Administrative Stuff

A reminder that we're meeting in the Library on Monday, where Mr. Kuo will be available to you exclusively to help with your research.

Your homework this weekend is to work, work, work on your research on basic facts involved in your topic so that you're ready to go with interpretive issues starting Monday!

Here's a link to the presentation from last Wednesday, in case you missed it in class.

Here's a link to the in-class assignment from Monday that you can make up. Type your answers and turn it in on Monday 4/1.

Homework for 3/27

Here's a link to the slideshow in case the above doesn't work on your browser.

Homework for Wednesday February 27.

Here's a link to the presentation on Understanding the Dispute. 

Read or review the presentation below (the overview of arguments) from class today, and be sure to read through the example argument beginning on slide 33. Then, read the presentation linked here (Understanding the Dispute).

Let me know if you have any questions, or if you have problems opening the link.

Arguments

This is the presentation from class today. Please read through the example argument starting on slide 33. Let me know if you have any questions. See you in B-2 on Wednesday!

Research Update Assignment

Philosophy 130: Intro to Critical Thinking
Research Update Assignment

1. Continue the process of researching on your topic of choice. (You may decide to change topics after this research update – feel free to explore several topics during this month, to see what most interests you. You’ll decide for good on February 27.)

2. That means that you’ll be trying various avenues to find the answers to your basic questions about the topic, so that you can evaluate arguments and issues from a position of knowledge later, when you move on to more complex aspects of the topic.

3. As you research, you’ll be finding a bunch of sources. Read the summaries of each source to determine whether it will be helpful, and then skim through the sources you’ve marked to make sure they’ll be helpful. Once you’ve found several sources that look like they’ll help you gain a good, basic understanding of your topic, stop searching and start reading each source.

4. For each source, be sure that you
a. Carefully fill in the citation information in Noodle Tools, before you do anything else
b. Next to each citation summary, click on “notes.” That will open up a notecard for that source. You can open several notecards and organize them by topic if the source looks like it will contain a lot of helpful information.
c. Record everything helpful you learn from that source. You don’t want merely to note what the source contains, generally – you want to learn information from it, and to write that information down. Copy and paste all the helpful information you find from that source onto the notecard (or onto the appropriate notecard, if you’re using several for that source). You can also paraphrase each quote if you’d like, although I wouldn’t concentrate on that at this point.
d. At the bottom of each notecard, record your own thoughts and questions. If a source makes an interesting claim, you might want to make a note to yourself to research that claim further. You should also note down questions that are raised as you read the source.

5. Basically, I want to be able to see what you’re learning as you go. I can make comments on your work, so I can give you feedback about possible angles to try, questions to ask, or sources you might look into.

6. You’ll then go into your dashboard and share your project with me. Type “philosophy130-Boyle” in the text box that pops up when you click to share the project.

7. Let me know if you have any questions.

Research: The Basics

Here's the slideshow we talked about last Monday. Here's a link to the slideshow, in case you're having trouble viewing the one below in your browser.

Homework for Monday 2/4

Your homework for Monday is to read the library's CLICS tutorial from chapter 2 up to but not including chapter 8.

Here's a link to the CLICS tutorial. It's already loaded to the beginning of chapter 2. Scroll to the bottom of the page to begin, and then continue working your way through to the end of chapter 7.

Let me know if you have any difficulties loading the tutorial or any questions while you're reading.

Have a great weekend!

Forum Assignment for Tuesday 1/29

Spend a few hours thinking about challenging issues that affect you and your community/communities. These should be interesting and significant issues that you might have some possibility of affecting in at least some small way (either personally or through political organizing and action). You'll choose one of these issues to work on for your semester-length project, so it should be something that requires critical thinking work: not just research, but also analysis, argument, and careful judgment.

Choose 1-3 issues to talk about in the comments section below.

Write a brief paragraph explaining each issue, and why you think it's important, interesting, and fruitful for a whole semester's work. Write your paragraph(s) in a word processing program and save your work. Then copy and paste your work into the comments. Instructions are below.

Please post your assignment by Tuesday 1/29, no later than 8 a.m.

By Wednesday in time for class, please read all of the suggested topics. Make a note of the topics that especially interest you. We'll narrow down topics in class on Wednesday.

Let me know if you have any questions, or any trouble posting your comments!

1. Click on the link at the bottom of this post that says "# comments" and you'll see a comment box appear.

2. Paste your paragraph(s) into the comment box.
3. You'll see a drop down menu beneath the comment box labelled "comment as:" - click on that and select "anonymous."

4. Click on "Publish."

The page should reload, and you should see your comment appear. If you don't see your comment, it didn't successfully publish. Go back through the steps and make sure you've done everything correctly. If you're still having trouble posting, send me an email and include your paragraph.

Good luck - I hope you'll find it interesting to think about this!

Assignment for January 23: Goal Setting

Watch the presentation above first, and then complete the assignment below. Bring your assignment to class on Wednesday. Let me know if you have any questions.

Here's a link to the slide show in case the one above doesn't work on your browser.

Written assignment: click on the link below, print out the assignment, fill it in, and bring it to class on Wednesday.
Semester Goals

Reading Assignment for Wednesday 1/16

How We Learn

We'll be using the information in this presentation for a graded group assignment in class on Wednesday. Please take careful notes and bring them with you to class. Email me if you have any questions. Happy reading!

Here's a link to the presentation in case you can't view it above.