Academic seminar with generally uniform academic content across sections

Revision as of 18:45, 23 August 2008

Academic Seminar with Uniform Content Course Description:

"May be an interdisciplinary or theme-oriented course, sometimes part of a general education requirement. Primary focus is on academic theme/discipline but will often include academic skills components such as critical thinking and expository writing."

Approaches at Different Institutions

Bowling Green State University

BGSU 4+/pub/lge //Contact: Colleen Boff

Honors Program: Popular Vs. Scholarly

First year students in the Honors Program are typically enrolled in Honors 201: Introduction to Critical Thinking. The following activity has worked well.
Librarian briefly explains the difference between popular, trade and scholarly journals. Students are placed in small groups of four or five and assigned roles of reader, recorder, time keeper, and speaker. Each group is given 15 minutes to read a brief article from a current news source and asked to locate the study referred to in the article. Each group is then given an opportunity to explain and demonstrate how they located, or attempted to locate, the primary source mentioned in the article. The librarian acts as the facilitator and points out ways to approach finding the primary source material via the library resources or other appropriate mechanisms.