Dr. Krosnick led off by discussing her contract courses in botany and genetics. (Contract courses are honors courses in which honors students sit in the same room with non-honors students. Faculty then contract with those honors students to provide some type of academic enrichment.)
In the botany class, she is having the honors students manage a small greenhouse and create and maintain a database of all of the plants in it. The greenhouse will become a resource so that botany students may, "hold plants in their hands" and not just learn about them from the text.
In the genetics class, she and five honors students meet weekly on Friday afternoons to discuss articles that all have read prior to the meeting. In addition, the genetics class has benefitted from the purchase of a new incubator. That piece of equipment, purchased by the Honors College, allows her to precisely control temperatures for experiments with plants and with fruit flies.
Dr. Belcher spoke next about her Comp II honors class. Unlike the contract courses that Dr. Krosnick teaches, Comp II is a full honors class or one composed entirely of honors students. Dr. Belcher has taught Comp II honors since 2004. She said that about 10 to 12 years ago she experience a "paradigm shift" and that since then she has taught all of her composition classes differently.
She spoke about the difference between honors and regular composition sections and said that the honors sections used the same text but that the readings were more demanding as were the written assignments. She noted that in high school honors students have been rewarded for good grades and test scores. One of her main teaching goals is to have them "learn how to think." Compared to the regular students, she said she holds the reins more loosely in honors sections, allowing honors students more freedom in class. She is more likely to let class discussions develop and proceed in honors sections. She also allows them to take more chances, or to "fall into the pit." After they fall, she helps them out and they learn much from having taken the chance.
Dr. Christensen spoke last about her full honors general psychology class. Like Dr. Belcher, she has been teaching honors psychology for a number of years. Dr. Christensen remarked that her students, especially the science majors, come into class looking for clearcut answers. So, one of the things she teaches them is that there are many gray areas left in psychology, areas in which the answers have not yet emerged.
Dr. Christensen emphasized the experimental nature of honors teaching, meaning that she is always looking to try something new in class to see if it works. Sometimes those experiments succeed and sometimes they do not. She changes the class nearly every time she teaches it and noted that the students are never the same either. Each class has its own personality. She said she is quite willing "to look the fool" in order to make a point in class. She also picked up on points made earlier in the panel discussion related to how honors students see themselves. Dr. Christensen tries to show them that they are not "the center of the universe" and, instead, tries to get them to "challenge privilege." By that she means they should earn their honors status and not just assume it is theirs because of their grades and test scores.
At the end of the discussion, the panel answered questions from the audience. Later in the Spring semester, the Honors College will host a similar panel discussion by other faculty teaching honors courses.
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