Portland
Inquiry and Critical Thinking
Students will learn various modes of inquiry through interdisciplinary curricula- problem-posing, investigating, conceptualizing- in order to become active, self motivated, and empowered learners.
Reading Responses
Reflecting on our reading deepens our understanding of the text and makes us more effective participants in class. Each week’s reading will be accompanied by a prompt, posted on D2L. You must complete 5 of 7 reading responses, 350-500 words. (Include the word count at the bottom of the page) If you complete all seven, I will drop the grade on the lowest two. There will be no extra credit, for completing more than five.
Inquiry is searching for an information. Critical thinking is deeply thinking beyond the text. Together inquiry and critical thinking allow us to come up with a new idea that has evidence from that reading by understanding the texts from various disciplines and expanding those ideas to new ideas in an individual way. Critical thinking let students to come up with new ideas using the text to explore ,and asking their own questions. Having this skill is very helpful for me in order to be a successful student. Most academic classes expect their students to have inquiry and critical thinking. This goal helps me as a student think more logically.
Reading response#1 helps to achieve this goal. The instruction for RR#1 was based on the reading the reading from the National Geographic website, the podcast you listened to, and the short writing from Wood, Kaiser and Abrams. I was supposed to explain in my own words what geography is and how knowing the geography of a place (like Portland) helps you to understand the place better. How is studying the geography of Portland similar and/or different than studying its history? How do maps influence how we understand a place like Portland?
A reading response is a long essay. It’s a short version of writing. However, it focuses on the main idea instead of little details. It should also have an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. The first reading response helps me as a student understands what the geography is through different media: reading and a podcast. It motivates me to come up with my own words to answer the question and how I understand it. Comparing things between a podcast and a reading guided me how they related to each other. One piece of reading may not make sense to me ,but after listening to the podcast it may help me to have a better understanding in that particular topic. A reading response can reflect my understanding of what I read and listen to ,and translate that understanding into a short piece of writing. A reading response helps me to think more deeply than just reading the text. A combination of my own ideas with evidence from reading is a new idea. It should be one of skills a student should have in order to do well in college career.
The Diversity of Human Experience
Students will enhance their appreciation for understanding of the rich complexity of the human experience through the study of differences in ethnic and cultural perspectives, class, race, gender, sexual orientation, and ability.
Field assignments are a way for us to experience the geography of Portland beyond the classroom. We will go out into the city and home our powers of observation through our senses, and we will record and reflect on them through writing, drawing, and photography. There will be one field assignment for each unit of the course: physical, political, economic, and cultural geography. Each must be recorded in your field notebook, scanned, and uploaded as a PDF. The use of field notebook comes from a long tradition of drawing and writing in the social sciences, architecture and urban planning. Students will continue to use their field notebook from Fall Quarter, in which we practice ways of thinking on paper through writing and drawing. You are responsible for replacing your field notebook if you lose it or if it is full.
Field assignments are assignments that let me explore the city of Portland. They have me go outside the classroom to experience new things. The new experiences that I have gone had me met many different people and cultures. While I am out in the city, I collect the data I need based on the instructions. I take the pictures, observe feelings, and smell. When I get back home, I write down things that I have learned.
The first field assignment was finding physical geography in Portland. It’s required me to go an expedition by a public transit to one of Portland’s notable physical geographic features and do some research on what makes that point geographically significant. How was it formed ,and when? The information I observed when I went was where I went, how I got there by transit, date and time of day I went, weather, some photos of that place or feature, notes about what I observed, using all of my senses, and what about the place makes it an important physical feature of landscapes.
This field assignment let me go to a place by a public transportation which means I get to explore more about Portland. I get to see and experience more things than going on a private ride. I have learned more about noticing things since the public transportation does not stop exactly tell me where to get off. I got off at the wrong MAX station on this trip. It was confusing and exciting. I have learned that I should have read a map well before get on or get off the transportation. I took some photos, draw pictures, and wrote down some note about the place I went. I did some more research to expand my knowledge on this physical geography.
Studying outside the classroom tends to have me engaged with a topic sometimes better than listening to a lecture in the classroom. Field assignments can be done in a group. It’s also more fun when going with friends. I can also have more information with them than I might noticed myself. People learn things in different ways. Some may learn more from studying over and over again. Some may learn better with pictures. I learn better with pictures and colors. A field assignment helps every types of learners. They can express the world they see in a field notebook. The field notebook is a reflection of what I have learned over time. It has been filling up with many new experiences, and good memories I have gained since I have taken Portland course.
Communication
Students will enhance their capacity to communicate in various ways-writing, graphics, numeracy, and other visual and oral means-to collaborate effectively with others in group work, and to be competent in appropriate communication technology.
Communication is the way people connect to other people. It’s something everybody goes through in their lives. Good communication is one of the skills that a student should have in a college career. A college student should be able to communicate with a professor or a classmate well. If a student is not good at this skill, it’s hard to do everything else. Students also have many writing assignments to do in each class that are related to communicating to other people. They need to express their thoughts clearly through the paper. It can be writing, drawing, graphing and many more. If they aren’t clear, a professor may have a hard time to understand all of these.
I learned to communicate in several ways when I went to visit Oregon Historical Society for my first assignment in Spring term. There were many various exhibits that were shown at Oregon Historical Society. One of the exhibits was the podcast that was a voice record of an interview with an immigrant. I think this way students can learn differently from going on a field trip: instead of listening to a lecture ,students can learn by themselves. In addition, by looking at the photos, I learned about the situation expressed in them without any words. The description under each photo lets people understand more about the photo if they don’t fully get the point. The exhibits that are tools for living for Chinese immigrant are telling people how they were used in the past. The tools let them learn about Chinese immigrants culture. I saw the written document about Chinese immigrant. We can understand the communication in the past that it was not as good as the present. In the future, communication will be even better than it is now. Communication in technology is one of the most important factors now because people now communicate through online a lot more.
This assignment, I was required to write a reflection to Oregon Historical Society. I had to include what I learned in this course for 3 terms that linked to this assignment. Writing a reflection helped me become to be a better communicator because I had to figure out how to show my professor what I have learned in order for her to understand the experience.This assignment also included my personal experience in the past. It was about what I learned that was related to me when I went on a field trip. From the field trips, I saw many exhibits which were representing communication in various ways. They all helped me understand the place better. This assignment also could be done with classmates. They can be helpful for students when they have a hard time understanding an exhibit. They also can do a writing part together and share about an experience in their perspectives.
Ethical and Social Responsibility
Students will expand their understanding of their choices on society, both intellectually and socially, through group projects and collaboration in learning communities.
Ethics are the rules in society. If people break ethical rules , it would not be illegal. People sort of give them a funny look instead or they might think that person isn’t taught appropriately. Something might not break the law ,but it breaks the ethical rule which is not appropriate. However, if they break the law, it would be illegal. Social responsibility is the duties that we have for society. These two words have quite similar meanings. So they both are put together and make them to be one of the University Studies goals. Living outside from the house is not easy. Living in the society with many people is one thing that everybody is doing now. When a lot of people live together, they make rules that would not cause them a lot of problems with each other. Therefore, they can peacefully live together. People outside from the house do not know others personally. Since they do not know them personally, people judge people from the outside. They are judged by how they speak, how they dress, and how they act. People learn these kind of things outside from the classroom ,but these things are also used in the classroom because a classroom is also one of the communities that every college student will experience.
Going to a public meeting is one ways of collaboration in learning communities. When people go out from the house, they are mostly likely to learn at least new thing from society every day because nobody knows everything perfectly. People can learn these things or rules outside of classroom. When people go to a public meeting, they should nicely dress. It’s one of the things people learn outside of the classroom. Students should know what to do in public in order for society to accept them. In this meeting, they talked about the accessibility in the park. I personally thought it was an interesting to me. They discussed how open they should be for the public. They were worried that people and animals will make the park messy. This was one of the reasons that they wanted to make the park private. This was related to this University Studies goal how people should have a responsibility to clean up after themselves or their pets since the park is for everyone. Since the park is for everyone, I think it is fair for everyone could have a chance to speak their opinion about the accessibility in the park and their responsibility to keep it clean.
This assignment was required me to go on a public transportation and attend a public meeting. Since it was a public meeting, people who were attending the meeting should dress nicely. The write-up should include the name of the meeting with the date, general impression,topic covered, initial reaction to this form of citizen participation, and how this meeting was related to topics that we have covered in class during the year. This experience was new to me. In the past, I was scared to go out to the public by myself. I never wanted to do anything by myself. I never actually have enough confidence on what I do. I have learned many things on this trip; when I should dress formal, what I should or should not do in the public.