Honors courses provide a rigorous and creative academic experience for highly motivated students. To foster this experience, honors faculty use clear assessment methodologies and explicitly incorporate two or more of Lane's Institutional Learning Outcomes: think critically; engage diverse values with civic and ethical awareness; create ideas and solutions; communicate effectively; and apply learning. Faculty assess this value-added experience through the design of the honors component. Honors courses are further distinguished from non-honors courses by more frequent and more in-depth use of selected components from at least two of the categories listed below.
Formats and Methodologies
- Student participation
- Student ownership of classroom topics, projects, and/or assessment
- Interdisciplinary approach
- Creativity
Research and Writing
- Research opportunities
- Independent and/or collaborative inquiry: reading, research, conjecture (fewer topics/ in-depth)
- Conscious engagement with disciplinary methodologies
- Source sophistication and assessment
- Writing assignments that expect and practice the above qualities
Critical Thinking
- In-depth critical thinking
- metacognition
- Problem-seeking/problem-solving
- Application of learning in novel situations
- Written or discussion-based student reflection on learning
Professionalization and Leadership
- Field trips, speakers, consultants
- Service learning
- Classroom leadership (individual and distributed)
- Civic engagement
- Professional-level presentations