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Internet
Workshop
#6
Problem-Based
Research
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For this workshop, you are being thrown
together as a group that needs to quickly find qualitative
information for a specific purpose.
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Here is the
scenario that you will tackle:
Let's say that you
are members of an industry group of day care center
owner/operators and family child caregivers. You've heard
from many of your employees that they are concerned about
recent toy recalls. They want to know how serious a problem
this is and what steps they should take to make sure that
the toys they have are not harmful to the
children in their care. Someone in your group suggested the
Consumers Union as a good place to
start.
Meanwhile, another industry group, the
Toy Industry Association (TIA) wants
to reassure parents and the public that the safeguards and
regulations that are currently in place are adequate and are
being enforced. Trade representatives from China are also
expressing concern about the toy recalls; they point out that Mattel
recently apologized for harming
the reputation of Chinese manufacturers.
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Your brief is to define the contours of the
toy safety debate. You obviously aren't meant to solve
the problem, merely to find
good information that will help the day care center providers and
family child caregivers decide on a set of strategies with which to address
it.
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One of the tools that can help you sort out the different
issues in this scenario is a
KNF chart, which will be provided.
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After reading the scenario, you need to
decide how to divide up the work and start researching.
Depending on what role you take, a
webbing diagram
could be useful for this part of the process. After at least
30 minutes of searching, we will come back together to
discuss our results - and also
to talk about what was easy
for you in this exercise, and what was difficult, confusing
or messy.
Sources:
http://www.cpsc.gov/ ,
http://www.cpsc.gov/library/toymemo05.pdf
,
https://secure.npsite.org/cu/site/Advocacy?JServSessionIdr009=8e8t3smhn1.app46a&cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1715
,
http://www.recalls.gov/
,
http://www.cpsc.gov/businfo/leadguide.html
,
http://www.opencrs.com/rpts/RS22713_20070828.pdf
,
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/babies-kids/child-safety/indoors/kids-and-lead/lead-in-childrens-products-12-07/overview/lead-ov.htm
,
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec07/products_11-02.html
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Please give me
feedback!
JC last updated 11/08/07 |
