Today’s Plan:
- Undergraduate Research
- Surveys
- Nussbaum
- Homework
Undergraduate Research Conferences
Last class I encouraged you to pursue UNC undergraduate research funds, and indicated that they are far more likely to grant money if you are willing to present your work at a conference. I did a bit of searching and found a few opportunities:
Designing Surveys
Since a number of you are working on designing surveys or questionnaires, I wanted to spend a bit of time in class discussing them. Let’s take a look at Survey Monkey’s Best Practices page as a starting point.
- Survey Question Types
- Survey Questions Do’s and Don’ts For example.
- Privacy and Personal Information
- Response Collection Tips
- Balancing Qualitative and Quantitative Questions
- Analyzing Survey Results
- Templates
Let’s also brainstorm some ways to distribute the survey.
Nussbaum
Reading questions chapter 3:
- What does Nussbaum identify as one of the major threats to democracy?
- How does Nussbaum connect her Freudian reading of disgust to social hierarchy?
- What explication does Nussbaum offer for humanity’s “stigmatizing behavior” (that is, why are we so quick to stigmatize?)?
- What does Nussbaum have to say about narcissism? Given that, how might she respond to the rationale for education offered in Academically Adrift? [see also 48, 53, 54-55]
- What is “positional thinking”? What capacities does it concern?
Reading questions chapter 5:
- Look back at the opening paragraphs of the chapter. How might today’s political climate challenge Nussbaum’s postulate? (What is the postulate laid out in the first few paragraphs?)
- Does Nussbaum believe that knowledge can solve intercultural problems?
- Do you think that Tagore’s approach to elementary school would work in contemporary America?
- What, specifically, does Nussbaum laud in Dewey?
- How shouldn’t we teach?
- At the end of the chapter, what does Nussbaum identify as the essence of the humanities (why are they requisite to global citizenship)?
Homework
I’d like you to complete your research proposals by Sunday night, that way I can review them on Monday and we can talk about them on Tuesday. Please create a Google Doc and share it with insignificantwrangler@gmail.com (make sure I have permission to edit the document).
