INTRODUCTION TO CRITICAL THINKING

PHIL 1010.50 -- SUMMER 2001

Bob Corbett, instructor

Meets: 10-12 on Monday and Wednesday

BELOW YOU WILL FIND INFORMATION ON:

Various essays and pointers on topics in critical thinking

• Course Objectives
• Readings
• Syllabus
• Course Requirements and Grading

• Course Objectives (short version).

  Critical Thinking is an activity in which we all already engage. Most of us do it in a fairly unskilled and erratic manner. This course is aimed to help students become more reflectively aware of critical thinking and to practice some of the basic skills needed to practice it well.

  Note that I say I aim:

  • to make you more reflectively aware of thinking critically
  • to practice some skills

  I consciously avoid claiming that I can TEACH this skill. I believe the critical thinking "teacher" is sort of in the same position as a coach in a sport. There are basic skills which most serious players will have seen and tried, often adapting some version of these skills into their game. The coach tries to point out, even name the various skills or "moves" and then works with the players to practice the skills. But some will get them and some not, and while discipline, commitment, seriousness of purpose and such things are great virtues and help in considerable measure, critical thinking, like sports, is not something at which a teacher/coach can guarantee success.

  I say a good deal more about the details of these skills in a longer essay. It is available on my course web site.

• Readings

  We will read a several short pieces by Corbett about various critical skills, and a three essays which are NOT about critical thinking, but which we will use for practice. I will post all readings to my web site and you will not have any materials to purchase.

• The Syllabus

• Course Requirements and Grading

  Grading: While I will grade each individual assignment, the grade of the course will not be merely the sum of the individual grades. Rather, I will take into account an overall sense of quality in the general tone of one's work. However, the sum of one's individual grades will certainly be a strong indication of where one stands. In a rough sense the assigments will be valued in this fashion:

  Grading

  • Attendance: This will be only a negative possibility. You begin will full credit.
    • If you miss more than 2 class your grade will be lowered one full letter grade.
    • If you miss more than 3 classes your grade will be lowered two full letter grades.
    • If you miss more than 4 classes your grade will be lowered three full letter grades.
    • If you miss 6 classes you will receive a grade of F.
    • Special note on being late:  Our class begins at 10 AM, sharp. That doesn't not mean 10:01 or after. I will count everyone present who is in the room at 10 AM when we begin. Others will be counted as late. Were a person to be more than 10 minutes late then they are regarded as having missed the entire first hour. Three grades of late (that is, late at all, but less than 10 minutes late) will count as having missed an entire 1/2 class.
    • Special note on breaks.I will give a TEN MINUTE break near mid-class. I have had serious problems in classes in Vienna in starting up again after 10 minutes. At EXACTELY 10 minutes after the break begins I will once again take attendance and the same policy will be used as at the beginning of class. More than three times being at ALL late in return, counts as having missed an entire 1/2 class, and being more than 10 minutes late from break also counts as having missed the entire hour.
  • General work required and graded
    • Sum of the analytic papers: 30%
    • Sum of the critical papers: 30%
    • Paper on Corbett's essays: 10%
    • General contribution to class discussion: 15%
    • The final exam: 15%
    • total:
    • ......................100%

    Three important additional notes:
• I will only give a grade of incomplete in a very unusual circumstance, one in which the student was doing all work in a timely and acceptable fashion and then some major catastrophe strikes, one for which the student can give evidence of and which is seriously debilitating. Even then, an incomplete would be negotiated toward the shortest reasonable time to fulfill the work with no extensions. In only the rarest occasions would a grade for a fulfilled incomplete ever be higher than a C.
• Alternative grading procedure is possible:  Were any student unhappy with the above grading procedure, the student is welcome to begin discussion with Corbett toward forming an alternative grading procedure. This would take an initial discussion with the Corbett which would be initiated by the student. Were an agreement reached then the student has the responsibility to write up the new grading contract and have it signed by both Corbett and the student. Such a contract would have to be signed and finished, and a copy given to Corbett, before the third week of classes had ended.
• A statement on plagiarism. Plag1arism is turning in any written work as one's own which was written by someone else. This is a completely unacceptable behavior in the academic world and is counted as a clear case of cheating. Any student caught plagiarizing in this class will be given an F for the entire course. No second chances will be given. The policy is firm and absolute.

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