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Sample Proposal: Independent Inquiry

College of Education

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KIN 357 Strategic Management of Sport Organizations

Department of Kinesiology and Health Education

Please describe how students will engage in independent investigation and presentation of their own work through the course. Please explain specifically how your course engages students in the process of inquiry in your discipline.

For the purpose of this class, students will be required to develop a business plan, composed of an organizational part, marketing part, and a financial part. In order to complete this assignment, students will independently have to do research related to the marketing and finances of the proposal. This includes (but is not limited to) research on pricing of goods, services, real estate among others. Similarly to complete the marketing aspect, they will have to conduct research on their competitors, the industry in general, and the target market. Sports will be required to consult sources such as the US Census Bureau, Sporting Goods and Manufacturers reports, and other associated reports.

What kinds of projects, artifacts, presentations, or performances do your students produce as a result of engaging in this process of inquiry?

This inquiry will result in a business plan (40-100 pages), and a presentation in which the students sell their idea to the rest of the class (who will act as potential investors), who will ask them about their revenue projections, the potential for growth, and other essential elements off a strong business plan

Please explain what independent work students will do in this course. If students are engaged in collaborative or team-based projects, explain how every student will exercise responsibility for and independence with some portion of the project.

Students will work in groups of three. Each group will have to turn in a sheet that demonstrates how they divide the different forms of research, necessary to complete the business plan, and who is responsible for what part. Each of the group members signs a ‘contract’ that obliges them to meet with the other group members once a week at a designated location and time. This has been set in place to prevent any ‘freeriders’.

What pedagogical strategies do you use to prepare students to undertake the inquiry process in your course? If applicable, how does the work that students produce in this course build upon skills or knowledge they have developed in previous coursework?

This business plan incorporates elements of 4 different courses from the UT sport management program: Sport law, Revenue and budgeting in sport, sport marketing and Structure and organization of sport programs.

Please specify what percentage of the students’ grade is based on the process of inquiry described above. Note that for a 3-hour course, at least one-third of the course grade must be based on the students’ independent investigation and presentation of their own work. (Students’ independent work must constitute one-half of the grade for 2-hour courses and all of the grade for 1-hour courses.)

The business plan constitutes 50% of their final grade in this class.