Traditional classroom methods of research paradigms are not ideally structured to allow the learner to easily access diverse archives of electronic data. Given high attrition rates and the overwhelming mass and interconnectivity of information, a possible answer arises. A mentor for the student. Rather than have a program matched to one text or to one philosophy of research, I wished to create an adaptive program which would address as many diverse learning styles as possible. The aim of this package was an organizational template to be utilized outside the classroom to focus student effort - teaching research as a recursive process.
Students refer to the Electronic Forum for their assignments.
In addition to these competencies, students become acquainted not only to the traditional paper resources, but also to the electronic dimensions of research. Students will use Electronic Forum and Internet to communicate with local, national, and international students and forums, electronic atlases for demographic and geographic information, electronic encyclopedia and dictionaries, multimedia resources, electronic databases and on-line catalogs and other resources. The philosophy of each module is to introduce the research resource, show how it integrates with other resources, provide practice in utilizing the resource, and provide the student with actual practice, relevant to the individual learner, in utilizing the resource to meet the course competencies. The intent, therefore, is not to be all things to all instructors and students - an impossible task. Rather, the hope is to provide a tutorial, a framework, a mentor, which will empower the student to complete a research project.