Empowerment to success: the class structure in an honors engineering course

摘要

Structuring a quality honors course is a challenge in most disciplines. We have offered an honors section in our introductory computer science class for several years. During this time we have restructured our honors section several times, including shifting both the focus and format. We started with a concentration in Web Design, shifted to Robotics, and then advanced onto student presentations. The layout began as a traditionally structured course, evolved with the introduction of student mentors, and most recently has advanced to student-directed learning. It is evidenced from both our evaluation of the student work and the student evaluations of the course that self-directed learning (i.e., empowerment) has resulted in a satisfactory and successful honors class.