Final Reflection
Eight weeks ago, students logged in to Philosophy 25 for the first time, eager to get started and excited for the new opportunity. The first place I checked was the syllabus to get an idea of what would be expected of the students through the student learning outcomes and objectives. This always is always a key to what direction a class will move and exactly what will be taught. I use this information to set my personal goals and create a schedule to keep me on track.
The students were required to write learning reflections through the course of this class. I found this to be helpful for two reasons, it gives an opportunity to review your own work and determine what your strengths were and how you can improve on your next paper. The reflection also gives the student an opportunity to compare the assignment to the learning outcomes and objectives to determine what skills they exercised and how they have improved those skills.
Each week the text chapters and assignments have coincided with a particular student objective and each objective was thoroughly taught. Initially we dove into the basics of argument, what it is, how to identify an argument and how to distinguish an inductive argument from a deductive argument. As the weeks moved we learned to understand the tools needed to determine to objectively analyze a source and whether it is factual or fictional. This helped to build a strong foundation so that we could move on to analogical arguments and further analyzing parts of an inductive argument. Next, we added components of causal arguments and were taught to identifying method of agreement from method of difference. This was just further building blocks to identifying fallacies of causal reasoning to successfully evaluate causal arguments. This also helped students understand different methods of creating experiments and studies of causal correlation. This was an important concept because we had to analyze public polls and determine it's true value. Probably one of the more difficult weeks was determining aesthetic reasoning and moral reasoning. I realize everyone views beauty and art in many ways but when asked to find a piece of modern art and describe it proved to be a true exercise of my personal ability to give a detailed description of one item. I was not successful with the description but I found purpose in the piece of art I used for my assignment. I appreciated it more than I had previously. In the final weeks we moved on to rhetoric which I learned was not exactly what I thought it was. I learned it is an important language tool and can be helpful when building an opinion and you would like to sway others. I also learned that the devices used in rhetoric are real and I can use them to determine when someone else is giving a strong or weak argument. This is especially true when viewing advertisement. What is the commercial or paper advertisement really trying to sell the consumer, a product, a lifestyle, a community or all of the above.
Overall, this class has taught me more about critical thinking and has helped me to vastly improve my writing skills which will help me in all of my future courses.
The students were required to write learning reflections through the course of this class. I found this to be helpful for two reasons, it gives an opportunity to review your own work and determine what your strengths were and how you can improve on your next paper. The reflection also gives the student an opportunity to compare the assignment to the learning outcomes and objectives to determine what skills they exercised and how they have improved those skills.
Each week the text chapters and assignments have coincided with a particular student objective and each objective was thoroughly taught. Initially we dove into the basics of argument, what it is, how to identify an argument and how to distinguish an inductive argument from a deductive argument. As the weeks moved we learned to understand the tools needed to determine to objectively analyze a source and whether it is factual or fictional. This helped to build a strong foundation so that we could move on to analogical arguments and further analyzing parts of an inductive argument. Next, we added components of causal arguments and were taught to identifying method of agreement from method of difference. This was just further building blocks to identifying fallacies of causal reasoning to successfully evaluate causal arguments. This also helped students understand different methods of creating experiments and studies of causal correlation. This was an important concept because we had to analyze public polls and determine it's true value. Probably one of the more difficult weeks was determining aesthetic reasoning and moral reasoning. I realize everyone views beauty and art in many ways but when asked to find a piece of modern art and describe it proved to be a true exercise of my personal ability to give a detailed description of one item. I was not successful with the description but I found purpose in the piece of art I used for my assignment. I appreciated it more than I had previously. In the final weeks we moved on to rhetoric which I learned was not exactly what I thought it was. I learned it is an important language tool and can be helpful when building an opinion and you would like to sway others. I also learned that the devices used in rhetoric are real and I can use them to determine when someone else is giving a strong or weak argument. This is especially true when viewing advertisement. What is the commercial or paper advertisement really trying to sell the consumer, a product, a lifestyle, a community or all of the above.
Overall, this class has taught me more about critical thinking and has helped me to vastly improve my writing skills which will help me in all of my future courses.