Professional Inquiry
Welcome to the Research Class! Our focus is on professional inquiry – something you do as part of your work as a teacher, designer, tech leader, or librarian. Three activities to complete this first unit:
- Self-intro (short webcam video posted to discussion area)
- Library Intro – searching commercial databases and finding research
- Graded assignment – your Resource Scan of library and other resources
But first: what is research and why is it important? Let’s start with a simple example: How many times have you been out to dinner with friends and someone says something unbelievable? “Don’t believe me? Google it!”
Within a few seconds your friend’s outlandish story is confirmed.
That is inquiry! And you do it every day. Research is when this inquiry becomes more systematic. Professional inquiry falls somewhere in the middle, maintaining its everyday quality clearly tied to your needs and drawing on more systematic studies published in journals.
Watch below how Google promotes this kind of everyday inquiry on the job.
Link (Links to an external site.)
Look at the generic approach to problem solving below.
By now in your master’s program, the pattern should be familiar – similar to change models, ADDIE and related design models, and performance-improving models used in the workplace.
Now look at this model of investigative inquiry:
Here the goal is advancing knowledge or understanding. Lots in common with other cycles of design, change, or performance improvement.
We take an unusual approach to research in this class, focusing on inquiry and self-directed learning that you do every day – from reading restaurant reviews to locating the closest UPS store. We are naturally curious and with more resources than ever before at our fingertips, we get pretty good at everyday inquiry. This course allows us to explore how to ask the right questions, find sources to back us up, and apply these methods and findings to addressing problems at work.
Watch this 12-minute presentation from Brent Wilson on inquiry for e-learning professionals – explaining our approach to this course.
Lin (Links to an external site.)
Finally, keep in mind the resources available at the Auraria Library (Links to an external site.). Access to journals and books comes with your student fees – take advantage while you can!