Course Project-Research Proposal, math homework help
Course Project- Research ProposalThe research proposal will present the topic you have selected for your Course Project. The purpose of the proposal is to persuade your reader to believe that you are interested in the topic and ready to learn how to develop the topic into a project. The format of the proposal is a sentence outline. Use APA style to document any sources referenced in your proposal. When you are finished, save the document as your last name.Wk3 Proposal Assignment> and submit it to the Dropbox by the end of the week. The Proposal is worth 50 points. See Doc Sharing for the following support documents.An assignment templateA sample assignmentThe assignment grading rubricWeek 3 APA Module AssignmentFor this assignment, you will review materials in the DeVry library to help gain a better understanding of APA citations.Click https://hub2.devry.edu/node/272Listen to the tutorial or download and review the transcript on APA and answer the questions belowAfter reviewing the presentation, compose a 2-paragraph response in which you address each of the following points:Why is APA style used to document ideas in writing? What is the purpose of the in-text citation? Demonstrate your understanding of the in-text citation by providing an in-text citation for the article you summarized for the week 2 assignment. (15 points)In the article that you summarized in week 2, you may have found some information that you want to quote directly. To demonstrate the process for citing a direct quote, provide an example of properly quoted material. (20 points)
sampleProposal Pitch for Standardized TestsSammy NorthDeVry University
Proposal for Standardized Tests I. IntroductionA. Topic1) Research question: Have standardized
tests in the United States improved schools or demonstrated stronger student
learning achievement? 2) Working
thesis: Standardized tests in the United States have not improved schools and
should be abolished and replaced with end-of-year subject tests because they will
save time and money, lead to increased mastery of core subjects, and diminish
dropout rates.3) Angle: Standardized testing has made the
gap between developed nations and the United States wider. Taxpayers and
employers are paying the price of poorly educated graduates. No Child Left
Behind has left nobody ahead, least of all our country’s educational standing
among other developed nations.B. Context1) Issues in education are in the news
because budget cuts and school closures are tied to student performance on
standardized tests. 2) Though
I am a novice scholar, I am a parent and care deeply about education. I will refer
to the expertise of several sources that will establish my credibility
regarding standardized tests. The ideas of Hillocks (2002), McNeil and
Valenzuela (2001), and Ravitch (2011), who are all experts on this topic, will
help to establish my credibility. C. Audience1) My
primary audience will be educational stakeholders who are teachers, parents, or
administrators. 2) My secondary audience is my professor
and fellow classmates, some of whom may have experienced standardized tests or
have school-aged children and will relate to the topic. 3) My
audience shares my opinions and values and will likely be on my side. II. EvidenceA.
Research collected so farI have found support
for the recommendation to remove poorly designed tests that don’t measure what
they should. Federal mandates such as No Child Left Behind have spurred their
growth and the reward-and-punishment system that serves nobody well, least of
all the people these tests were intended to help: students. B.
Research to be collectedI will look for
additional facts and statistics to demonstrate the gap between other nations
and the United States. I will also look for experts who agree that there are
implications for taxpayers and employers to show that the issues of schools
affect the public at large. Finally, I will represent the opposing viewpoint
and others who have suggested alternatives to standardized tests, including no
testing at all. Yearly subject tests are better than other alternate
recommendations that have been proposed, such as portfolios, because these
tests would be objective determinants of learning rather than subject artifacts
of courses. III. ConclusionI propose that end-of-year
subject tests will be successful in raising the standards and expectations of
our students while decentralizing control of students’ learning away from the
government and politicians and in the control of teachers who know their
students best. This solution is also better than having no assessments
whatsoever, as that is unrealistic and does not prepare students for higher
education or the workplace. The benefits of yearly subject tests include the time
and money that will be saved by switching to end-of year subject tests; the
collective energy of stakeholders in education—students, parents, teachers,
administrators, and the public—will also be put to better use. I will develop
my project to support these claims with research. IV. ReferencesHillocks, G. (2002). The testing trap. New York, NY: Teachers
College Press.McNeil,
L., & Valenzuela, A. (2001). The harmful impact of the TAAS system of
testing in Texas. In G. Ornfield & M. Kornhaber (Eds.), Raising standards or raising barriers?
(pp. 127–150). New York, NY: Century Foundation.FORMATYour Course Project Title Goes Here First Last Name Name of University Your Course Project Title Goes Here The purpose of a proposal is to highlight standout ideas, and to do so in a manner that can convince an audience to support a project. Proposals delivered in a workplace are often part of a competitive process in which the strongest proposal is offered the business. In these contexts, effective word choice and professional delivery define the effective communication of an idea. Your research proposal will be presented as a sentence outline. As the name suggests, the sentence outline presents complete thoughts in complete sentences as opposed to phrases. In each section of the proposal, choose ideas with the goal of persuading your reader to believe that you are interested in the topic and ready to learn how to develop the topic into a project. Use a complete sentence to provide the response to each of the questions below. You can use first person. Use APA documentation for the final section of the proposal to document any sources referenced in your proposal. Remember to put at least two items at any given level of the outline, as shown in this template and the sample proposal. IntroductionTopicWhat is your research question? What is your working thesis? (It answers your research question and defines the direction of your argument.)What is your angle on the topic? (Your angle is your unique perspective or view on the issue.)ContextJustify for your reader why the topic is important.Justify for your reader why you are the one to write about it. What do you bring to the topic?AudienceWho is your primary audience? (These are the readers who would be best affected by what you have to say. They can be readers of an existing publication.) Who is your secondary audience? (Identify this audience as your professor and fellow students.) Does your audience share your opinions and values? (Determine if the audience is on your side or if they may be skeptical.) II. Evidence What research have you gathered so far? (What have you found that supports your purpose and angle?)What research do you need to gather? (What other kinds of information will you need as support? What will you use to represent the opposing view?) Conclusion (What are you proposing to achieve with your project? What would you like approval on in order to proceed with the project?) References (must be correctly formatted according toARTICLE Bullying in
schools: why it happens, how it makes young people feel and what we can
do about it Jeremy Sidea* and Kelley Johnsonb aEducational
Psychologist, Inclusion Services, Monkton Park, Winterborne Monkton,
Dorchester, UK; bDirector of the Social Policy Research Centre,
University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia In spite of
decades of research and more recent guidance by Government, bullying in
schools remains a serious concern to young people and to educational
practitioners. This two year qualitative study explored the meanings
eight teenagers gave to bullying they had experienced, and related this
to an analysis of previous research and school policies about bullying.
The findings from the study revealed that bullying affected the
subjectivity of young people, including how they positioned themselves
and believed themselves to be positioned by others. It also found
previous research and school policies focused on the behavioural aspects
of bullying, neglecting the subjective meanings that it had for those
who experienced it. The research findings suggested that a more open
approach by adults to what bullying means to individuals, and clearer
guidance to teachers on how to work with them about subjective meanings,
may provide a new direction in supporting young people who have been
bullied. Keywords: understanding bullying; bullying in schools; Foucault Introduction
Bullying in schools is an issue which, in spite of a strong body of
research literature, and government guidance designed to reduce
bullying, continues to affect an estimated 50–80% of young people
(Department for Children Schools and Families, Special Educational
Needs, 2010; Oliver & Candappa, 2003). Approximately 16 children
each year in the UK commit suicide as a result of being bullied (Marr
& Field, 2001). The serious nature of this problem has been
recognised through a raft of national government strategies (Direct Gov
Parents, 2010; Secondary SEAL, 2010) and non-government interventions
(Beatbullying, 2010; Childline, 2010; Kidscape, 2010). Guidance and
interventions have, in part, been informed by research which has sought
to define bullying and to identify its effects on young people who have
experienced it. To some extent definitions of bullying remain contested.
For example, while most definitions stress the importance of the
repetition of “hurtful” behaviours as a primary characteristic of
bullying (Department for Children Schools and Families, 2007), others
stress the importance of a power differential between those who bully
and those who experience bullying (Baldry, 2003; Rigby, 1996; Woods
& Wolke, 2004). Bullying has been characterised by a range of
behaviours including *Corresponding author. Email: j.side@dorsetcc.gov.uk © 2014 Association of Educational Psychologists Educational Psychology in Practice, 2014 Vol. 30, No. 3, 217–231, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02667363.2014.915209 physical
aggression, verbal abuse, cyber attacks and social rejection. In this
paper the following working definition of bullying is used: Behaviour
by an individual or group, usually repeated over time, that
intentionally hurts another individual or group either physically or
emotionally. However, schools will wish to involve the whole school
community in agreeing the definition of bullying that will be used in
their own anti-bullying or behaviour policy … (Department for Children
Schools and Families, 2007 summary) The authors are not uncritical of
this definition but nonetheless have used it as a starting point because
it is part of current government guidance to schools and therefore is
likely to be the one most commonly used in school policies in relation
to bullying. Much of the government guidance relies on the results of
research undertaken to better understand bullying. Such research has
revealed that those who are bullied are more likely than their
non-bullied peers to: have difficulties in achieving academic success
(Beran, Hughes, & Lupart, 2008), experience depression and anxiety
(Peskin, Tortolero, Markham, Addy, & Baumler, 2007 see also Campell
& Morrison, 2007), have suicidal feelings (Klomek et al., 2008) or
chronic stress (Newman, Holden, & Delville, 2005 see also Dao et
al., 2006) and experience physical symptoms of sleeplessness and
helplessness (Due et al., 2005). While there is a growing body of
research in relation to bullying there is little that focuses on the
subjective meanings it has for young people who experience it (Hepburn,
1997). In spite of extensive research which has added to an
understanding of the nature of bullying and its effects, bullying
continues. The research reported in this paper sought to explore if
there were other ways of understanding bullying which may provide new
ways of managing it or supporting young people more effectively. The
approach taken in the research was a discursive analysis drawing on
Foucault’s work (Foucault, 1977, 1978, see also Rose, 1990) which
allowed for a deconstruction of how bullying was constituted by
research, school policy and by young people who had experienced it.
Discourse is a contested but central part of Foucault’s ideas (see
Alvesson, 2002; Gee, 2008; Potter & Wetherell, 2007; Weedon, 1987).
In this paper discourse is defined in the following way: …
discourses specify truth as it is known at any particular time in
history … they are concerned with the exercise of power in relation to
the subjects which they constitute … discourses constitute and reveal
the subjectivity of the people with whom they are concerned … discourses
themselves are subject to change and challenge … (Johnson, 1998, p. 15)
Discourses can be seen as combinations of knowledge and their use in
practice through the exercise of power. Within the context of bullying,
discourses are bodies of knowledge which construct bullying as a
cultural object. They prescribe the ways in which it is understood and
how it is managed in practice. They also focus on the way in which
people are subject to power and knowledge and how they are positioned in
relation to others (Henriques, Holloway, Urwin, Venn, & Walkerdine,
1998; Hollway, 1994; Kendall & Wickham, 2003). 218 J. Side and K. Johnson Method
Research questions The research questions used in this study were: How
does previous research construct the subject of bullying? How far does
policy and practice in schools address the subjective experience of
bullying? What meanings do young people who have been bullied give to
the experience? How does bullying affect the way young people position
themselves in relation to others? Design This research was a
qualitative study using semi-structured interviews, and a literature and
school anti-bullying policy analysis. A discursive approach was taken
to identify existing discourses in relation to bullying. The policy and
literature analyses were then considered in relation to discourses and
meanings ascribed to bullying by eight young people who participated in
the study. Literature review A literature search was carried out
to identify research studies undertaken over the last 15 years. It
included both qualitative and quantitative studies relating to bullying
in general, and bullying in schools in particular, in both the UK and
internationally. The resulting 42 studies were then critically examined
using the following questions: What is the meaning(s) given to bullying
by these studies? What knowledge does it create? How are those who
are bullied positioned by this knowledge? School anti-bullying
policy analysis An analysis of government guidance to schools in
relation to bullying, and school policies on bullying from the three
schools included in the study, was conducted. The following questions
were used as a guide: What is the intention of the policy? How is its
position justified? How clearly defined are the objectives? Who is seen
as the subject of the policy? Who is the audience of the policy? What
is missing from the policies? What is the meaning conveyed by the
policies? How are those bullied positioned by the message in the
policy? Educational Psychology in Practice 219 This
analysis was undertaken after the first interview with participants, and
each participant was asked their views on the policy relevant to their
school. Questions guiding this discussion were: Did you know about this
policy? Were you involved in writing it? Did you use it or was it
helpful in gaining support when you were bullied? Were the actions
listed in the policy carried out when you were bullied? What else do
you think should be included in the policy? Interviews An
interview guide was developed as a basis for the first of two
semi-structured recorded interviews with participants. The guide
included contextual questions such as age and family circumstances, as
well as questions relating to their interests and feelings about school.
These were followed by questions which focussed particularly on
bullying as a subjective experience. This part of the interview was led
primarily by participants but included questions about the nature of the
bullying experience, how the participant felt about each part of the
bullying they experienced, what they did about seeking support and how
they felt about the support they sought. The interviews also included
questions about what support the participants would have liked to have
received. There were opportunities throughout the interview for the
young person to introduce issues which they thought were important. The
sensitivity of the issue of bullying was recognised by the researcher
and self disclosure, time out of the interview situation and the
identification of a trusted other person to whom the young person could
go for additional support were included in the interviews. Interviews
were administered on