Hilary E. Davis

hdavis@yorku.ca

Virtual Office hours: by appointment on Zoom

ONLINE COURSE (100% online)

All required components are ASYNCHRONOUS

• The overall purpose of this and all Modes of Reasoning (MODR) courses is to teach students to reason correctly and to express themselves clearly and precisely in verbal and written form. These critical thinking skills will help students not only with the remainder of their academic studies, but also in their professional and personal lives in general.
• This course (MODR 1730) will introduce important critical thinking and analytical skills by focusing on arguments made about social issues found in the social science, science, ethics, and mass media. In the past these have included the refugee crisis, student debt, online dating, sexting, and Ebola screening at airports. You will learn how to distinguish between inductive and deductive reasoning and how to identify, evaluate, and construct arguments.  In addition, MODR 1730 will include a brief introduction to evaluating statistical and scientific information. You will be asked to develop arguments that arise from your personal interests and opinions as well as critical arguments that assess the writing of others.  Throughout the course our focus will include the analysis of various media such as the news and popular press, feature films, advertising and political rhetoric, blogs and websites, as well as academic writing and philosophical arguments in this field.
• This is an approved LAPS General Education course for Social Science.
• Course credit exclusions: AP/MODR 1770 6.00, AP/MODR 1760 6.00. This means you may not take this course for credit if you are currently enrolled in or have a credit in either MODR 1770 or MODR 1760.

To participate in the asynchronous portions of this course, students will require a computer and/or smart device an internet connection.

To meet with Prof. Davis during her virtual office hours on Zoom or to attend the optional bi-weekly Zoom classes, you will need a computer or smart device with webcam and microphone and a stable internet connection.  Zoom can be downloaded as an app on most smart phones.  Google chat is also an option for Prof. Davis’ virtual office hours.

Here are some 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

To determine Internet connection and speed, there are online tests, such as Speedtest, that can be run.

Lewis Vaughan.  Concise Guide to Critical Thinking, Second Edition.  (Oxford, 2020).

Mark Battersby.  Is That a Fact?  A Field Guide to Statistical and Scientific Information.  Second Edition.  (Broadview, 2016).

Times and locations:

• ONLINE COURSE (100% online)
• All required components are ASYNCHRONOUS

• Lectures are pre-recorded and students will view them asynchronously.
• Bi-weekly quizzes and online forum activities are also asynchronous.
• All course materials will be accessed through eClass.
• There are non-negotiable bi-weekly deadlines for quizzes and forum activities. Assignment deadlines are also non-negotiable.
• There will be optional bi-weekly Zoom classes on Tuesday mornings.
• Course material (e.g. video lectures, handouts, web links, practice exercises, forum activities, etc.) will be posted on eClass on Tuesdays by midnight.
• Modules, assignments, quizzes, forum activities will not be opened in advance of their scheduled date.
• All deadlines and launch times are Eastern Standard Time.
• All bi-weekly quizzes and forum activities will be due at 11:59pm EST on Thursdays.

By the end of this course, if you apply yourself, do all the reading, watch all pre-recorded lectures, and complete all assignments, activities, and quizzes, you can expect to see improvement in the following areas:

• Reading Comprehension: You will become a more active reader which includes learning how to ask critical questions.
• Writing: You will learn how to write two different types of arguments – a Rogerian Argument essay and classically structured essay.  Your essay planning, organization, and editing should also improve.
• Critical Reasoning Skills: You will learn to identify and evaluate arguments in order to distinguish strong from weak arguments.  This will include learning how to evaluate evidence and sources used in arguments and those you use in your own research.
• Critical Thinking Skills: Ideally, you will learn to become a 'reasonable skeptic' and become able to identify and discuss the weaknesses and strengths in claims and arguments you encounter in the media, academic texts, and everyday conversation.

Course policies

• The lecture slides, handouts, and all materials found on this site are for the personal use only of students who are registered in this course, MODR 1730A. They are for educational purposes only and intended only to enhance accessibility. The instructor of this course holds the copyright to this material and does not give permission for any course material to be to duplicated, copied, and/or distributed outside of the class.  Nor do students have permission to upload course materials to commercial websites, file sharing websites or apps, or social media.  Anytime you download material from this eClass site you agree to these terms. Any person who uploads or shares course material without the instructor's permission violates copyright regulations and also FIPPA  and will face serious consequences.

• In this course, all work should be completed by you and you alone. As such, you are not allowed to use generative artificial intelligence (AI), such as ChatGPT, to help you complete any of your work in this course (e.g., tests, papers, assignments, presentations, etc.). If you do not know whether an online resource or tool can be used in this course, please contact me for guidance. Any use of generative AI in this course will be considered a breach of the Senate Policy on Academic Honesty http://www.yorku.ca/policies/senate.

• Plagiarism and other misappropriation of the work of another will not be tolerated in this course. Plagiarism is the representation of another person's ideas or writing as one's own. The most obvious form of this kind of dishonesty is the presentation of all or part of another person's published work as something one has written. However, paraphrasing another's writing without proper acknowledgement may also be considered plagiarism. It is also a violation of academic honesty to represent another's artistic or technical work or creation as one's own. Just as there are standards to which one must adhere in the preparation and publication of written works, there are standards to which one must adhere in the creation and presentation of music, drawings, designs, dance, photography and other artistic and technical works. In different forms, these constitute a theft of someone else's work. This is not to say that students should not use the work of others with the proper acknowledgement.  It is also a violation of academic honesty to forge another student’s signature on an attendance sheet.  Please see the Senate Policy on Academic Honesty at http://www.yorku.ca/policies/senate.
• Students do not have permission to record and capture images from Zoom. Any optional Zoom sessions will not be recorded by the instructor.

Successful academic performance includes students not only completing assignments, but completing them on time. Late penalties are applied to assignments submitted after the due date. Exceptions to the late penalty can be presented to the course director by email for consideration. All essays must be uploaded to Turnitin via eClass.

• An assignment will be considered late one minute past the Turnitin deadline.

• You are strongly encouraged to avoid uploading assignments within the last hour of a deadline. If, for whatever reason, your document does not upload, it will be considered late.
• There will be no opportunity to make-up missed bi-weekly quizzes or bi-weekly forum activities.  If you miss these deadlines, you will receive a “0” for the assigned work. 

• The lowest 2 marks will be dropped for both the quizzes and the forum activities. This is to say that of the 12 bi-weekly quizzes only the highest 10 will count toward your final mark and of the 12 bi-weekly forum activities only the highest 10 will count toward your final mark.
• No make-up work or outstanding assignments will be accepted after Monday, April 10^th