Essential Elements of an Honors Class
4 Ways Honors Classes
Are Different
I can’t speak for every honors program out there, but there are
some common hallmarks of a great honors class. There’s a safe bet that if
you’re accepted to an honors program, you can look forward to a classroom
with these four unique qualities.
1) Reversed Classrooms
A reversed classroom frees students from the typical
lecture-based format. That means instead of having someone talk atyou about course material, you get to discuss big
ideas and important questions together.
"Honors students spend valuable class time wrestling with
dificult questions."
This style of learning works because students read their
assignments before class,
so they can spend valuable class time wrestling with difficult questions,
debating important points, and working through activities or simulations.
This is called a flipped classroom model.
It happens to be one of the 8 core elements of an American Honors class, but
it's common in many other honors programs, too.
2) Sophisticated
Materials
A giant wall of notes on the screen? No fun.
A great classroom discussion can be facilitated by great
teaching materials. Ever had a professor display a giant wall of notes on the
screen and then simply read them out loud? No fun, right? That’s where
better teaching materials can come into play.
Heres an example: when designing a recent history class, an
American Honors professor adapted non-ADA compliant powerpoint slides to online
“magazine” style pages that included relevant images and links to external
resources for enhanced content. Students could actually explore the info on
their own.
Honors faculty tend to
share teaching methods. The professor from our example shared that material
with American Honors faculty at every community college in the network. Honors
communities tend to be supportive for everyone.
3) Hands-on Learning
Not everybody learns
best just by talking through ideas, or even reading them. Sometimes you have to
get your hands dirty and really experience something to understand it.
"Sometimes you have to experience something to understand
it."
Here is a super fun example from an American Honors political
science course this semester. Students enact a foreign policy simulation by
role-playing as leaders of different countries. The
simulation takes place over the course of several weeks while the professor writes fictional news
updates based on current events. Students get to discuss the news and make
decisions based on how they (and their country) would react.
Hands-on learning can
be a lot of fun, but it’s also a way to geek out - which just might be what college is all about in the first place.
4) Quality Over
Quantity
An honors education is about depth.
Ever felt like you were assigned homework just for the sake of
giving you something to do?Fortunately, that doesn’t happen in honors classes.
That’s because an honors education is about depth. We’re not
interested in assigning busywork to students. Instead, Honors
classes help students attend to their learning in deeper ways--be it using different critical perspectives
and theoretical lenses or through hands-on assignments that access multiple
intelligences.
Heavy stuff. But so
worth it! And weirdly fun, once you get into it.
Honors classes can
sound intense. But don’t worry. Remember: if you
got accepted, then you’re qualified.
So, does all that sound overwhelming, or exciting?
Would getting into an honors program make you more likely to attend a college?
If you didn’t get into an honors program at your school of choice, then maybe you should consider applying to
just one more college.
