Each week the class has four main elements: weekly readings, quiz, a short writing assignment, and active class discussion. The class concludes with an oral final exam.
I expect you to do the reading and come to class prepared to discuss it. The more time you spend reading and thinking, the more you will learn from this class.
You will complete a simple quiz on Canvas each week before each class. The quiz is open book, and it is designed to make sure that you have done the reading before coming to class.
Each week after doing the reading you will submit a short discussion prompt (via the Canvas quiz). We will use these discussion prompts to guide the discussion portion of the class. The better prompts you and your classmates write, the better the discussion will be.
Examples of prompts could be about: 1) open questions from the readings 2) provocations to spur new research 3) hot takes that will generate debate. As the course develops, we will learn more about the prompts that work well.
About half our time together will be instructor-led, and about half will be discussion-led. It is important for you to practice talking about ideas and learning from each other.
There will be an oral final exam. Details will be provided later.