Program/Discipline/Course Assessment Report
Discipline: Philosophy
Course Number: PHIL 203
School/Unit: SOLA
Submitted by: Wade Hampton
Contributing Faculty:
Academic Year: 2010-2011
Complete and submit your assessment report electronically to your Academic Dean. As needed, please attach supporting documents and/or a narrative description of the assessment activities in your
program or discipline.
Program, Discipline or
Course Outcomes
In the boxes below,
summarize the outcomes
assessed in your program or
discipline during the last
year.
Assessment Measures
Assessment Results
Use of Results
In the boxes below, summarize
the methods used to assess
program, discipline, or course
outcomes during the last year.
In the boxes below, summarize the
results of your assessment activities
during the last year.
In the boxes below, summarize
how you are or how you plan to
use the results to improve student
learning.
Outcome #1:
Understand the philosophical
implications of the
“Irrational” in the modern
world.
Initial evaluation of Individuals
and ideas in the Existential
tradition in the first week of class
revealed a minimal awareness of
Existential philosophers and
ideas – such as “Existence
precedes Essence” and other key
ideas.
Students had achieved a much higher
level of understanding of the ideas and
philosophers of existentialism by the
time of the first; being able to, in
general, write comfortably about these
philosophers and their ideas, able to
write with some facility on Heidegger,
Sartre, Kierkegaard & Nietzsche.
Outcome #2
Ability to discuss ideas
brought up in the class
reading: to verbally use ideas
and terms in Existentialism
Every day, ideas from the text
were brought up for discussion.
Their was, as usual, a central
group of responders and others
who would only respond and
discuss when called upon.
By calling on a large amount of the
students, outside the core responders,
by the end of the class people were
engaging in philosophical discussion.
This warming up of the class improved
the learning environment in the class,
making it less reliant solely on lecture.
What can be noticed from looking
at the class in general is the high
level of people who dropt out of
class and who were failed. Many
students seemed to think that they
could breeze into the class and
absorb the difficult ideas without
effort. About a fifth of the class
simply stopped coming to class
after half the class. Even with
warnings and attempts to notify
students they still did not have
strong enough intention to stick
with the class.
In the future, and in every class, it
is important to engage the students
in discussion. I would break up the
class into the groups and also use
group presentations in order to
engender greater intellectual
involvement.
Effect on Program,
Discipline or Course
Based on the results of this
assessment, will you revise
your outcomes? If so, please
summarize how and why in
the boxes below.
Students taking this class need
a deeper understanding of
philosophical terms and the
philosophical tradition. It
would be useful if students
took an introduction to
philosophy class so they
wouldn’t need to be spoon fed.
The outcome cannot be
revised excessively, as it is
necessary to get the students to
respond verbally, both
individually and in groups to
the philosophical ideas being
reviewed.
Program/Discipline/Course Assessment Report
Discipline: Philosophy
Course Number: PHIL 203
School/Unit: SOLA
Submitted by: Wade Hampton
Contributing Faculty:
Academic Year: 2010-2011
Outcome #3
To see how Existential ideas
fit into the cultural milieu:
modern art, science and
reading modern novels.
From initial daily writes it was
clear that people saw existentialism
as, somehow, a separate set of
ideas; a set that did not interact
with other cultural categories, like
abstract art, and reading modern
classics such as those written by
Camus & Kafka. There was also a
general disconnect between science
and the philosophical traditions
that gave rise to it and the
philosophical implications coming
out of scientific exploration,
especially in cosmology and
evolution, both of which were
focused on.
By showing a good deal of abstract art
and showing how art evolved in the latter
part of the 19th century and early 20th
century and lecturing on the connections,
integration was largely achieved.
Vincent Van Gogh was used and a vivid
example of Expressionism, the form of
art most focused on individual vision in
art.
This was seen in the papers written, and
essay questions asked in the
examinations.
I think it would be important in the
future to use other media – perhaps
more film on history, on
developments in cosmology
(astronomy) and evolution.
There was a great response to the
novels assigned as could be seen in
the papers written about them.
For Program, Discipline or Course Assessment Reports:
I have reviewed this report:
Nancy Faires (signed electronically)
Department Chair
Date August 15, 2011
John Tuthill
Vice President of Academic Affairs and Student Services
Date August 23, 2011
Armida Fruzzetti
Dean
Date May 27, 2011
It is important to show how
existentialism is not some passé
set of ideas, but an important
expression of modernity.
This can be done, in addition to
what I have already mentioned,
by applying the ideas to the
present day – to the
computerization of the world,
the internet, and the decisions
faced at present in
environmentalism, issues
revolving around the existence
of the soul and continuing
issues involving economic
disparity on a global level.
Existentialism does not
effectively deal with issue
involving relationships, but
focuses on the individual
against the universe. Thus it
can be both humanized and
made more relevant.