Course Description:
With an emphasis on developing skills in reading, writing, research, and problem solving, students engage with faculty developed subject-specific learning prompts, questions, readings, and challenges.
The majority of class time is dedicated to exploration and discussion, with students learning to research, to evaluate the validity of data, and to identify and learn skills and knowledge required to achieve higher levels of proficiency.
Required learning outcomes, targets, and resulting products are determined on a student specific basis with careful recognition of student strengths, areas for potential growth, and targets both academically and personally.
The majority of students’ written work is in the form of a reflection upon the learning process with an emphasis on journaling questions and ideas that have resulted from the journey.
This course takes a modern STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) approach to understand current progress in scientific studies and the challenges - physical, hypothetical, and ethical - faced by modern researchers in their respective fields.
The students gain a broader understanding of the nature of experiment design and problem solving, and the inherent considerations of data collection and analysis. The class covers high level research papers discussed in groups whilst ensuring a firm grounding in the traditional core principles of the subject field.