Research and Methodology with Dr. Williams

For this past week’s freshman seminar session, Dr. Dana Williams gave a power point on Research and Methodology. In the initial part of the power point reminded students that the purpose of the freshman seminar course is for each student to pursue a lifetime of independent discovery, including the appreciation of research. The primary objectives Dr. Williams’ lecture session was to identify the principle components of research and relate these components to the group project. Dr. Williams informed on the many research methods and approaches we can use while developing our group projects. She underlined the importance of conceptualizing a research design which could be a before/after, longitudinal research design or a research design focusing on a reference period such as retrospective, prospective, or blend. This lecture session was very helpful and informal for me because it gave me a better outlook and idea on how to develop our group projects. I like how Dr. Williams incorporated the freshman seminar course with her lecture session. She used the process of how the students would fill out the Mbongi forms and blogs to help the professors of the freshman seminar course to determine if the goals of fostering independent discovery and of cultivating a commitment to academic excellence were being met. This example was very effective for me because of the fact that in a way I was participating in a research project. I like how Dr. Williams reflected on the course of freshman seminar by showing some of the blog postings from during the course of this class. This was a good way of showing how the student’s thoughts and ideas of the course changed from the beginning of the course until now, and also a good example of how to engage with your audience during a presentation. Overall, this lecture was very helpful and useful for many future researches I may need to engage in.

-Ramona Williams