The general topic of this course is Cancer Research
(conducted by scientists), and the main learning objectives are to
improve your skills of Inquiry and Analysis concerning such
research.

There will be little to no traditional lecturing in this
course.  Much class time will instead be used for small-group and
whole-class discussion about students’ inquiries and analyses.

I have not yet decided what the writing assignments will
be.  My best current guess is that students will create some sort of
Inquiry Journal throughout the semester and that there will be two
more-formal writing assignments, such as creation of one or
two “Analysis of an Experiment” writings and perhaps
one “Significant Insight” writing.  To learn more about such writing
assignments, see the syllabi for similar courses that were taught in
the spring of 2009.  Those syllabi can be found at the bottom of the
following webpage:
http://tinyurl.com/c3rlza

Because students in this course conduct independent inquiry,
it is really important that each student identifies an area of
cancer research that is of genuine interest to him/her.  Without
such genuine interest, there will be little motivation to put effort
into thinking about, investigating, writing about, and discussing
one’s inquiries and analyses (in which case the course will likely
not be enjoyable or meaningful for you, and in which case it will be
difficult for you to help this course be enjoyable and meaningful
for classmates).

Students are expected to work at least 4.5 hours outside of
class each week for this course.