Instructor's role and challenges
Peter Taylor

In addition to general facilitation of the workshop, my role as instructor is to:
i) help you understand the issues (as much as I can) through written comments and during one-on-one conferences;
ii) guide you to literature, resources, and contacts;
iii) "think on my feet" during class in order to identify what needs clarification and find ways to guide you into solving the problems yourselves;
iv) distribute regular handouts providing more detail about the assignments, activities, and readings ahead;
v) schedule student conferences in order to take stock with each student developments (or lack of developments) in their project at least once every three weeks; and
vi) arrange guest speakers, discussion of articles and case studies to illustrate points about explanation, argument, modes of research, experts, ways of knowing, what can be achieved in research and action, etc.

My experience teaching this kind of course is that it entails many challenges in supplying contacts and other resources for a large number of different projects. But an even greater challenge has been to get the students into their research and keep them moving along. Many of you will get "researcher's block" at one point in the course or another, often over seemingly simple tasks such as making a phone call to find out some information or arrange an interview. In response to and in anticipation of such difficulties I have instituted a number of changes since I first taught the course. For example, I will require you to identify and make an appointment without delay with an initial informant. (I provide a letter of introduction so these informants appreciate the purpose and expectations of having these meetings so early in the your projects.)

My special goals for this year are to encourage you to
i) make direct contact with the participants in controversies, that is, to take your research off campus;
ii) identify a specific constituency you want to influence;
iii) develop a proposal for action directed at that constituency; and
iv) design your research in greater detail and with more attention to methodological problems in interviewing, surveys, etc.
I also want to
v) practice some new approaches to facilitating the workshop process; and
vi) make more systematic the different aspects of the pedagogy of this course.