Honors 300
HNRS 300: Scholarly and Creative Inquiry
Credit Hour(s): 1
Prerequisites: HNRS 201 or HNRS 202 or permission of instructor
Honors students will explore the general processes of scholarship and creativity across disciplines. Students will then apply this knowledge to the development of their own scholarly or creative ideas. After completing the course, a student will be prepared to propose an honors capstone project in his or her major.
Detailed Description of Course
1) Scholarship and creativity as the bases of intellectual life
2) Disciplinary differences in how scholarly/creative questions are asked and answered
a. Sources of knowledge about the world
3) Boundaries on scholarly/creative activity
a. Institutional Review Boards and IACUC
4) Developing a scholarly/creative idea
5) Working with a faculty mentor
6) Project planning
7) Presenting the outcomes of scholarly/creative activity
Detailed Description of Conduct of Course
The course will be conducted in a seminar format with 20 or fewer students per section. The course will begin with mostly instructor-led discussion. Students will read both broad approaches to and specific cases of scholarly/creative inquiry. External speakers from different disciplines will share their experiences. Discussion will focus on how scholarship/creativity is similar and different across disciplines, with students contributing insights from their own disciplines. Writing assignments at this stage will be mostly self-reflective, with an emphasis on the student developing a sense of what it means to be a scholar in his or her discipline.
The second half of the course will be more practical, with a goal of students developing proposals for their honors capstone projects. Students will work with intructors and/or faculty mentors to outline the capstone ideas and the approaches. Students will develop timelines and resource lists. Finally students will discuss the ways in which scholars and artists present their work to others, including possible presentation venues for their own projects.
Goals and Objectives for the Course
Having successfully completed this course, the student will be able to:
1) Contrast the benefits of different forms of scholarly and creative inquiry.
2) Provide an example of how one's discipline is different from another discipline in how it would answer the same basic question.
3) Discuss their scholarly/creative ideaqs with both experts and non-experts.
4) State the process and timeline for completing a specific scholarly/creative project in one's discipline.
5) Identify a possible venue for presenting the outcome of one's scholarly/creative project.
Assessment Measures
Students may be assessed on: Reflective writing assignments that connect readings and presentations to the student's own disciplinary interests, practical writing assignments that outline a possible honors capstone project, participation in class discussions, presentations of their scholarly/creative ideas to the class.
Other Course Information
None
Review and Approval
December 16, 2015