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Miranda Wesley

Freshman Seminar 110-200

King

December 4, 2009

1st Learning Colloquia

The first Learning Colloquia was on research it had several objectives: Our role as

freshmen and the ground rules of intellectual work and the basic steps in research.

It starts by talking about our requirements for freshman seminar. We had several

assignments such as setting up our blog, the history of Howard and its buildings and get

our Library of Congress Cards. The next topic was the rules of research.

The first rule was to do research in your specific field of study. Some questions

you should ask are: What are the origins of your major/discipline? Who are its founding

theorists? What are its assumptions, and where did/do they come from? The second rule

is to read and write. You can practice rule two by mastering reading and repeating types

of time. You can clock time and experience time, setup time, thinking in time requires

identifying the intellectual rhythm. You can set up a triangle with your assignments by

importance. You can maximize setup time by constantly practicing it. It’s designed

specifically to improve performance in class. It can be repeated a lot and feedback on

results is continuously available. But the downside is that it is highly demanding and is

not much fun. Some Howard graduates were used as examples of this method such as

Miles Davis and Jack and Martin.

They go on to discuss methodology. A methodology is a body of methods. It

states the rules. It is a particular procedure. You can define the activity of research by
describing step-by-step how to proceed. Then you define how to measure your progress.

You have to discover whether you have succeeded by setting your measure of success.

Lastly you have to explain how other people can test your research to see if it is accurate

or successful. Methodology requires setup time. There are different disciplines in the

College of Arts and Sciences that are available to study: Philosophy is the study of

fundamental concepts. Psychology which is the study of the mind, Chemistry is the study

of matter and energy and the interactions between them, Sociology which is the study of

group organization, Music is the study of sound organized by rhythm and tone, and

English which is the study of language and composition.

The Basic Steps in the Research Process are to: identify and develop your topic,

state your research methodology and method, look for and study previous research on

your topic, evaluate your sources, think and articulate your findings, and imagine what is

left for others to do. First you try and state your topic as a question. Then you look for

previous research on your topic. Lastly explain to people what they can do to further their

research.

This was a very interesting and helpful colloquia. It is prefect for my major where

I will be doing a lot of research the near future.

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