Life in America: The Reagan Years, A Webography
Final Examination Prompt
Directions. Please respond thoughtfully
to the final examination prompt below. Some
sections of the final examination may require you to write five or six paragraphs
of discussion/analysis while other sections of the final examination may only
require two or three paragraphs (or even just a bulleted list). I have absolutely no preconceptions regarding
how lengthy these responses should be; I
only ask that you thoughtfully develop your responses and that, in doing so,
you demonstrate your abilities to exercise both lower- and higher-order
critical thinking skills (with emphasis on the latter). This
take home final examination can be discussed among your peers without those
discussions being considered plagiarism (as long as each of you author your own,
unique written response to the prompt).
The final examination should be typed and printed with 1” margins on all
sides of the page; it can also be
printed either single-sided or front-to-back and it can be single-spaced (as I
will be providing oral, not written, feedback on the examination
response). There is no minimum or
maximum page length; your work will be
evaluated on depth of thought and thoughtfulness of development, not on
length. The final examination is due at
the beginning of class on Thursday, April 28, 2011; two print copies of the final examination
should be submitted at that time.
In addition to the written portion of the final, you also will be responsible for scheduling, preparing for, and attending a 15- to 20-minute oral examination during which you will be called upon to defend your responses to the prompt below in front of your Instructor and Peer Facilitator. The oral examination component will be scheduled for various days around the week of final examinations; however, we will not meet as a group during our regularly-scheduled final examination period (i.e., Thursday, May 5, 2011, from 3:30 – 5:30 PM). The final examination is worth 200 points of your course grade. Please let me know if you have any questions regarding this assignment and happy thinking!
The Prompt
Imagine that, like your Peer Facilitator Adam, you have elected to teach a section of HNRS 2020 as part of your Honors Project. To prepare for teaching this course, you need to design a syllabus that includes (but is not limited to) the following components:
Ideally, this final examination is designed to challenge you to demonstrate that you have met all of the learning outcomes that have been established for this course. At the heart of this examination is an attempt (by me) to target your skills of “relat[ing] and apply[ing] abstract concepts and ideas to novel situations in thoughtful and meaningful ways”; specifically, I will be looking to see if you are able to successfully apply the skill set that you have learned in HNRS 2010 and HNRS 2020 to the “novel situation” of developing your own ideal Critical Thinking about Great Ideas course. Similarly, every component of this examination (in both its written and oral forms) targets your understanding of and facility with both lower- and higher-order critical thinking skills. More specifically, by selecting a set of “texts” that reflect a common thematic/topical/methodological focus, you should not only demonstrate “an ability to draw meaningful connections and to chart intellectual integrations within and across a diverse set of ideas and concepts,” but you also should demonstrate “an ability to use integrative skills, constructing and persuasively explaining the synthetic relationships among ideas and perspectives about those ideas” (especially in your explanation of how and why these “texts” were selected for inclusion in the course reading schedule). Finally, the oral defense component of the final examination is intended to assess your “facility with the theory and practice of argumentation, reasoning, and advanced critical thinking especially (though not exclusively) as that facility applies to the articulation of personal values and belief systems” (especially since your own values and belief systems should be at the very center of the syllabus and course that you design). To this end, please do not design a course that you think I want you to design; rather, begin with your own values, biases, and interests and build from there. Otherwise, you simply will not fare well on this assignment.
Good luck!
In addition to the written portion of the final, you also will be responsible for scheduling, preparing for, and attending a 15- to 20-minute oral examination during which you will be called upon to defend your responses to the prompt below in front of your Instructor and Peer Facilitator. The oral examination component will be scheduled for various days around the week of final examinations; however, we will not meet as a group during our regularly-scheduled final examination period (i.e., Thursday, May 5, 2011, from 3:30 – 5:30 PM). The final examination is worth 200 points of your course grade. Please let me know if you have any questions regarding this assignment and happy thinking!
The Prompt
Imagine that, like your Peer Facilitator Adam, you have elected to teach a section of HNRS 2020 as part of your Honors Project. To prepare for teaching this course, you need to design a syllabus that includes (but is not limited to) the following components:
- A reading list for the course that includes all of the texts (books, articles, websites, videos, etc.) that students will be responsible for reading and/or engaging with during the term;
- An explanation/rationale (suggested length: 2 or more paragraphs) of why you selected the course texts; this explanation/rationale will probably include (but need not be limited to) a discussion of: 1) your understanding of what constitutes a “great idea” and how the chosen texts fit within and/or reflect that definition and 2) why each individual text was selected and how collectively the texts work to illustrate a larger thematic/topical/methodological focus that you have used to design the course;
- A reading schedule that provides a week-by-week (or class-by-class) outline of how the “readings” will be structured and organized for the duration of a 16-week semester;
- An explanation/rationale (suggested length: 1 or more paragraphs) of how you have constructed/designed the course (e.g., around a theme, around a genre, around an idea or series of ideas, around a chronological survey, etc.);
- An explanation (suggested length: several paragraphs or more) of how the course that you have designed reflects the learning outcomes that have been established by the University Honors Program for the HNRS 2020: Critical Thinking about Great Ideas class [See Appendix A for more on the Learning Outcomes];
- An explanation/rationale (suggested length: 2 or more paragraphs) of what methods you would use to assess student learning in the course (You probably also will want to include how much weight will be given to each assessment method in the final course grade and an explanation of how—or if—students will be graded); and
- An explanation/rationale (suggested length: several paragraphs or more) of how you intend to incorporate critical thinking into the course curriculum, as well as the connections that you will draw between HNRS 2010 and HNRS 2020.
Ideally, this final examination is designed to challenge you to demonstrate that you have met all of the learning outcomes that have been established for this course. At the heart of this examination is an attempt (by me) to target your skills of “relat[ing] and apply[ing] abstract concepts and ideas to novel situations in thoughtful and meaningful ways”; specifically, I will be looking to see if you are able to successfully apply the skill set that you have learned in HNRS 2010 and HNRS 2020 to the “novel situation” of developing your own ideal Critical Thinking about Great Ideas course. Similarly, every component of this examination (in both its written and oral forms) targets your understanding of and facility with both lower- and higher-order critical thinking skills. More specifically, by selecting a set of “texts” that reflect a common thematic/topical/methodological focus, you should not only demonstrate “an ability to draw meaningful connections and to chart intellectual integrations within and across a diverse set of ideas and concepts,” but you also should demonstrate “an ability to use integrative skills, constructing and persuasively explaining the synthetic relationships among ideas and perspectives about those ideas” (especially in your explanation of how and why these “texts” were selected for inclusion in the course reading schedule). Finally, the oral defense component of the final examination is intended to assess your “facility with the theory and practice of argumentation, reasoning, and advanced critical thinking especially (though not exclusively) as that facility applies to the articulation of personal values and belief systems” (especially since your own values and belief systems should be at the very center of the syllabus and course that you design). To this end, please do not design a course that you think I want you to design; rather, begin with your own values, biases, and interests and build from there. Otherwise, you simply will not fare well on this assignment.
Good luck!
Appendix A.
Course Description and Learning Outcomes for HNRS 2020
Course
Description
Critical Thinking about Great Ideas is the second of two core curriculum courses that all students enrolled in the University Honors Program at Bowling Green State University must successfully complete. This interdisciplinary seminar seeks to introduce students to select foundational thinkers, ideas, and intellectual movements that have shaped human civilizations across a variety of temporal, geopolitical, cultural, and historical conditions. All students enrolled in this course will be exposed (whether implicitly or explicitly) to three fundamental, enduring “great ideas” that exist at the foundation of the human experience: rationality, faith, and empiricism. Beyond these three ideas, individual sections of the course will expose students to other political, economic, social, cultural, and intellectual ideas and perspectives. Students will be encouraged to understand these ideas within the context of the social, human, intellectual, and physical worlds of which they are part, as well as identify relationships between and among competing perspectives about these ideas and ultimately to integrate aspects of these ideas and perspectives into their own worldviews. One of the central goals of this course is for students to learn and gain practice in a critical method of thought and expression that builds on and expands the skill set introduced in HNRS 2010: Introduction to Critical Thinking. To this end, special emphasis will be placed on the refinement of higher-order critical thinking skills (i.e., analysis, synthesis, and evaluation) through close reading of and active engagement with both primary and secondary texts.
Course Learning Outcomes
Students who successfully complete HNRS 2020 should exhibit:
Critical Thinking about Great Ideas is the second of two core curriculum courses that all students enrolled in the University Honors Program at Bowling Green State University must successfully complete. This interdisciplinary seminar seeks to introduce students to select foundational thinkers, ideas, and intellectual movements that have shaped human civilizations across a variety of temporal, geopolitical, cultural, and historical conditions. All students enrolled in this course will be exposed (whether implicitly or explicitly) to three fundamental, enduring “great ideas” that exist at the foundation of the human experience: rationality, faith, and empiricism. Beyond these three ideas, individual sections of the course will expose students to other political, economic, social, cultural, and intellectual ideas and perspectives. Students will be encouraged to understand these ideas within the context of the social, human, intellectual, and physical worlds of which they are part, as well as identify relationships between and among competing perspectives about these ideas and ultimately to integrate aspects of these ideas and perspectives into their own worldviews. One of the central goals of this course is for students to learn and gain practice in a critical method of thought and expression that builds on and expands the skill set introduced in HNRS 2010: Introduction to Critical Thinking. To this end, special emphasis will be placed on the refinement of higher-order critical thinking skills (i.e., analysis, synthesis, and evaluation) through close reading of and active engagement with both primary and secondary texts.
Course Learning Outcomes
Students who successfully complete HNRS 2020 should exhibit:
- a curiosity about and a core understanding of “great ideas” in human history through a critical evaluation of these fundamental ideas in their social, human, intellectual, and physical contexts;
- an understanding of and a facility with both lower- (i.e., knowledge, comprehension, and application) and higher-order (i.e., analysis, synthesis, and evaluation) critical thinking skills through regular practice of those skills in the context of discussions and written, oral, and/or creative assignments related to a set of both primary and/or secondary readings;
- a willingness to think open-mindedly within alternative systems of thought, recognizing and assessing (as need be) their assumptions, implications, and practical consequences;
- an ability to draw meaningful connections and to chart intellectual integrations within and across a diverse set of ideas and concepts through discussions of and written, oral, and/or creative assignments related to primary and/or secondary readings;
- an ability to use integrative skills, constructing and persuasively explaining the synthetic relationships among ideas and perspectives about those ideas;
- an ability to relate and apply abstract concepts and ideas to novel situations in thoughtful and meaningful ways; and
- a facility with the theory and practice of argumentation, reasoning, and advanced critical thinking especially (though not exclusively) as that facility applies to the articulation of personal values and belief systems.
