The Pedagogy of Praxis: Teaching Undergraduate Students to be Scholars

Abstract

Honors courses are a special opportunity to provide a small group of undergraduate students with the challenging and rewarding experience of doing original scholarly research. This session will focus on some of the major issues associated with managing and implementing a student-led research project. These include choosing a research topic, designing a methodology, organizing data collection and analysis, and presenting research findings. We shall pay particular attention to the nuts-and-bolts of managing the course and to the process of transforming students from consumers to producers of knowledge. The presenters are faculty members in the Department of Criminology, Law and Society who have both taught the course, but done so in different ways. Comparing and contrasting the promises and pitfalls of these approaches (interviews vs. surveys, single team vs. small groups, poster vs. oral presentation) promises to broaden the panelââ¬â¢s appeal and its applicability to different disciplines.