Spotlight:
Associate
Professor
Lynnda Brown
answered a call for proposals as a QM (Quality
Matters) Model Course
with her Business Communications course.
Lynnda’s course was
chosen as an example
of best practice and is
representative of meeting the standards for
QM.
This is a great honor
for Professor Brown
and TCC!! TCC will receive recognition and
compensation for hosting QM students to
Blackboard and Prof.
Brown’s course.
For the next three
years, faculty and administrators from
across the nation will
be logging in to TCC’s
Blackboard site to see
an example of how
Quality Matters standards are applied bringing TCC recognition as
an institution that provides quality online education.
Congratulations
Lynnda!
2
mesters now, I’ve had my students create surveys.
Research questions have included how much do people know about plastic pollution? how do people asjects. Growing a research program resess the relationship between IQ and college success?
quires an investment of time, energy, and
And, this semester, how much water do Oklahomans
funds, so it is important for the college to
use? As part of the experience, students use the Interremove obstacles that keep faculty from
net to research survey designs; they learn language
participating in research and to recognize
like demographics, aggregate and disaggregate, likert
faculty members who innovate in this area.
scale, open and closed questions. They implement
Collegial and collaborative support among
their surveys, using broad demographics. After, they
the faculty members involved should be
use Excel to aggregate data and look for trends. At the
encouraged also. Spr ead the word that
end of the process, survey data are included in group
“Research IS teaching!”
projects and in argumentative essays. This semester,
Embrace curiosity-driven learnwe plan to create a blog on water as a global issue.
ing…give your students an opportunity to
But that’s not the best part of the story. The
play…and learn deeply… today!
best part of the story is what happened a few weeks
ago. When my Honors Composition II class finished
their survey, Jackie Swicegood, WC associate professor
of mathematics, offered to have her Elementary StatisBy: Lyndel Penn Colglazier
tics pilot the survey. Her class had already created
their own survey for implementation, but this would
I am not a scientist, but I love scibe a new challenge: analyzing the effectiveness of a
ence. And I have enough passing
survey based on the design parameters they had
knowledge to make some sense of research
learned in class.
and scientific studies—even if it takes me a
bit to process charts and graphs.
My students accepted the offer of a pilot for
their survey, though truthfully, they probably got more
For good or ill, our lives are bound
than they bargained for. Given the chance, students
to the discoveries of science. So it’s been
can be the harshest of critics, and Jackie’s students
since the Age of Enlightenment. Though
relished the task. As a result, my students spent over
initially, as these discoveries edged out
an hour going over their newly annotated surveys,
religion as a way of explaining the natural
culling and reviewing feedback, collaborating and
world, science enamored the layperson as
making judgments, revising questions, reorganizing
much as the professional. Everybody
items, changing language—getting a serious lesson in
wanted a big discovery—much like educadiction and precision. Their survey is better as a result
tors today. And for good reason, the paof Jackie’s class and the ensuing revisions; my stutient needs a cure.
dents’ commitment and investment in the survey’s
Unfortunately, too many Amerioutcome, far more intense.
cans have no way to reconcile what they
But before my students got their revisions, on
hear from science. Butter’s good; then, it’s
the other side of the campus, watching her students
bad. Margarine’s better. Then, it’s bad.
vet my class’s survey, Jackie had one of those marvelCoffee’s good; then it’s not. Drink wine;
ous moments: seeing her students apply their learning.
don’t you dare. Maybe red. Maybe white.
Having completed their course work on surveys and
OMG: You drank too much.
moved on to other curriculum topics, Jackie’s students
I don’t teach science and I’m terri- were called back to the survey curriculum previously
ble at math. Still, I see how important it is covered—to cover it again with gusto, working
for students to acquire some fluency in the knowledge, and applied skills—for a composition class
realm of data and research. A few of my
two buildings away.
students will become scientists—too few,
On Wednesday, I went to Jackie’s office to pick
actually, but that’s another topic. Most will
up my students’ now heavily annotated documents.
not. Nonetheless, students today, and tomorrow, will be consumers of scientific
“It was so exciting,” Jackie beamed, green eyes flashing,
data—literally and figuratively—data ofher face lit with joy. “I was so proud watching my stuten used for both honorable and horrific
dents.”
ends.
“Me, too,” I told her later, having had my own marvelWhen undergraduate research
ous moment. “Me, too.”
buzzed by, I snagged the notion—even as a
When education experts talk about the need
composition instructor. For several se(Continued from page 1)
Underground Research