CRITICAL THINKING 1

Use the guiding questions below to help you develop the Introduction section and Parts A, B, and C of the Presented Argument section of your final project. The more rigor and detail that you put into answering these questions and drafting your responses in paragraph form, the more you set yourself up for success on the final project, your critical essay. First, answer each of the questions below to draft your ideas. Then, complete the Outline for Writing section, using your answers to the questions to help you draft a paragraph response for each of the two sections below.

I. Use the following guiding questions to help you draft the Introduction section of your final project.

A. Provide a brief overview of your topic.

i. What is the premise or premises for the argument? Online education is becoming increasing popular, but it also has a large number of benefits that the traditional brick-and-mortar educational institution doesn’t have, including scheduling flexibility,

ii. Why is the topic being discussed? This topic is being discussed because online education is where education is going in the future. For centuries, educational institutions were “brick-and-mortar,” but with the rise of the Internet, the schoolroom can be

iii. What is the conclusion?

B. Describe any personal connection that you may have to the topic.

i. Why is this topic of interest to you? I have a personal connection to the topic because I obviously m an online student myself, and therefore the topic of the positives and negatives associated with this kind of education will be near and dear to my heart, as a student who wishes to get the best education possible.

Outline for Writing

The topic I have chosen to focus on for my final project is online versus traditional education. To summarize, the topic presented in this article is about a few of the most important benefits regarding the process of online education. The premise or premises for the argument is/are that online education saves students time, offers them individiualized pedagogic modalities through which to learn and approach the subject, and interaction with students and experiences that they would have never otherwise experienced. This topic is relevant and being discussed because online education is becoming more and more popular as a means of education. The conclusion is that, at the end of the day, the positives associated with online education far outweigh the negatives, and that online education is the way of the future because of its list of comparative advantages.. The personal connection I have to this topic is that I myself am an online student, and therefore have a genuine interest in learning about the advantages and disadvantages associated with each form of learning and teaching . This topic is of particular interest to me because not only am I a student personally invested, but many of my friends and family members are making the same choice of online education..

II. In this section, you will begin to explore the argument in your chosen artifact. You will uncover the logical structure of the argument.

A. Describe the argument made by the article and artifact.

B. Identify the key facts, research, or resources the argument is based on. Provide as many examples as possible to support your identification, as this will help you with your final project.

I. First, he argues that brick-and-mortar education is getting relatively more expensive, and you can’t reach even a small fraction of the students that you would virtually.  This kind of “leverage,” as he calls it, is impossible without virtual education. 

A. Teachers can reach far more students, thereby being much more effective in leveraging their time and use of resources. (Obviously, benefits are not only to be had by the students, but also by faculty.)

II. Another positive that he lists is “individualized teaching and new technologies.”

A. While in a brick-and-mortar classroom pretty much a “one technique catch all” approach needs to be used, in an online environment, teachers can cater individual technological approaches to students. (I, for one, however, have rarely seen this kind of personalized catering.)

C. Describe the logic and reasoning used to advance the argument.

i. Considering the premises and conclusion, what logic and reasoning is used to advance the argument? There is not really a formal logical argument that is being used, but instead the author just uses a preponderance of the evidence being considered. He looks at his own arguments, which are largely pro-online education, considers counter-arguments and dismissed them based off of

ii. What questions are left unanswered? Describe any gaps or weaknesses present in the logic and reasoning used to advance the argument. One of the major weaknesses of the author is that he automatically assumes that the technological innovations associated with online education are necessarily good and worthy of pursuit. For example, he assumes that it’s a good thing that the professor is expected to fine-tune your teaching toward every student. He just assumes this, but doesn’t actually bother positively arguing for it.

Outline for Writing

The argument being made by my chosen article/artifact is that online educators can more greatly leverage their teaching time, and students can better tailor the learning experience to themselves in a number of ways because of technological integration (be sure to use some detail to describe the argument being made). This argument is based on the following key facts, research, and/or resources:   (be sure to provide specific examples). The logic and reasoning used to advance this argument is Alex Tabarrok’s article “Why Online Education Works.” Considering the premises and conclusion that are advanced in the article, the logic and reasoning used to advance the argument is a considered preponderance of the evidence, as well as a rational, fair consideration of their associated counterarguments. I have the following questions that are not answered by the article: Why should online professors cater to individual students’ learning preferences? Therefore, a gap or weakness in the article is sometimes the author assumes that the innovations associated with online education are necessarily good innovations. He doesn’t really critically assess the goodness or these new approaches, but just accepts them.