Students will be able to:

Students will demonstrate their knowledge through exams and their abilities through a series of graded practical assignments and a graded research project that consolidates all their learning.  The student end of course evaluation will assess how students feel about their own learning in each outcome and about the course and the instructor in general.

Assignments, exams, and a research project will be included each semester.   Students will be given several writing opportunities to improve their understanding and critical thinking.  Student end of course evaluations will be conducted for every section every semester.  Faculty will use data and comments to continually improve student learning and teaching.

Upon instructor approval, one topic will be used throughout the course.  Information items from a variety of sources will be collected through the assignments and presented in the research project.  The instructor will check each assignment and each entry in the research project for topic relevancy and support.

Understand and apply the steps in

the research process

The scores on the practical assignments and the research project will indicate the level of understanding in the area of research process and strategy. 

A midterm practice exercise on the research project will allow the student to make mid-course adjustments based on instructor feedback.  Any late assignments for credit must be submitted by the last day of class.  The research project will be due at the time of the final exam.

Use information resources effectively 

Each student will complete a research project designed to synthesize all skills and knowledge learned.  The practical assignments require the student to identify and use a variety of information resources to gather information items from a variety of sources.  Assignments will be graded on the compentency of the student to select and use information resources that find items of high quality and support of the topic.

Critically evaluate information sources

Students are required to prepare a note card for each information item gatheredfor the research project and to include a critical annotatation for each entry of the project from the information collected on the note card.  Each annotation will be graded on the presence of critical

evaluation comments.

Document

information sources

The research project requires a citation for each information item listed in the project.  Each citation will be graded on adherence to the rules of the style used.