PreCapstone |
Fall 2016
|
Course Information
JAPN 403
MLO 4: Research & Technology Course Description
This course aims to develop advanced proficiency in communication through oral and written presentations to develop research project for Capstone in Japanese using appropriate media.
Course Work
|
Reflective Narrative
In this class, I really felt the step-by-step process that goes into preparing for Capstone. At first, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my Capstone, and I was surprised that Capstones were now partner projects, but I see the advantage to partnered Capstones as well. I've really appreciated the relief in pressure that comes from working alongside someone else throughout the project, including the research process and presentations.
In the beginning, researching previous students' capstones as well as the practice topic, research question, and survey question activities were kind of difficult in terms of putting yourself in the place of someone else's Capstone. However, when it came time to make our own research questions and survey questions, it was a lot easier to make correct questions from the start because we already had experience with the process. Developing the structure for the Capstone was the most important part of the in-class exercises this semester, in my opinion. It's also been very beneficial to see and critique everyone else's mid-term presentations as well. This has given me insight into some other techniques and styles for my Capstone as well. Although nothing has been 100 percent signed off for our Capstone, I feel that we got quite a lot of work accomplished this semester; I cannot imagine only one semester of Capstone. This class really fulfills the Research and Technology major learning outcome (MLO 4) as well. The literature review portion of the PreCapstone course required a lot of research, and it was quite interesting to look for peer reviewed articles in Japanese. It was also very difficult when the articles were restricted, especially when they appeared to be useful articles! The technology has also been very interesting, especially the combined use of Google Docs, Slides, and Forms. I'm excited to see the results from our survey in Google Sheets as well. |