Cael Cohen, PhD

Email: cmcohen@yorku.ca

Telephone or Text: 647-880-1237

In-Person Office Hours: Monday, 9:00 am – 11:00 am, 447 South Ross Building.

Zoom Office Hours: By Appointment.

Course Description

This skills-based course teaches learners how to read, write and think independently, critically, and for meaning, through:

• A collection of critical skills, practices, techniques, attitudes, and principles that can be used every day to systematically evaluate your own and others’ reasoning about morality and values.
• An approach to ethical disagreements and controversial moral issues using rational standards and mindfulness awareness.
• Critical assessment and formulation of ethical beliefs, arguments, and concepts based on relevant, acceptable, and sufficient grounds, rather than passive acceptance.

Why should learners bother taking this course?

• Increase ability to assess situations and act in a way that reflects reasoned assessment and choices.
• Understand the world more clearly.
• Clarify confusing ideas.
• Analyze reasons and claims.
• Evaluate the quality of claims and arguments.
• Gain a better understanding of who you are by enhancing your autonomy, what you believe, and who you can become.
• Give you more control of your life by grounding your understanding, decisions, and actions on reason rather than merely on a gut feeling, habit, or social convention.
• Read for meaning better and systematically assess what is read.
• Think more independently.
• Formulate stronger, more convincing arguments that depend on relevant, sufficient, and acceptable reasons.

General Education course. There are course credit exclusions on MODR1730, 1760, and 1770 as a set.  Students cannot take two Modes of Reasoning courses for credit.

TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS:

• A stable, higher-speed, internet connection.
• Purchased copy of INTERACTIVE DIGITAL TEXTBOOK, Critical Thinking: Argument & Argumentation (2e) in Top Hat.
• Laptop, personal computer, or cell phone that can access the internet during class time.

Useful links for student computing information, resources, and help:

• Student Guide to EClass
• Zoom@YorkU Best Practices
• Zoom@YorkU User Reference Guide
• Computing for Students Website
• Student Guide to eLearning at York University

• There are 2 required, mandatory, textbooks for this course.

TEXTBOOK 1: Do NOT purchase a hard, paper copy of this textbook. This course will be using only an INTERACTIVE, DIGITAL TEXTBOOK. This digital textbook is MANDATORY and contains important testable course content.

• ISBN for Critical Thinking: Argument & Argumentation (2e) in Top Hat is 9781774126004. Course JOIN CODE is 046320.
• Digital codes can be ordered from https://bookstore.tophat.com/s/

We will be using Top Hat (www.tophat.com) to access the digital interactive textbook, Critical Thinking: Argument & Argumentation, that we will be using in this class. For instructions on how to create a Top Hat account and enroll in our Top Hat course, please refer to the invitation sent to your school email address or consult Top Hat's Getting Started Guide (https://bit.ly/31TGMlw).

If you already have a Top Hat account, go to https://app.tophat.com/e/150202 to be taken directly to our course. If you are new to Top Hat, follow the link in the email invitation you received or...

• Go to https://app.tophat.com/register/student
• Click "Search by school" and input the name of our school
• Search for our course with the following JOIN CODE: 046320

Top Hat is included in the York University “Day1Digital program” and for students that are opted into this program, Top Hat is available to you at no additional cost. For any students that have opted out of the program, you will need to purchase your Top Hat subscription directly from the Top Hat platform after a certain point in the semester. You will be prompted to purchase access a few weeks into the semester.

Students start opted out.  With the link added to the eClass site for this course, students can still click on the ‘Temporary Access’ button and receive temporary access with no cost or obligation for the first 14 days of the term.  After that, or during the 14-day period, students can click to ‘opt-in’ if they want to purchase access and their university student account will be billed for the e-book fee.  Students will only be billed if they click to opt in.  If a student never clicks on the link, or only clicks for temporary access they will not be billed so there is no chance of them being charged without consent.  If they withdraw before the withdrawal deadline, they will not be billed, even if they opted in.  Benefits apply, such as being HST exempt, saving students 13% more.

If you have any questions about this or encounter any issues purchasing/redeeming your Top Hat subscription, please reach out to support@tophatmonocle.com for assistance. Should you require assistance with Top Hat at any time please contact their Support Team directly by way of email (support@tophat.com), the in-app support button, or by calling 1-888-663-5491. Specific user information may be required by their technical support team when troubleshooting issues.

Should you require assistance with Top Hat at any time please contact their Support Team directly by way of email (support@tophat.com), the in-app support button, or by calling 1-888-663-5491. Specific user information may be required by their technical support team when troubleshooting issues.

TEXTBOOK 2: Only available as a hard, paper book. No eBooks or digital copies are available.

• The second required text for this course is: On Bullshit (2005) by Harry G. Frankfurt, Princeton University Press.
• This small book can be purchased at the York University bookstore or used copies online.

COURSE FORMAT:

• This is an in person course consisting of 3 Modules containing 19 Lessons:
  • Module 1: Foundations of Argument and Argumentation
  • Module 2: Identifying and Assessing Concepts
  • Module 3: Identifying and Assessing Extended Arguments
• The course content is delivered in 3 ways:
  • In-person classes
  • EClass
  • Tophat.com
  • YouTube
• To access the EClass course site, you need to log in with your passport York @ eclass.yorku.ca.

• To access the www.tophat.com interactive, digital textbook, please see the previous/above section of this course outline about the required textbooks and tophat.com.
• Each in-person class is composed of mini-lessons and lesson resources, exercises or quizzes.

Class Participation → What it takes to succeed in this course:

• You should be completing all coursework by the deadlines posted.
• If you are accessing this course from a different time zone, please be aware that all deadlines and launch times are Eastern Standard Time.  You are responsible for meeting all deadlines even if you are in a different time zone.
• Each lesson involves required readings and resources in the INTERACTIVE DIGITAL TEXTBOOK followed by completing ASSESSMENTS, such as exercises and quizzes.
• Everyone in this course is expected to treat each other with respect. In the online, EClass environment, without the visual cues and shared understanding of acceptable behavior in face-to-face situations, it can be helpful to agree on basic ‘netiquette’ (online etiquette). Please refer to the “Netiquette” document posted to the EClass course site for a summary of expected online behavior.
• This course is skills-based, consequently, this course requires the completion of mandatory exercises and quizzes, and optional learning activities to learn and practice the skills. You do NEED to keep up. To become strong at any skill, practice is needed. Accordingly, there is an emphasis on continuous engagement in the lessons. If you anticipate not reading and attending classes due to conflicts with work, your other classes, or personal commitments, you are strongly urged to rethink whether you should enroll in this course.

By the end of this course, if you apply yourself, do all the readings, view all lesson recordings and coaching materials, and fully participate, you can expect to see improvement in your reading, writing, critical reasoning and critical thinking skills in the following areas:

• Clarify meaning in arguments and passages.
• Recognize and avoid prejudicial and emotional rhetoric in arguments.
• Analyze, identify, portray, and assess non-deductive arguments.
• Identify, neutralize, and avoid common errors in reasoning, specifically informal logical fallacies.
• Analyze, practice, and assess dynamic processes of verbal argumentation with others, including constructing and presenting arguments, and challenging and responding to those challenges in an ongoing dialogue.
• Recognize and identify some core patterns that help define the key features of an ideal argumentation encounter.
• Identify, analyze, and assess concepts or abstract ideas in ordinary contexts.
• Use the techniques of reasoning by cases, similarities and differences, and conjectures and refutations to analyze cases and develop criteria for the meaning of concepts or ideas.
• Determine the meaning of abstract ideas using reasoning by cases.
• Develop skills required to read and listen for meaning.
• Recognize and develop necessary skills for ethical disagreement.

Academic Integrity:

Students are reminded of the University’s definitions of academic offences and the policy of the University regarding academic misconduct. Please review York’s policies on academic integrity at https://spark.library.yorku.ca/academic-integrity-what-is-academic-integrity/

Plagiarism is a serious offense. It includes using the ideas of another author without citing the source, copying from another piece of writing, and not providing adequate documentation for your source whenever possible (i.e., author, title, publisher, and year of publication). When in doubt, please reference or inquire. Self-plagiarism occurs when you hand in work previously submitted elsewhere for academic credit. Please see the instructor if you are uncertain about any of this.

Unauthorized Collaboration is a form of “cheating” and means working with others without the specific permission of the instructor on assignments that will be submitted for a grade. Students may not collaborate without faculty authorization. All work submitted for a grade must be the student’s own original, independent work, unless the instructor permits collaboration, use of sources, or outside assistance. Students must comply with the course rules, and may only work together, or receive help, to the extent allowed by the instructor. If unsure about the limits, students must seek the instructor’s permission before working with one another. Even if the instructor permits collaboration, it is never ethical to copy someone’s work or let them copy yours, unless specified by the instructor. If your instructor asks whether you worked with anyone on an assignment, always tell the truth.

STUDENT ACCESSIBILITY SERVICES (SAS)

York provides services for students with disabilities (including physical, medical, learning, and psychiatric disabilities) needing accommodation related to teaching and evaluation methods/materials. These services are made available to students in all Faculties and programs at York University. Students in need of these services are asked to register with disability services as early as possible to ensure that appropriate academic accommodation can be provided with advance notice. Additional information is available at: https://accessibility.students.yorku.ca/.  Students with diverse learning styles and needs are welcome in this course. If you have a disability/health consideration that may require accommodations, please feel free to approach the instructor and/or Student Accessibility Services as soon as possible. The professor will work with you and Accessibility Services as soon as possible. The instructor will work with you and Accessibility Services to ensure your rights and entitlements are upheld and that you have access to an equitable environment so you can achieve your learning goals in this course. Enquiries are confidential.

COPYRIGHT: Course materials, including the syllabus, lectures, and summaries reflective of course content, are made available for the personal use of students and may not be commercially distributed or reproduced without the instructor’s express written consent. The educational materials developed for this course, including, but not limited to, lecture notes and slides, handout materials, examinations and assignments, and any materials posted to EClass, are the intellectual property of the course director. These materials have been developed for student use only and they are not intended for wider dissemination and/or communication outside of a given course. Posting or providing unauthorized audio, video, or textual material of lecture content to third-party websites violates an instructor’s intellectual property rights, and the Canadian Copyright Act. Failure to follow these instructions may be in contravention of the university’s Code of Student Conduct and/or Code of Academic Conduct and will result in appropriate penalties. Participation in this course constitutes an agreement by all parties to abide by the relevant University Policies, and to respect the intellectual property of others during and after their association with York University.

Note Sharing Websites:

The Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies Dean's Office maintains that any student who uploads course material on Note Sharing Websites (NSW) (including, but not limited to Course Hero, Studocu, Oneclass, Chegg, Studysoup, Stuvia, Studydrive, Studentshare and 123Helpme) without permission of the instructor violates York's Academic Honesty Policy, even if that material is not used by another student to cheat or plagiarize. Uploading course material onto an NSW potentially violates two sections of the Senate Policy:

2.1.6 Dissemination of information without permission. Information or experimental data that was collected with a member of faculty or another student, and other works that involved the participation of a faculty member or another student, should not be submitted for publication or otherwise disseminated without their permission.

2.1.10 Encouraging, enabling or causing others to do or attempt any of the above with intent to mislead an instructor, academic unit, program, office, or committee as to a student's academic status, qualifications, actions or preparation, or knowingly aiding or abetting anyone in a breach of academic honesty shall itself be considered misconduct. Taking any action which can reasonably be interpreted as intending to encourage or enable others to commit an offence of academic honesty.