The inspiration for the Erudition Project, an Internet based assignment for structured research, reflects the concerns brought about by the multifold objectives of historical research during the second semester of the sophomore year. Historical scholarship involves the gathering and ordering of information and evidence to provide some explanation of historical events, concepts, and developments. However, History is a debate-oriented field and historical methodologies - those theories and organizing principles and approaches used by the historian - are not uniform. A debated topic provides the first avenue for understanding. Accordingly, on the metacognitive level, Erudition is designed so that students apprehend how history is researched, debated, and then written.
In order to echo and meet the concerns of the Dalton Plan, a guided research assignment needs to simulate the historian's craft in terms of identifying issues and understanding how evidence is used and arguments are made and allow for individualization and student-directed learning. The Erudition Project models the research process for the students and provides a framework for realizing research.
Dalton's Erudition web site offers a home base that contains and presents the research process as a series of manageable steps for gathering, processing, and synthesizing information. The site facilitates the research process by providing links to major Manhattan library catalogs (as well as the Library of Congress), pre-selected sites for researching periodical literature, and other search engines. In this way, students are given the tools for conducting author, keyword, and subject searches across a clearly defined field of scholarly catalogs, thereby avoiding ponderous or specious web sites. The subtle and purposeful integration of technology allows for this ready access to technology, using pre-selected and credible sites and sources, allows students to utilize the remarkable facility of the Internet without compromising the quality of their work.
In the end, the Erudition Assignment cultivates a kind of learning that provides and demonstrates certain tools but remains emphatic about student-centered learning. Modeling the process gives the students a meaningful point of reference, but they are still responsible for performing research. Technology provides remarkable access to information, but students are still responsible for sifting through copious amounts of information while making determinations based on a critical reading of credible sources. Although this Assignment uses the Internet to facilitate research, "old-fashioned" activities dominate. Reading, reflection, and writing remain the basic formula and the student remains the linchpin in the process. Ultimately, it is the student who makes the process purposeful and meaningful.