Assignments: Question Formation

A goal of this course is to examine how we pose questions and form problems, generally, and how the structure of questions and the nature of identified problems shapes our understanding of science, specifically.

We rarely consider the origin of questions and how their structure influences how we form, understand and solve problems. Numerous factors — our knowledge and reflective abilities, personal relationships, previous research and texts, resources, technology, social institutions, field of study — figure into the ways we pose questions and provide possible answers. In the context of this course, I want us to further develop our intuitions regarding the relationships among posing questions, configuring problems and our conceptions of the Internet.

In this assignment, you will form and present questions based on the course readings — or on issues and topics related to the readings. Your questions will lend the basis for class discussion. Class discussion will involve not only the issues raised in, and related to, the readings, but also will invite analyses of the questions themselves and the answers they prompt.

Five times during the semester, on selected Thursdays (please refer to the course calendar) I will ask you to bring three to five questions to class. The questions will be based on the assigned reading and/or on issues and topics related to the readings. For each question that you develop, I ask that you provide three references to the assigned text — or to outside texts — that lend a basis for how you formed the question and for how the question might be answered. For passages in assigned readings, you need only provide a page number. For passages in outside sources, please provide full, MLA-style citations. Please bring your questions and citations to class on the appropriate day. (I suggest printing and saving the questions and citations as a Word file.)

I will randomly select students to present their questions (making sure all get turns during the semester!) and, accordingly, prompt and lead class discussion.

After class, I ask that you post your questions and citations to the appropriate forum on the wiki. The posted questions will serve as a guide and archive to our discussions, as a possible basis for Thursday's discussion, and as examples for refining our ideas on posing questions and forming problems.

• For each designated Thursday on the course calendar I would like you to form three to five questions on the assigned reading and/or on issues related to the reading;
• For each question, I would like you to provide three references to the text or three full citations to related outside sources. Please bring the questions and citations to class on the appropriate day. Please save the questions and citations as a Word file;
• For each class discussion I will randomly select students to present their questions and citations as the basis for class discussion;
• For each class, please post your questions and citations to the wiki. In so doing we will have an archive of the questions and a way to trace our evolving sensibilities and standards during the semester.

As scheduled on the course calendar.