Negn,

Thanks for the feedback and the suggestion! Open-access text will most likely play a part in at least some of the readings for this course. In future courses, probably even more so. 🙂

Setareh,

Thanks for the feedback! I’m not sure how best to implement them in engineering classes. One place to start might be to work on a mutli-facted, complex problem or series of problems over the course of a semester? For example, for each week of class you might have students submit their solutions one day, provide feedback and return the problems to them, and then spend part of the next class going over the problem together, be it in groups or as a whole class. I’m not sure how well that would work, as I’m woefully ignorant on engineering classrooms, but let me know what you think!

Connor,

Thanks for the feedback and support! I’m hoping that this will be the case!

Hi Minh,

Thanks for the feedback and the compliments! So, what I’m hoping to do with this course is provide some mandatory readings in the traditional style (articles, encyclopedia entries, relevant videos, etc.) but in addition, to have them read a book with substantial relation to the topic we’re discussing. I would provide some recommendations on the book and on how best to obtain it, but I’d be open to student suggestions for relevant books as well. If it’s a book I’ve not read, I’ll do some digging and read up on it, seeing what others say about it before I give the student an affirmation or recommend a different book. Testing it in this course will help me to tweak and expand it for more course material in future courses.

Hope that helps!

Adbhut,

Thank you for the feedback! Glad to be of help!

Arash,

Agreed wholeheartedly! This was a method used in a joint Sociology/Geography class I took in undergrad. The book I chose ended up being one of the best I’d ever read for a course. And thank you for your compliments on my PDF design!

Shannon,

Thanks for the feedback! I’ll let you know how the policy goes after I put it to the test!

Heather,

Thank you so much for the feedback!

So, my plan for this particular course is to provide some mandatory readings in the traditional style (articles, encyclopedia entries, relevant videos, etc.) but in addition, to have them read a book with substantial relation to the topic we’re discussing. I would provide some recommendations on the book and on how best to obtain it, but I’d be open to student suggestions for relevant books as well. If it’s a book I’ve not read, I’ll do some digging and read up on it, seeing what others say about it before I give the student an affirmation or recommend a different book.

Hope that helps!

Very well put. As an interdisciplinary PhD student my work is multi-facetted reaching into several areas of research. Ultimately there are many more it reaches into that are not being addressed. It seems that in the university the tendency has been to narrow down the focus of research to a specialist perspective. In one way this is quite effective because it produces experts in finite areas. However, as you state, it is clear that nothing exists in isolation. I completely agree that universities should do more to promote and require a much more holistic view of any given research path.

I agree completely with your perspective. The cost of a university education of course promotes an issue that is common in most societies… the rich get richer as the poor get poorer. As it is, the university system in the U.S. greatly favors the wealthy. This is a myopic view because there are many highly intelligent potential students from all economic classes that will be excluded due to the expense and our society in general is suffering the loss. Those from the middle classes that are barely able to afford quality higher education often wind up in debt for the rest of their lives. Financially crippling our brightest minds is counter productive to a positively evolving society.

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