Читать книгу Doing Ethnographic Research - Kimberly Kirner - Страница 10

Each workbook activity has been carefully designed to help you understand how to complete the assignment, step by step, and to identify the areas where you might feel unsure (so that you can ask for help and know what you need!). The workbook will help you learn methods as skills, as processes that you can do effectively, rather than as concepts you’ve memorized. There are many more activities in the workbook than most students can complete in one quarter or semester, but the nice thing about the workbook is that if you get stuck on a more advanced activity, you can fill in on your own by doing the easier, beginning ones at the start of each chapter.

Every chapter begins with a reflection, starts with the basics, and then builds toward more complex and challenging activities, ending with a culminating activity that integrates all the skills you’ve built so far. At the end of the workbook, you’ll find culminating experiences, which are complex activities that require you to use many skills you’ve built all at the same time. These also teach you the major forms of communicating your research to others and allow you to practice important skills for professional development, such as grant writing and presenting your research to an audience. The workbook includes everything you need to do the activities, including step-by-step instructions, examples and non-examples, problems, reflection questions, grading rubrics (for the culminating activities, which tell you what to focus on for a good grade!), and graphic organizers when needed. Every activity becomes more valuable when you use Appendix N (Activity Reflection Questions) to understand your strengths and areas for improvement in learning new concepts.

If you are a student (or a professional, such as a social worker or educator) using this workbook on your own to teach yourself qualitative methods, you will want to carefully use the rubrics to self-assess your work and review Appendix A (Notes for Instructors), which might give you more ideas about how this workbook is typically delivered in a class environment. You will also find strategies to help you maximize your learning without a classroom environment by reviewing the “Strategies for Independent Learners” in Appendix A. Finally, while it takes extra time, you will want to reflect on your own learning process using the workbook’s reflection prompts in each activity. In test-runs of the workbook with other students, the reflection and self-assessment process helped students learn how to learn, and students developed stronger strategies for mastering concepts and skills over time. This can help you become a better learner, not only in methodology but in all subjects.