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Modes Of Inquiry Descriptions

1. Understanding the Natural World

Courses in this Mode apply the methodology of science to examine the natural universe. These courses include a laboratory or field component in which students investigate natural phenomena. Students in these courses should:

• learn and apply the scientific method;
• recognize science as a creative enterprise;
• experience science as an investigative, inquiry-driven activity;
• acquire the skills to operate the instrumentation of laboratory and/or field;
• understand the power of theory, models, and prediction.

Necessary conditions for courses satisfying this requirement are:

1. The course must explicitly examine how the discovery of scientific truths is a creative process involving imagination, intuition, logical analysis, and chance.
2. The course must engage the student in the use of scientific method by formulating hypotheses, designing experiments, and arriving at conclusions based on empirical evidence.
3. The course must instruct the student in basic observational skills and their extension by use of instrumentation to detect, record, quantify, and analyze phenomena of nature.
4. The course must include a lab or a field component in which students investigate natural phenomena.
5. The course must develop in the student an appreciation for a healthy skepticism in science, a recognition of the limits of scientific inquiry, and an understanding of how scientific paradigms are ultimately challenged.

2. Creating in the Arts

Courses that satisfy this requirement would seek to provide and an understanding of the creative process as a means of discovery, exploration and self-expression. Students in these courses should:

• acquire basic experience in an artistic medium;
• develop an understanding and appreciation for process in creative expression;
• negotiate between conceptual ideas and serendipitous opportunity/discovery
• discover expression;
• exhibit or present their work publicly.

Necessary conditions for courses satisfying this requirement are:

1. The course must require the student to engage personally in the process to make or create something, to give form to some aspect of self-expression.
2. The course must require students to develop an initial conceptual idea and to attempt, through the creative process - a process of discovery, exploration and negotiation - to give form to the idea (or development of that idea).
3. The course must include an appreciation and recognition of the chance discoveries that naturally occur in the creative process - and encourage students to utilize and exploit those where appropriate
4. The course must require of students a public demonstration, presentation or exhibition of their work(s) - at least within the classroom, preferably beyond

3. Analyzing Arguments, Reasons, and Values

Courses that satisfy this requirement focus on the critical analysis and evaluation of the principles of reasoned normative discourse. Students in these courses should:

• understand the nature and structure of arguments
• know how to apply various criteria of evaluation to arguments
• recognize that it is possible to reason and draw meaningful conclusions about matters of ethical or aesthetic value.

Necessary conditions for courses satisfying this requirement are:

1. The course must explicitly examine the nature and structure of argument. (Thus, the fact that a course presents arguments on topics, and even asks students to weigh arguments, would not be sufficient for inclusion.)
2. The course must explicitly address the principles and criteria for evaluating arguments. (It is not sufficient that arguments be evaluated if no attention is paid to the critical standards of evaluation.) Further, the course should recognize that there are different standards by which arguments may be evaluated
3. The course must be concerned, at least in part, with how one can reason effectively about normative matters, such as questions of ethics or aesthetics. (So, for example, a course in Symbolic Logic or Epistemology which examines the principles of argument and the nature of evidence would not be included unless it also included a substantial normative component.)

4. Thinking Historically

Courses that satisfy this requirement develop students' understanding of the temporal dimension of human social existence. By studying historical periods and cultures, students in these courses should:

• understand how human consciousness, action and agency are historically embedded
• perceive the relation of change and continuity in human experience;
• experience how the study of the past helps one to make sense of the present and to anticipate the future.

Necessary conditions for courses satisfying this requirement are:

1. The course must be concerned primarily with phenomena of social or cultural institutions, artifacts, ideas, etc. as they are situated historically. Thus, the fact that a course is concerned with phenomena in temporal sequence, even over long spans of time, would not be sufficient for inclusion. For example geology courses or courses in evolutionary biology, even the evolution of Homo sapiens as a species, would probably not qualify.
2. The course must be concerned with phenomena as they are situated in their historical social or cultural contexts. Thus, the fact that a course is concerned with something cultural and old would not by itself be sufficient, not even if it addresses the phenomena in their temporal development. A course in the History of Philosophy, for example, that addresses only the development of ideas, but not how those ideas are situated in the social contexts of their times, would probably not qualify.
3. The course must be concerned with temporal development or change. The mere fact that a course is concerned with something cultural within its social setting would not by itself be sufficient. For example, a course in the History of the Civil War would not qualify if it did not address the relation of the Civil War to what occurred earlier and what followed in the aftermath of the war.
4. The course must be concerned with causal relations between elements in the temporal sequence, and how historical explanations are a form of causal explanation. Temporal sequencing by itself is not sufficient. Thus a course that merely chronicles the events of the Civil War would not qualify.

5. Interpreting Texts

Courses that satisfy this requirement develop students' skills in analyzing and understanding representations of human experience. The texts being interpreted might be literary works, films, music compositions, rituals, performances, ethnographies, or other modes of cultural inscription. In studying cultural representations and the process of their interpretation, students in these courses should:

• consider various styles, genres, or forms of textual communication
• study various interpretive strategies and problems;
• explore how texts embody cultural values;
• examine dynamic relations among author, reader, and text

Necessary conditions for courses that would satisfy the requirement are:

1. The course must attend to formal elements of representations, not just to their contents. The fact that a course includes the reading or viewing of cultural representations would not in itself be a sufficient condition. The course must be concerned wi th the material of representation, such as language, shot composition, gesture, costume.
2. The course must attend to the ways that formal elements signify cultural values and to the ways the texts in question constitute, alter, or transform culture; that is, to the material shaping of world views, priorities, or themes. These might include attitudes toward the relations of humans to the natural world, toward social hierarchies, or toward other cultural boundaries.
3. The course must foreground the process of interpreting texts; attending to, for instance, the effects of readers' expectations, intended and unintended audiences, the complexity of semiotic systems.

6. Understanding Society

Courses that satisfy this requirement develop students' understanding of social phenomena by analyzing and explaining human behavior and social institutions and practices. Students in these courses should:

• recognize the dynamic interplay between human agency and social structure
• analyze the social processes that underlie or result in specific social institutions, events, or outcomes
• develop models or theories to explain social phenomena and evaluate those through observation and the collection of data;
• evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the methods and theories employed.

Necessary conditions for courses that would satisfy this requirement are:

1. The course must be concerned primarily with social practices, processes, and institutions as they influence or grow out of human behavior. (Thus a wholly descriptive course on a specific society would not be sufficient.)
2. The course must help students understand the uses of imagination, conjecture, and theory in analyzing social phenomena.
3. The course must develop students' skills in evaluating methods and evidence used in the construction of explanatory theories or models.