Critical Scholarship

Scholarship

The critcrim.org site is intended to be more than a collection of material. Many web sites accomplish little more than information transfer. "Content" is often limited to a list of links. From the beginning, the Division’s web site has included full text articles and other rich content. The site has always been intended as a place for interaction, critical thinking, and active learning.

"Scholarship Revisited," by Ernest Boyer (1990), has served as a guide in designing this site. Boyer encouraged academics to consider a range of activities in their definitions of “scholarship.” Boyer’s definition of scholarship includes four overlapping activities:

  • discovery - creating and sharing knowledge;

  • integration - providing meaning by placing knowledge in context;

  • application - actively engaging with society, and;

  • teaching and learning - helping others gain understanding.

Site Design

These categories have been adopted as a framework for the critcrim.org site. The following represents ideas about current and future uses of this site as a tool for web-based scholarship:

Discovery

  • Publication of working papers

  • Online collaboration and editing of works in progress

  • Publication of pieces in which copyright allows online publication

  • Data collection through online surveys or other processes

  • Development of collaborative work groups who would use the site for virtual meetings and the collection and organization of materials

  • Development of a peer reviewed online journal

Integration

  • Praxis

  • Policy analysis

  • Examples of policies that “work”

  • Discussion of the interaction of policy and race, gender, or other factors

  • Discussion and web activities that highlight the policy implications of research

  • Data regarding impacts and consequences of policy choices

Application

  • Community organizing

  • Research assistance

  • Expand division involvement beyond academic borders

  • Collaboration with other groups

Teaching and Learning

  • Course outlines

  • Collections of essays that serve as replacements for supplementary (and expensive) course materials

  • Online activities that may be freely adopted by others

  • Collaborative teaching

  • Guest lectures

  • Teaching Forum

  • Peer mentoring

  • Online teaching portfolios

Thematically Organized Links

Discovery

Integration

Application

Teaching and Learning

References

Boyer, E. L. (1990). Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professorate. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

 

  • Login to post comments
  • 14388 reads