Learning Outcomes
The following were developed by W.A. Franke Honors Faculty as programmatic outcomes. We envisage that all University of Arizona alumni who graduate with Honors will be able to say, As a Franke Honors graduate, I am able to:
Ethical Reasoning
Exhibit ethical reasoning in academic, professional, and personal contexts as engaged contributors to intersecting cultural worlds and natural environments.
Critical Thinking, Creative Inquiry, and Research
Develop research and critical thinking skills to analyze and evaluate arguments, develop individual understanding, and communicate effectively.
Interdisciplinary Thinking
Integrate learning and knowledge across multiple disciplines to engage with complex questions and vital issues.
Intercultural and Global Understanding
Learn from and develop respect for different identities and perspectives to engage with and serve diverse communities locally and globally.
Collaboration and Leadership
Practice working effectively in collaboration, integrating the talents and experiences of ourselves and others, while including and motivating our community.
Holistic Engagement
Incorporate learning outcomes into our contributions, reflecting upon our experiences and evaluating our roles as scholars and community members.
Pedagogical Approach
If you are designing an Honors course experience — whether that's an honors contract, an honors section of your course, or a Franke Honors seminar — you might want to explore FIDDLES! This acronym was developed by Prof. Jennie McStotts during her Faculty Learning Communities about teaching for Honors; it isn't meant to be a checklist of new things you have to add to your class. Honors should be a qualitative difference, and FIDDLES is inspiration for ways you might enrich an Honors experience.
- F stands for faculty time or face-to-face. Many students seek Honors experiences because they want direct contact with the expertise you bring to the curriculum. Enrichment in this area could include requiring the Honors students to work with the professor one-on-one on certain projects or meet with them in office hours for a deeper discussion or more detailed feedback on drafts.
- I stands for interdisciplinarity. In this area, students might be asked to draw connections between course concepts and their major or to compare the course discipline’s approach to another discipline. Adding an interdisciplinary lens to an existing project will vary greatly depending on the material. In a very niche class, an interdisciplinary activity could be asking, “How would you explain [this material] to someone outside of this field?”
- DD stands for deeper dive. Sometime faculty replace an exam with a project to allow Honors students to go deeper on a topic than their peers. This also might overlap significantly with other aspects of FIDDLES.
- D can also stand for dimension. Is there another perspective you could add to a project, such as a historical, social, or ethical dimension? For example, students already doing a lit review could go a step further and address the ethical concerns raised by the research they reviewed. Students might be able to choose an ideological or theoretical lens to look through, enriching an existing assignment.
- L stands for leadership. This looks different in every class, but in some examples, Honors students engaged in peer instruction or were offered opportunities for leadership in and out of the classroom. As an indirect example, some Honors students have developed student-facing materials that could then be used to teach the next cohort of their major.
- E stands for experiential. Is there a way for the Honors students to apply their knowledge? In one example, the non-Honors assignment was to perform a certain type of analysis on a provided data set; Honors students identified their own data sets or even conducted interviews/surveys to get the additional experience of gathering their own data.
- S stands for student-centered. This is perhaps the keystone of all Honors experiences. If possible, give students the autonomy and intellectual space to shape their own projects – let their curiosity drive the experience.