My Philosophy class

Considering that we only have a free choice blog every other week, there are certainly a few different topics that I could rant about this week. Cold weather, potholes, and bad drivers in snowy weather are definitely finalists, but I decided to rave about something that we are doing in one of my other classes.

In my Philosophy 112 class, we watched a movie, and then each of us had to give an oral presentation about a different aspect from the movie. The class is Comparative Religion, so there were many different types of religious themes in the movie. The presentation would count as our Midterm. So, each of us had to reach into an envelope, and pick out a question at random. We were given the option to trade questions with other classmates if we chose.

It has been very interesting watching all of the presentations the last few days, especially since mine has already been done. I like to see what each person’s take on the movie is, and what type of creativity they may bring to the class. I chose to do a Powerpoint, one girl used cut-out pictures of the characters to illustrate her point, and even one made a video of herself at home and played it for the class. Our instructor has been very liberal about how they must be structured. Most have simply used notes and given a speech, but everyone has really done a great job.

This is the way that I feel college level learning should be. It should be about the experience of learning. Too often, a class will be about memorizing information, and taking tests. However, the classes we will remember will be the ones where we work outside the box, and do something different. Hopefully, the majority of my classes will be like this one.