Saturday, March 29, 2014

Workshop: Mock Dossier Review



I really appreciate that the three dossier reviews is one of the requirements in my doctoral program which provides me opportunities to learn and grow towards becoming a qualified novice scholar. The Dossier can be a representation of a scholar's comprehensive capabilities in research, teaching, and service that shows professions and expertise in a field. After the Mock Dossier Review workshop, I got feedback and suggestions in various aspects from my peers. Here's the summary of how to improve my dossier:

Candidate Statement
  • Theoretical framework - how do other researchers shape my understanding about my research areas and perspectives on research overall.
  • Explain more about how my current and previous research experiences influence on my research goals - more linkage between experiences and three areas (especially research). At the same time, provide my own understanding and arguments about my research topic. 
  • Specify my research approaches with my own lens.
Research
  • Explain more about why those research competencies are important for my research.
Teaching
  • Make a brief statement for my teaching goals.
  • Relate literature on my teaching philosophy.
  • How my research influences my teaching and how my teaching has changed?
  • Describe the teaching artifacts/evidence.
Service
  • Evidence for service experiences.
  • All the service experiences are in IST. Lack of service experiences at larger levels.
Although I had Dossier#1 review and just got the feedback from my advisors, the feedback from my peers shows me specifically which parts of sentences are not clear enough and how I can improve and support my argument more. Based on the dossier requirements and the expectations from advisors, I think it's always good to have different people review my dossier with critical eyes for improvement.
  

[Super Useful Candidate Statement Structure]

INTRO
  • Goal (job)
  • Background (what brought me here to pursue PhD, building to SO WHAT for RQ) 
  • RQ (Thesis) (So What!) 
RESEARCH
  • RQ 
  • Theoretical framework 
  • Evidence 
  • Trajectory (here’s what I HOPE to do) 
TEACHING
  • Relate: RQ, Teaching evidence, performance 
  • Not related: Teaching philosophy, teaching evidence (how it relates to RQ), performance 
  • (here’s what I HOPE to do) 
SERVICE
  • Professor: These are service elements you need to be successful in the field 
  • Here are the people I want to Impact, here’s how I’m doing that, here’s the evidence, (here’s what I HOPE to do) 
Overview of how all three areas (research, teaching, service) work together
  • Revisit RQ. Provide summary. 1-2 paragraphs
  • Breadth and integration. Minor. Relates to IST

Saturday, March 01, 2014

Workshop: Literature Searching & Strategies

This week, I attended the Literature Searching & Strategies Workshop in R695. For me, I think the workshop is useful and beneficial although I am pretty familiar with most of the literature searching strategies introduced in the workshop. I think I will be using more IU library resources for searching literature in the future other than Google Scholar. The new and interesting searching tool I learned is the Web of Knowledge database. The advanced search options in Web of Knowledge are not as useful and powerful than other database searching, but the citation map with timeline and overviews of each reference article is really cool and makes the literature searching process more efficient.

Here's the example of my search on professional development and technology integration:

Another key focus of this workshop is using digital tools to organize literature. It's been a year since I started using Mendeley for organizing my course and research articles. The most powerful function of Mendeley is not only being able to import PDF files with auto detected APA citations, but also being able to search for lots of articles in the similar topic/field added by other users by joining groups or communities. It is pretty much like Mendeley learning communities for its users. The sharing and collaborating features in Mendeley are something I'm going to utilize more in my future research.