Teaching critical research and critical technical practice in the context of graduate-level introductory research course
We develop this tutorial in the Critical Technical Practice (CTP) working group at Simon Fraser University in 2026 August-September. The tutorial development team include: Weina Jin, .
The tutorial is designed to support critical inquiries of new computer science graduate students in research and technical practice. It can be embeded in a research method, research writing, or research ethics course for technical audiences.
This tutorial is readily available for use in your own course. It is mainly consists of in-class discussions and interactive sessions.
- The first half of the tutorial is to support audiences to conduct critical inquiries to the big “why” questions about the technical and research visions and agendas.
- The second half of the tutorial is to conduct critical inquiries on several case studies to ask the small “why” questions about the specific technical and research methods and practices. You can change the content of the case to other technical statements to adapted to your own audiences’ and context. You can also contact us to discuss how to adapt the tutorial to your own course.
The teaching materials include the following:
- Tutorial slides. Each slide has the speaker script and some notes to provide more context. The slides are designed to be used in an 2 to 2.5-hour tutorial session.
- Tutorial handout: writing sheet template.
- Tutorial handout: case study.