articles are reviewed by experts!
Remember: Scholarly journal articles are written by scholars for other scholars. In college, you are working to become scholars but when you are starting out, these articles can be difficult to read. I’m going to give you some strategies that will help you get started readings and making sense of scholarly journal articles.

Start with the abstract. Read it several times if necessary until you have a general idea of what the article is about.
Next read the introduction. In the introduction you what to figure out what the author’s research question or hypothesis is. This is usually the last paragraph of the introduction.
Skip the methods and results sections and read the discussion. The discussion summarizes the key findings in more everyday language. From the discussion, figure out what is the answer to the research question.
Go back to the methods. In this section figure out who were the participants and what they were asked to do.
Finally, skim the results. This is the most challenging section to understand because it will give you lots of detailed statistics—often in charts and graphs—don’t worry if you don’t fully understand this section. Focus on the words.

Now it is your turn to try to apply these strategies. I’m going to hand out 2 scholarly journal articles that address - a topic that fits with your class.

15 minutes - reading + fill out chart

Split the class into 2 groups.

Each group is going to gets a scholarly journal article to read. Students read journal article using above strategies and complete this table. The table will help them pull out the most important information from the article.

25 Minutes - Synthesis jigsaw

Explain the difference between summary and synthesis (final slides). Use your own example if you want.

Students pair with a classmate who read the other article to compare what is similar and different about their articles and to write a summary paragraph.

After Class

Feedback in some way - TA can grade paragraphs or students can trade them for peer feedback.

Let Sarah Brandt (s.brandt@austin.utexas.edu) know how it went if you use this activity!

Examples:

Article Citation

Research Question or Hypothesis

Key Findings (answer to research question)

Participants/Data Sources

How was the study conducted?

Concerns or questions?

McKinne, M., & Martin, B. N. (2010). Higher education faculty and student perceptions of classroom incivility. Journal of College and Character, 11(2), 5-17.

Is there a difference between faculty and student perceptions of the types and frequency of classroom incivility?

Is there a difference in faculty and student perceptions of the effectiveness of a teacher’s interpersonal and pedagogical skills and the amount of perceived incivility?

Faculty perceived more behaviors as uncivil than students. For example, faculty view being unprepared for class as uncivil behavior while students did not.

Students perceived some uncivil behaviors (groans, sarcasm, side conversations, and cell phones) more frequently than faculty.

Faculty and students agreed that the actions of the instructor had a greater impact on classroom incivility than student actions. The need for instructors to show respect was a recurring theme in both student and faculty responses.

197 students from 4 Midwestern Universities (education and psychology majors)

52 faculty from 4 Midwestern Universities

Complete a survey on their perceptions of classroom incivility. 10 students and 10 faculty then completed a follow-up questionnaire on the relationship between instructor behavior and incivility.

Other articles in set: Boysen, G. A. (2012). Teacher responses to classroom incivility: Student perceptions of effectiveness. Teaching of Psychology, 39(4), 276-279.

Bjorklund, W. L., & Rehling, D. L. (2010). Student perceptions of classroom incivility. College Teaching, 58(1), 15-18.

SINGLE ARTICLE SUMMARY

MULTIPLE ARTICLE SYNTHESIS

This investigation examined perceptions of undergraduate students and faculty of incidents of classroom incivility; of the perceived effectiveness of faculty in circumventing classroom incivility; and of the effectiveness of policies addressing incivility. Findings revealed there is a statistically significant difference between faculty and student perceptions of the type and frequency of incidents of classroom incivility. Findings also revealed a difference between faculty and students as to whether a teacher’s interpersonal/pedagogical skill could affect classroom incivility. Implications include a dialogue between faculty and students regarding classroom incivility, a refinement of pedagogy/ interpersonal skills for the professorate, and development of policies.

Both students and faculty perceive classroom incivility be problematic but they have differing views on the problem. Thus there needs to be a dialogue between professors and students to define properly classroom incivility. There is strong debate and discrepancy as to what exactly constitutes acts of incivility (Hernandez & Fister, 2001; Meyers, 2003; Seidman, 2005; Young, 2003). Moreover, this conversation should not be a “global” event, meaning the dialogue would not be best served in a campus-wide workshop or symposium (Twale & DeLuca, 2008). These conversations need to be at the “local” level, in the classrooms of individual instructors. Bruffee (1999) underscored the importance of collaboration in higher education. Collaboration between faculty and students would be a powerful tool to address classroom incivility. Additionally, the literature supports the concept that faculty must address classroom incivility head on and not shirk from such responsibilities (Braxton & Mann, 2004; Hannah, 2006).

UT Libraries, CC License, adapted from: Brianne Markowski, University of Northern Colorado