Another Honors Faculty Panel Discussion

(From L to R) Jamie Brandon--Anthropology, Svetlana Paulson--History, Dan May--Art, and Julie Metro--Magale Library, gather around to see some of the materials Svetlana uses to teach her honors history students (the projector bulb in that room had burned out).

The SAU Honors College hosted another honors faculty panel discussion today. The first presenter, Dan May, spoke about his contract honors students enrolled in the film appreciation class. May assigns them a group project, making a film. Before they can make the film, they must write a script, storyboard the project, and then make the film itself. He wants them to work cooperatively because, being honors students, they seem to be naturally competitive. He warns them ahead of time that he expects they will resist working together, but adds that such workstyles are common in the world outside of college. In addition, May requires them to make the film in a certain style or genre. This year's class was required to make a film noir.

Svetlana Paulson spoke next. She discussed the difference between teaching honors classes and teaching classes to the regular student population. She teaches her honors classes in a completely different manner than her regular classes. She showed us one of her exams from world history I. It asked students to pretend they were the curator of a museum that was going to open an exhibit on ancient Egypt. She then gave them photographs of a "shipment" of 17 items. Their task was to classify and display in their museum. She also talked about her honors world history II class. There, she said, she uses food as an organizing theme. Students must pick a foodstuff (e.g., sugar, salt, bananas, wheat, and so on) and trace the history of use, cost, and transport, and other aspects.

Jamie Brandon, was the last speaker. He discussed his honors anthropology of popular culture class. He teaches that class in a manner reminiscent of a graduate school seminar class, he said. The class only has four students (none of whom have missed a class!) and meets one evening a week. This class, too, has an organizing theme: Vampires. Jamie noted that sustaining discussion about popular culture was very easy. However, focusing that discussion on the analytical aspects of popular culture was more difficult, he added.

After all had presented, the panelists engaged in a brief round of discussion about specific aspects of teaching honors. They discussed grading, note taking, testing, and exchanged ideas on how to improve their teaching. All believed that the session had been productive and looked forward to the next one (to be held early during the Fall 2010 semester).

Daniel Tye (right), a sophomore Honors College student, competed today against the Sjeng chess playing program in a contest held at the Reynolds Campus and Community Center at Southern Arkansas University. Jeremy Dunklin (left) moved the pieces on the chessboard for the computer program. The Sjeng chess engine won the world speed chess championship in 2008 and is installed on all new Apple Macintosh computers. In the chess match today, Daniel held his own until he made a fatal error. He failed to see that he had left his queen unprotected. The computer program "saw" the error and after that Daniel could not save the game.

Until the late 20th century few thought that machines would ever be intelligent

enough to compete against humans in complex cognitive tasks. However, as computers became smaller and more powerful, programmers began to exploit larger computer memories and increased processing speeds. They also quit trying to make computers play like humans and, instead, created "brute force" programs that could examine the consequences of potential moves far beyond the capacity of any person.

In 1997, the unthinkable happened. An IBM computer nicknamed "Deep Blue" defeated the reigning world chess champion at the time, the Russian Garry Kasparov. Since then, similar computer programs have proliferated and today only the best chess players can hope to beat them. Chess playing programs are only one sign that the science of artificial intelligence has arrived.

After, Daniel played against two of the spectators including Caleb Shaw (in white t-shirt).

Teaching Honors Panel Discussion

On Friday, February 26 the SAU Honors College sponsored a faculty-led panel discussion on teaching honors classes. Three honors faculty: Dr. Shawn Krosnick, Dr. Lynne Belcher, and Dr. Chrisanne Christensen were the panelists.

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.