Written Deliverables
In general, the same sorts of deliverables that you require in your current curriculum can be implemented into or adapted to the Collaborative Research Model. When considering what kinds of deliverables to include, keep in mind the spirit of the project, to create an engaging climate for innovative student thinking on a research topic.
You can “get there” by putting together a combination of written deliverables that may include:
- “Shorter” individual assignments: exploratory pre-research papers; peer-reviews of performances and papers; CATs; quickwrites on proccesses and procedures; short, informal progress reports from Learning Teams; position papers.
- “Longer” team assignments: issues briefs; research papers or reports; review of literatures; annotated bibliographies; web sites.
- “Whole Project” individual or team assignments: dialectic notebooks; research journals; portfolios.
Your Overall Approach
It's a good idea to use the milestone approach and assign a variety of deliverables—formal and informal, group and individual, expressive and analytical. But don't overload yourself in terms of assessment. In particular, the first time you integrate a collaborative research project into your curriculum, you will find that you need to reserve time for making announcements, mentoring student learning teams, reading the discussion board on Blackboard, or other activities.
Using Peer Response
Try using peer-power to provide feedback for some deliverables. Learning teams can respond to exploratory papers, drafts of cover sheets and position papers. Also, you might wish to only assign individual deliverables that are brief (such as cover sheets, exploratory drafts, group critiques), saving the weightier deliverables (issues briefs, synthesis papers, research reports) for group-work.
You Don't Have to Assign a Big Paper
Don't feel that you have to assign a long written project as part of the model. The oral performance may be the cornerstone of your project, in which case written deliverables will be the smaller building blocks.
