This paper reports on a sociology graduate seminar (“Workplace Studies”) which allows the instructor and students to combine learning with professional development by making the work of the class writing a collectively written “review of the literature” paper. Workplace studies are a genre of sociology that uses eclectic methods to examine the process of doing work, particularly in terms of the relationship of technology to the doing of the work. Instead of teaching a traditional graduate seminar in Workplace Studies, in which students would read and discuss journal articles and book chapters, and then write a library research paper at the end of the course, I decided to make the goal of the course collectively writing a review of the literature paper. We assembled, read and summarized a wide range of articles in workplace studies, debated the strengths, weaknesses, gaps, needs and applications of the field, and came up with a focus for a review of the literature article. The paper has been published by a peer reviewed journal (an annual review). This course benefited the students by teaching them how a literature review is put together from beginning to end, and by resulting in a co-authored publication to help them build their vitas. This innovative approach to the seminar made the tasks one would normally do (such as reading, critiquing, discussing and writing about the area) much more interesting to the students because we were doing real work, not just assignments for a class. In this paper I discuss previous literature on experiential learning, active learning, and professional development, and describe the syllabus for the course, the procedure for producing the paper, and my experiences working with the class to produce the paper and get it ready for publication.
One of the main frustrations of academic life faced by faculty is not enough time for pursuing research. I believe that graduate students are also frustrated by this problem, because of the demands of their course work and teaching. I have also come to believe that one of the main problems with our system of graduate education is that we have become too entrenched in the “artificial” learning experiences typically used in classes (e.g., tests, assignments, research papers), and tend to ignore or under-estimate the pedagogical value of “real life” experiences for learning. This is a particularly pronounced problem at the graduate level, I believe, because many of these students already have the capacity to function as professionals in terms of their teaching, research, and writing abilities, but are hindered from doing so by the requirements of graduate education.
For example, in graduate seminars students typically read a large number of articles, book chapters, and books on the topic of the seminar, discuss this material in class, and write lengthy research papers on the topic. There is a lot of time and effort expended, on both the students’ and the instructors’ part, for a paper that is probably going to sit in a students’ file cabinet after it has been graded. While the student has definitely learned and developed their skills through these assignments, they have not been able, by and large, to progress professionally in terms of conference papers or publications by virtue of their course work. Granted, some students are able to make course papers do “double duty” by using them to develop a bibliography for a Ph.D. exam, or to develop a review of the literature for a thesis or dissertation proposal, but often these papers end up going nowhere.
A related problem is that many graduate programs do not spend sufficient time and effort preparing students professionally. I therefore came up with an idea for a graduate level course which would address both these concerns. I developed a syllabus for a graduate level seminar in “Workplace Studies” for which the main goal of the class was to produce a collectively-written review of the literature paper which would be submitted to a journal. One of the goals of this class was to help students build their vita by producing a publishable paper as a product of the class.
I believe that people are more motivated to learn when there is a tangible real life goal in front of them, rather than the artificial goals traditionally used in courses. I felt the “carrot” of being listed as a coauthor on a paper published in a peer reviewed journal would motivate students to take seriously the tasks of the seminar. I also felt that there was much students needed to learn about the publication process.
For the class I developed, our goal was to write a review of the literature paper in the area of workplace studies. Workplace studies is an applied area within sociology which examines the social process of doing work, with a particular focus on the use of technology in the workplace (see, for example, Heath & Luff, 2000; Luff, Hindmarsh & Heath, 2000). This genre of sociology grows out of ethnomethodology (e.g., Garfinkel, 1967), conversation analysis (e.g., Heritage, 1984), and other fields such as Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (e.g., Plowman, Rogers & Ramage, 1995), and Social Informatics (e.g., Kling, 1999). For example, Workplace studies researchers might look at how hospitals use computerized patient records (Heath & Luff, 2000), how editors in a news service use their proximity to colleagues to facilitate the selection of news stories (Heath & Luff, 2000), or how urban light rail systems use radio and computer technology to resolve problems affecting service (Heath & Luff, 2000).
By structuring the work of the seminar around the task of collectively writing a review of the literature paper, I hoped not only to acquaint the students with current sociological research in the area of workplace studies, but to aid their professional development by teaching them (via a learn by doing approach) a wide range of things related to this project: What is a review of the literature paper? What type of a goal, point, or focus should it have? What types of articles need to be read? How do we find relevant articles? How does one accurately summarize, quote, or paraphrase an author’s work for inclusion in the review? What niche, need, or gap in sociology’s understanding of the field is filled by the review that will be produced? What audience is the review directed at? How does one select an appropriate journal for the paper? How does one communicate with editors? How does one respond to reviewers’ comments, and how does one write the response letter to the editor? How does one respond to copy-editor’s queries? These are some of the aspects of professional knowledge which I believe are not adequately taught in a traditional seminar, or for that matter, elsewhere in the graduate school curriculum, but are addressed in a learn-by-doing approach in the course I have developed. It is important to note that this course is not a pro-seminar--it is not a course on “how to” write a review of the literature paper. It is a graduate seminar in sociology in which students learned the above listed aspects of publishing a review of the literature via experiential learning, as they performed the intellectual work of the seminar. In this paper I will first discuss previous literature on active learning, experiential learning, and professional development, and then I will describe the course, the syllabus, and the process of writing the paper.
Active Learning. Calls for active learning approaches in college and university classrooms began to appear in the 1980s and 1990s (e.g., Bonwell & Eison, 1991; Cross, 1987; Chickering & Gamson, 1987; Sutherland & Bonwell, 1996) and continue today (e.g., Wolsk, 2003). In Meyer’s and Jones’s (1993) study of active learning in the college classroom, they note that
“active learning provides opportunities for students to talk and listen, read, write, and reflect as they approach course content through problem-solving exercises, informal small groups, simulations, case studies, role playing, and other activities--all of which require students to apply what they are learning” (Meyers & Jones, 1993: xi)
Meyers and Jones (1993: xii) argue that active learning increases retention and problem solving skills, and makes learning more collaborative. Meyers and Jones (1993: 74-79), report that collaborative active learning approaches help college students to develop positive interdependence, individual accountability, interpersonal and small group skills, and group processing.
Experiential Learning. Much of the research on experiential learning focuses on school age children (e.g., Katz & Chard, 2000) or college students (e.g., Rippetoe, 1977; Marlin-Bennett, 2002). Hutchings and Wutzdorff, in their book on experiential learning, write that “students who excel in difficult theoretical courses can sometimes be surprisingly paralyzed by the working world” (Hutchings & Wutzdorff, 1988: 1). Further, they note that
“There is a tradition in education of assuming that what is learned in the classroom will make a difference in the large world of public life and professional work, that classroom learning will somehow connect with or have an impact on students’ experiences outside the classroom. What we have seen, however, is that for many students the gap between knowing and doing is large, indeed.” (Hutchings & Wutzdorff, 1988: 2)
Similarly, Watts (2003: 100) notes that “students are frequently incapable of making connections between what they learn in college and the rest of their lives.” Watts (2003) writes (on the role of technology in education):
“Universities are also facing a restructuring of traditional educational paradigms. Regardless of what tools are being used, faculty and students are being asked to become actively involved in the transformation. Faculty members are challenged to broaden their role as educators. They must become more than transmitters of knowledge; they must also become facilitators of learning. Students, in turn, must reconsider their perception of education. They can no longer see themselves as receptacles of knowledge; they must become accountable for their own learning. In many respects, students today have already made the change; it is the arenas of higher education that are behind.” ( Watts, 2003: 100)
“[S]tudents desperately cling to the hope that a college education will give them a ticket to a better future, which, in their view, means employment possibilities. If we continue to neglect the importance of enabling students to make connections across the curriculum and to their lives, we fail miserably in our mission to educate.” ( Watts, 2003: 100)
While professional colleges may be criticized for not sufficiently preparing their students in the liberal arts (e.g., Armour & Fuhrmann, 1989), I believe that graduate programs in liberal arts areas generally fail to prepare students for the profession of academia to which many of them are headed. DiConti (2004) addresses the issue of preparing undergraduates for their professional lives, and argues that liberal arts programs need to incorporate experiential learning such as internships and practicum in order to help students link academic learning with their future real world professional roles.
At the graduate level, we do an excellent job of preparing liberal arts students to be scholars in an intellectual sense, but we don’t always prepare them to participate professionally as an academic: teaching, presenting papers at conferences, publishing, working collaboratively and doing committee and service work. Wurdinger (2005) reports on graduate classes for educators which use experiential learning as part of the course. For example, his graduate students had to design a curriculum during the course. Wurdinger (2005: 18) argues that experiential learning increases student interest by giving them “ownership in their learning. This often presents a situation where motivation becomes intrinsic.” Lancy (2003) reports on his teaching methods which involve undergraduate students in original research. These students present their results at professional conferences, thus accomplishing not only active learning but also the incorporation of academic learning with professional training. Kelleher (1991) describes a pro-seminar for sociology graduate students using experiential learning to teach students such aspects of the work of professional sociologists as presenting papers at conferences and writing grant proposals. Efforts such as these should improve the professional success of students. Arguably the most important aspect of professional development for graduate students in today’s job climate is the ability to publish their own scholarly work.
Publishing Expectations for Graduate Students. The fact that publishing expectations have been increasing in academia over the last several decades is reflected in articles in The Chronicle for Higher Education. For example, Cassuto (1998) writes that when he got his Ph.D. he didn’t have to start publishing until after he became an assistant professor; it is now common for graduate students in the humanities to have at least a book contract and often a completed book before being hired for their first job. Wilson (2000) discusses an innovative approach to helping students write their dissertations which was implemented by the University of Georgia. She explains that
“the pressure to publish is intensifying. It used to be that graduate students could consider their dissertations a first try at scholarly writing, and then build their publication record after landing a job. “Now,” says Ms. Allen [the instructor of the writing program] “it’s almost an expectation that when you send your vita out to apply for jobs, the section with ‘publications’ generally has two or three listings” ( Wilson, 2000: A11)
Writing in the early nineties in an article directed at graduate programs entitled “Teaching Writing for Publication,” Weitz (1991) states “In a competitive job market, the student who graduates with strong writing skills and (even better) a record of publications has a strong advantage over other applicants who otherwise are equally well qualified” (Weitz, 1991: 417). 1 Benton (2003: C3) recommends that in order to be successful graduate students should “publish as much as you can” while still graduate students.
Evidence for increased publishing expectations also comes from discipline-specific sources in academia. For example, a recent paper presented at the American Sociological Association annual meetings (Mouw, Crowder & Musick, 2003) dealt with strategies to help graduate students publish their research. Morris (1998), writing in the journal Cultural Studies, argues that candidates for academic jobs will have an advantage if they have published more articles than their competitors. 2 McGough’s (2002) article in Politics presents an argument for why graduate students should publish, and gives advice for how to accomplish this.
While many students are able, eventually, to “pick up” the skills necessary to publish successfully, this process can be slow and inefficient if the graduate program does not provide sufficient help. Morris (1998) writes of the dangers of complacency in this regard:
“[I]t is crucial for universities to admit that practical skills are required to negotiate the world of competitive research, and that most of these skills can be taught and learned. If we fail to admit this, allowing students to expect that academic merit alone will succeed, then we help to foster an invisible elitism, charisma based, favouring those who ‘just know’ what the right thing to do might be--or who have family, friends and experienced or influential advisers to help them.” (Morris, 1998: 499)
Shulman and Silver (2003) make a similar point as they argue that becoming a professional sociologist involves not only learning to become an independent scholar, but also how to learn the professional culture of sociologists, which includes publishing, grant writing, and networking. They also argue that it’s not that the best and brightest students naturally figure out how to publish, but that they are aided in doing so by faculty who may ignore the professional socialization needs of other worthy students--“failing to openly distribute professional socialization can be an invisible and unstated form of hierarchical gatekeeping, meritocratic-based inequality in the midst of the appearance of egalitarian training” (Shulman & Silver, 2003: 69). Thus there may be some capriciousness in the access of graduate students to professional socialization; a hit or miss approach that graduate programs can ill afford in the current climate and job market.
While publishing articles while in graduate school clearly benefits the student in the development of his or her career, there are also distinct scholarly and intellectual advantages of doing so. For example, Morris (1998) explains that publishing in journals is “the best way to find out where the famous ‘cutting edge’ of your discipline really is, and to begin to have a say in defining it” (Morris, 1998: 500). This requires a more thorough and up to date knowledge of the literature than is required in most graduate seminars which are typically based on set reading lists of existing literature. The process of looking at what’s being done now and what hasn’t yet been done helps the students learn how to create ideas that are novel, innovative, and cutting edge.
While authors tend to treat experiential learning as venturing outside of academia into some “real world” setting (e.g., political science students doing an internship in Washington), for academia itself, we can do the experiential learning in the context of the classroom activity. By making the goal of the course doing the work of professional academics (e.g., writing a review of the literature article for publication), we can transform the typical classroom seminar experience into an occasion for experiential learning. Our roles of teacher and student are subtly transformed to those of lead author and coauthors on a publication--this shift changes the dynamics in the classroom considerably. Since the real world job we’re trying to train our graduate students for is academia, we can provide experiential professional education without going too far a field.
Mowday (1982) argues that teachers are not rewarded for teaching at the colleges and universities where they teach. Research and publication are what is rewarded. Because of this, college professors put less of their effort into teaching than is optimal. The seminar process described in this paper enables the faculty member to combine their teaching and research roles, thus increasing motivation for teaching because it is a step on the path to a publication.
Enhancing Independent Scholarship. Sullivan (1991) argues that “the formal graduate curriculum should initiate students progressively into independent research” (Sullivan, 1991: 408). Sullivan notes that most students enter graduate school experienced in the previous role of “undergraduate student,” a role in which they are skilled at taking courses, reading required texts, writing papers and taking examinations (Sullivan, 1991: 408). While she acknowledges that some professors may prefer a “sink or swim” approach to graduate student socialization, she argues that graduate programs should take specific steps to move students along the path of becoming independent scholars, capable of conceiving, designing, conducting, and communicating their own research. The course proposed in this paper, in which seminar participants collectively write a review of the literature article which is submitted to a journal for publication, is a step toward this goal. A review of the literature article is not a book report or a book review essay--it requires intellectual work as the field is learned, synthesized, critiqued, and extended by those writing the review. Although not original research, it is an important part of every research project the students will engage in, including preparation for Ph.D. exams, the dissertation, and research articles they will write from their dissertation. As such, learning how to write reviews of the literature at a publishable quality level is an important part of the graduate student’s development as an independent scholar. Writing a literature review has the advantage of helping the student to identify the cutting edge of the field, to know what research questions have been answered adequately, and which remain to be addressed, and to critically assess the work that has already been done. As such it is an important first step in positioning the student to do a worthwhile dissertation. I now turn to a discussion of the class itself.
The class was held in a small seminar room which was fitted up as an “electronic classroom.” It had a computer which projected onto a screen. We used an online classroom support system both during class and for assignments and our independent work on the project. This system greatly facilitated the work of the course. The system used was called “Blackboard.”3 Blackboard provided an online environment we could use in our electronic classroom to take notes, post materials collected or written by students, edit our paper, create an outline, etc. We primarily used Blackboard’s Discussion Board feature, which allowed us to create forums in which we could type whatever we wanted and attach documents.
During each class session one of us would take notes on the computer in the classroom, projecting them on the screen so that everyone could see them and suggest changes if necessary. We took turns being note taker. The notes would be posted on the Blackboard discussion forum, so we all had access to them after class as well. In addition to providing an important resource to us as we worked on the paper, these notes helped me keep track of the contributions of each student. This helped me to more accurately grade each student’s contribution to the class and to the paper. We also used Blackboard to post students’ summaries of articles read, so that everyone could read the summary of every article. Students also used Blackboard to post files containing citations of relevant articles they had found, or even the actual articles when available electronically. We also used Blackboard to collectively construct our outline for the paper in class. Blackboard allowed us to easily email each other either collectively or individually. If I noticed a problem with how the work was done (e.g., if a student wasn’t citing a source properly), I could easily email all students in the class to instruct them on the proper way of doing the citation. This way they could all learn efficiently, and the learning could go on all week, not just on days we were meeting. This also saved me time by allowing me the option of easily communicating with everyone at once. Students also communicated with each other via email, and by posting responses to discussion boards on Blackboard.
“Workplace Studies” was offered spring quarter, 2004, at a large Midwestern university as a Ph.D. level course which was also open to Masters students. At this university we teach in 10 week quarters. Since time was very tight, I wanted to have a clear plan of action before the course began. I divided the task of producing the paper into eight steps (see syllabus in the appendix 4).
Step One: Collect and read “review” articles. My first concern was that we understand what a review of the literature paper was, and have a clear “mental model” of the type of product we were aiming for. I knew from experience that not all graduate students know how to write a review of the literature. For example, some students will summarize a number of articles that are relevant to their topic, but their “review” will not have a point, a goal, or a focus. I wanted to make sure that the students understood the intellectual work involved in writing a review. In order to achieve this, we began the quarter by seeking out, reading, and discussing a number of review of the literature articles at least tangentially related to our own topic. We also began reading the course texts, two of which were books which began with review of the literature chapters. Students were asked to seek out and recommend additional articles for review. Some of the issues we discussed in class included “What is a review article? How broadly is the field defined? How is the review article framed (e.g., summary, critique, gaps in research, branches of field, or history of the development of a field)?
Step 2: Create an annotated bibliography of workplace studies research. The second step was to create a bibliography in the workplace studies area. One of the students in the class was also working as my research assistant; this student helped us “jump start” the process by putting together a 30-page bibliography on workplace studies research. However, all students contributed to the bibliography at some point throughout the quarter. It was a developing process. Each article we read led us to something else. We reviewed the bibliographic discoveries in class and decided which ones we wanted to read. These were assigned to students in the class to read and summarize. An effort was made to divide the work more or less equally among the class members, while at the same time matching articles with students’ interests. Each student was asked to produce a one page typed summary of each article or chapter they read. These summaries were handed in to the instructor for feedback and grading, and were posted on the course website so that everyone could read what we had learned from that article.
Step 3: Create a list of possible topics and questions to focus our review. Step 3 was another “ongoing” step. As we discussed each article we made lists of possible topics or questions for our review of the literature. This was one of the most exciting parts of the class. We used a brainstorming process in class and came up with a 5 page single-spaced typed list of ideas. This list included specific ideas for critiques of workplace studies, gaps in the research, expansions or extensions of workplace studies research, the implications of workplace studies research findings for business and organizational leaders, and (last but not least) sociological questions. There were enough good ideas on this list that we were only able to use a small portion of them in the paper we ended up writing. At some point we hope to go back to this list and write another paper developing some more of our ideas.
Step 4: Students submit article summaries for grading and posting. In Step 4 each student submitted to me and posted on Blackboard the chapter and article summaries they were responsible for. The summaries of the chapters from the two assigned texts were handed in on a daily basis from the beginning of the quarter. The summaries of additional articles were handed in about midway through the quarter. These were also posted on Blackboard so that everyone could read all the summaries. This was not only a practical way of keeping all the coauthors up to speed on what we were doing, it was also a pedagogical technique. If each student reads all the summaries, they may be motivated to do a better job when they compare their work to what others have done. Also, the public display of the summaries (grades were not displayed) was another way of insuring quality control. When summaries were not adequately done, I returned them to the author for revision before posting on Blackboard.
Step 5: Make an outline for the paper. Step 5 involved synthesizing what we had learned from the articles, choosing a focus for the paper, and drafting an outline of the paper. We did this work together in class, with one student taking notes on the computer display so we could all see the outline as it developed and suggest changes. We spent several class periods working on the outline.
Step 6: Draft the review article. Step 6, drafting the review article, was surprisingly easy after the extensive preparatory work we had done. We divided the sections of the outline up among us, and each person drafted a section.
Step 7: Critique each other’s draft sections and revise the manuscript. Step 7 was revising the draft of the review article. We spent a few class periods revising each other’s sections in class. I also gave feedback in writing, and students reworked their sections. I spent additional time outside of class working on revisions in addition to what was done in class.
Step 8: Copy-edit, format, proofread, and submit to journal. Step 8 was editing and copy-editing the revised manuscript, and submitting it to a journal. We did edit the manuscript by the end of the course, but there was additional copyediting and work on the references which had to be done after the quarter ended. I did this work myself with the assistance of one of the students (who was also my Research Assistant) during the summer following the course.
While our intent had been to submit the paper to a journal by the end of the quarter, it took a couple of months to locate a suitable journal that was interested in reviewing the paper. The difficulty was that because our paper blended sociology with business, and science with practice, the journals I was familiar with (traditional sociological journals) were not appropriate venues for the article. Because we wanted to bridge the divide between academics and practitioners we had to learn about a whole new world of journals. The journal we eventually decided to submit the paper to is an annual review which specifically addresses itself to both an academic and a practitioner audience. As such it was a perfect fit for our paper and our goals.
We began the process of creating a list of possible journals during the course. As course members came across journals that might be appropriate places for our paper, they submitted them to the class. After the paper was completed, I used this list of possible journals to decide which editors to approach. Because the course was only ten weeks long, there was some work which remained to be done after the quarter was over. I did the final selection of journals to approach about our paper over the summer after the course, in conjunction with emailing class members for feedback and ideas. I wrote letters of inquiry to several editors of peer-reviewed journals, including a short abstract of our paper. We found an editor who was interested in our paper and revised and reformatted the paper for that journal. These revisions occurred over the summer. I did much of the editing myself, in conjunction with one of the students who was also working as a research assistant for me. I emailed the other coauthors frequently, with questions, assignments, or information about where we were. When the formatting was complete, I emailed the paper to all of the coauthors and they read it carefully and sent it back with any changes or corrections that they felt were necessary. We submitted the paper to the journal and received a revise and resubmit which required expansion of the paper in several directions. We divided these tasks up among the coauthors. Each coauthor contributed something to the revised version of the paper: finding additional sources for the expanded sections, summarizing articles, drafting paragraphs or new sections of the paper, and/or critiquing sections that had to be drafted. Since the quarter was over, we were only able to meet face-to-face a couple of times during the revision process, but we used email to keep ourselves in touch and to pass work back and forth. Admittedly, much of the work of revising the paper for the revise and resubmit fell on my shoulders; as first author I felt that was a responsibility it was appropriate for me to take. The resubmitted paper (which was twice as long as the original version) was accepted in the spring. The journal copy-edited the manuscript, we responded to the copy editor’s questions, and the paper was published in the annual review.
The Diversity of Perspective among Students in the Course. The topic I had chosen for the class, workplace studies, by its very nature attracted students from other departments as well as from the sociology department. This was a plus--they added their unique perspective and experiences, and their knowledge of a different research literature than those of us who were sociologists had been exposed to. They also had many substantive insights and suggestions relative to our understanding of the course material. However, conventions as to how journal articles should be written, what type of writing style should be used, how citations should be done, etc., all tend to differ by discipline. As the instructor, it was my job to mediate between these differences, and decide when the conventions of sociology had to hold forth.
The disciplinary diversity of the class members influenced our decisions about how to focus our review paper, as well as the types of journals we considered as publication outlets. If all of the students had been from the Sociology Department, we might have ended up focusing our review on workplace study’s challenge to traditional sociological work on social roles in the workplace. Since we had a diverse student body, we decided to focus our review on how workplace studies research can help solve or prevent common problems facing businesses and other organizations. This decision was made in part because after reviewing much of the literature we came to the conclusion that workplace studies was not sufficiently utilized by the business community, probably because this research tended to be published in sociology journals rather than in the types of journals business leaders read. Our review could help to bridge this gap. This decision helped to make the work of the class relevant to each of the students and helpful to them in their careers.
Decisions around Co-authorship. I had informed students at the beginning of the quarter that I would be the first author of the paper, and that I would be the final arbiter of who was included as a coauthor. In addition, I reserved the right to determine the order in which the coauthors were listed. All of the students completed the course. There were differences in the quality and amount of participation in the course (which were reflected in the students’ grades).
When we submitted the paper to the journal for review, many changes and additions were required. Only four of the six students chose to participate in the revisions requested by the reviewers (this work was done during the two quarters which followed the course). This fact combined with my evaluations of the relative contributions of all the students to the paper resulted in the outcome that only four of the six students are listed as coauthors on the published version of the paper. I discussed this decision with the two students who decided not to continue working on the paper after the course. The revisions were substantial, because while we had originally conceived of the paper as a 30 page review of the literature for a journal, the annual review that accepted our paper has much lengthier chapters, so they requested a greatly expanded version of our paper. Our post-course revisions resulted in a paper that was twice as long as the original paper, and with more than three times as many citations.
The issue of co-authorship was a thorny one for me, because I wanted to be as inclusive as possible, while also maintaining quality, and also having high standards for the amount of work that was done to earn a co-authorship. I was determined that no one would get a “free ride,” and if they were not able to contribute adequately, they would not be listed as a coauthor. I think an instructor contemplating trying this teaching approach must be very clear in their own mind about what their standards for inclusion are, and must communicate these clearly to students. In my syllabus (see appendix) I offered students the option of writing an individual research paper on a topic of their choice rather than participating in the collectively written paper.
I believe that this course was successful in terms of meeting students’ needs. As an instructor, I know that the students carefully read a wide range of current research in the field of workplace studies, and that they now have a good understanding of the field, its methods, its strengths and weaknesses, and its major players. The students all had to do a lot of writing on the topic of workplace studies, and to think critically about the field. The course was also successful in its attempt to provide a real life learning experience (we wrote a paper and got it published in a peer-reviewed journal), and to help the students learn the professional side of being a sociologist (writing publishable work, choosing a journal, dealing with editors, etc.). And, finally, the course was successful in achieving my goal of combining teaching and research efforts in order to maximize my own productivity as well as that of my students. We got a paper from first draft to acceptance at a journal in less than a year; this is better than I usually do. I feel that the students benefited from my expertise, as a writer, as a sociologist, and as a leader. I helped them produce a paper they were not yet prepared to produce on their own, and hopefully they learned from participating in the process how to do this themselves.
My experiences with this course lead me to concur with the researchers cited in the beginning of this paper who argued in favor of experiential learning and active learning techniques. While we often strive to include these techniques in our undergraduate courses, it is time to start thinking about how our graduate student’s professional development could be aided by the use of experiential learning in a liberal arts academic context.
In decades past, Ph.D.s could get their first job in academia without having published anything. In fact, I have heard stories of faculty who were first hired in the 1960s who were hired “ABD,” and then were given tenure for completing their dissertations. In some cases people didn’t even have to have publications for tenure. Those days are gone. Now, Ph.D. students need to have publications before they get their first job in academia (usually multiple publications, in order to be competitive). It is no longer enough for a graduate student to be an excellent scholar, he or she must learn to translate that expertise into publications before getting that first job. Because of this inflation of expectations, departments need to help students learn how to get those publications before graduating. Departments who do help their students will give their students a competitive advantage over other departments who let their students learn the publishing game via the much slower and more haphazard process of trial and error.
1. While Weitz (1991) describes a course which teaches graduate students how to write, the course I am describing this paper is a sociology seminar in which students write a publishable paper. Thus my course involved students in experiential learning--doing publishable quality scholarly work, while the emphasis of Weitz’s course was to teach writing skills. Zinn and Eitzen (2000) advocate having graduate students collaborate in writing textbooks; while they argue that there is independent scholarship in textbook writing, clearly the type of review of the literature article I describe in this article is closer to independent scholarship than writing a textbook.
2. See Shulman and Silver (2003) for a similar argument published in The American Sociologist. Nelson (1991) also notes the increased demands for graduate student publishing.
3. Blackboard is a trademark of Blackboard, Inc., Copywrite 1997-2006.
4. The syllabus in the appendix lists three “meet the author” telephone conferences. Due to scheduling difficulties and technology issues, I was not able to conduct the “meet the author” telephone conferences I had hope to have during the class. We did, however, correspond with some of the authors via email, and one author came to the department the next fall to give a colloquium.
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SOC 843 WORKPLACE STUDIES SYLLABUS
Goal of course: This graduate level seminar will cover recent qualitative research on the social organization of work. Much of the focus will be on the use of technology in workplace settings. The research covered will be primarily ethnomethodological, but will also overlap with the Computer Supported Cooperative Work (“CSCW”) field. The following quote from Luff et al. (2000) summarizes the concerns of the course:
“[W]orkplace studies are concerned not only with a wide range of settings--[e.g.,] studies of international bureaucratic organizations, banks, control rooms, customer services, law firms and groups involved in software engineering--but also with a range of issues relating to the social organization of workplace activities and the ways in which we conceive of tasks, activities and the uses of technologies. Workplace studies, by focusing on the mundane details of everyday activities in natural settings, provide some novel resources for exploring some continuing themes in the sociology of work, organizational behaviour and the social sciences more generally. Despite drawing on a range of related, but distinct, analytic orientations, they suggest ways in which the uses of technology, the conceptions of skills and expertise, and the distinctions between individual and social activities can be rethought.” (Luff et al. 2000, p. 26)
Specific topics to be addressed in the course include: Social Implications of Work Practice, How Teamwork is Done, Interaction with Computers, Expert Systems, Design, and Reconceptualizing the Workplace. The course will be designed as a combination of seminar discussions of the course readings, and work on a collective review of the literature. Readings for the class include the two books listed below. A collection of journal articles will be placed on reserve in the Sociology Department. Changes in the syllabus may occur and will be announced in class.
Required Books:
Luff, Paul, Jon Hindmarsh, and Christian Heath. 2000. Workplace Studies: Recovering Work Practice and Informing System Design. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press
Heath, Christian and Paul Luff. 2000. Technology in Action. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
ASSIGNMENTS:
1. Participate in seminar discussions.
2. Hand in a one-page typed summary of each chapter or article assigned on the day we are discussing that article. I will read and give feedback on the first day’s worth of summaries. From the second day, I will give feedback and assign grades to the summaries. After the first two weeks, I will randomly select a subset of the summaries to grade each week.
3. The class will collectively produce a “Review of the Literature” article on the topic of workplace studies which will be submitted to a journal by the end of the quarter. Students who make satisfactory contributions to the work of producing this article will be listed as coauthors. The instructor will be first author and will make final decisions as to which students will be listed as coauthors, and in what order they will be listed. Students not wishing to participate in the collective Review of the Literature article may choose instead to complete an alternate assignment (research paper) on a topic of their choice.
4. I’ve scheduled a “meet the author” telephone conference with one of the authors we are reading this quarter. I will try to schedule conferences with other authors as well. These conferences will be a chance to ask them questions about the article they have written, and about the workplace studies field more generally. I’ll let you know about logistics as things progress.
DETAILS ABOUT REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE PROJECT
Step 1: We will collect and read “Review” articles in journals such as “Annual Review of Sociology,” or other sociological journals which publish review articles. [Note: If any articles reviewing workplace studies are found, great, if not, we will start by looking at articles on other fields, to learn how they are put together: What is a review article? How broad is the field covered? How is the article framed (summary, critique, gaps in research, branches of field, development of field, etc.)?] We will collect and analyze a range of these types of articles to learn what type of product we are striving to produce.
Step 2: Seek out recent publications and works-in-progress in the workplace studies area, create a bibliography. Assign articles on the bibliography to students in the class to read, summarize, and critique.
Step 3: As we read Heath & Luff, 2000, during the first weeks of the quarter, we will collect topics and questions for our review of the literature.
Step 4: Hand in summaries of articles read.
Step 5: Assemble the summaries we have produced and map out an outline for the review article.
Step 6: Draft the review article using our summaries.
Step 7: Critique our draft, get feedback from colleagues and experts in the field if time allows, edit draft as appropriate.
Step 8: Copy edit, format, proofread, submit to a journal.
CLASS SCHEDULE:
Monday, March 29: Introduction
Weds., March 31: Topic: A Whirlwind Tour of Ethnomethodology...” Read Maynard, Douglas and Steven Clayman. 1991. “The Diversity of Ethnomethodology.” Annual Review of Sociology 17:385-418. (Full-text version available online: Library website.) Note: Those who have not yet studied ethnomethodology in another course are strongly encouraged to read ASAP John Heritage’s (1984) book Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology or another suitable source.
Monday, April 5: Read and summarize Heath & Luff, 2000, Chapters 1 and 2
Weds., April 7: Read and summarize Heath & Luff (2000), Chapters 3, 4, and 5
Monday, April 12: Step 1: Read and Discuss sample review articles (to be assigned)
Weds., April 14: Read Heath & Luff (2000), Chapters 6, 7 and 8
Monday, April 19: Read Luff et al. (2000), chapters 1 and 2
Weds., April 21: Read Luff et al. (2000), chapter 5 (Whalen).
Step 2: Create bibliography. Assign articles to students to read, summarize, and critique.
Monday, April 26: Read Luff et al. (2000), chapters 7 and 8
Weds., April 28: Read Luff et al. (2000), chapters 9 and 10 for seminar discussion.
Step 3: Create goals for review of literature article: topics, authors, questions, issues, etc.
Monday, May 3: Read Luff et al. (2000), chapters 11, 12, 13
Weds., May 5: Step 4: Summaries of articles being reviewed are due.
Monday, May 10: Read articles to be assigned: “Meet the Author” phone conference.
Weds., May 12: Step 5: Make outline for Review article.
Monday, May 17: Read articles to be assigned for seminar discussion. Possible author phone conference: TBA.
Weds., May 19: Step 6 First Draft of Review Article due.
Monday, May 24: Read articles to be assigned for seminar discussion: Possible “Meet the Author” phone conference.
Weds., May 26: Step 7: Complete editing of manuscript.
Monday, May 31: MEMORIAL DAY HOLIDAY: NO CLASSES
Weds., June 2: Step 8: Complete copyediting, formatting, proofreading, submit to journal.
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