advice to myself – what I’ll do differently next semester

We will

  1. establish the role of wikipedia (ie. anything there should be considered common knowledge, so it doesn’t make an effective quote in a real research paper – but can make useful footnotes for electronic discussions).
  2. likewise: queries to ask.com or about.com can be a useful place to start a personal journey of discovery – but are ineffective citations in a respectable essay. These sources function more as an appeal to an authority than legitimate research – and the authority is a search engine.
  3. dedicate more class time earlier to the iSearch, and discuss cognitive biases and credibility earlier – making ourselves accountable. We still see too much cherry picking and insubstantial research.
  4. restrict ourselves to documents and data available through the Billington Library or through the internet without fee or registration – so anyone can track down other people’s data.
  5. increase the penalty for papers that fall short of minimum length requirements.
  6. consider increasing the amount of points given/ received by peers. Classmates are amazingly accurate in peer assessments.

I also need to share more learning styles/ life skills content early on. NEED TO COVER IN CLASS “How college is different from High School.

Also, here’s an interesting and counter-intuitive video from Stephen Fry on “what I wish I’d known when I was 18.” Not sure I agree with all of it – but he makes some good points.