Welcome to UNT’s course on Introduction to Inquiry and Discovery. There will be two of use serving as your lead instructors – Peggy Shadduck and Susan Watson. First, let us introduce ourselves to you. My name is Dr. Peggy Shadduck, and I will be one of your lead instructors for the course. I am a faculty member at the University of North Texas, and I also serve as the director of the Applied Arts and Sciences degree program for the university. To tell you a little bit about myself, I have been teaching for many years now at the college level. My graduate degrees are in neuroscience, pharmacology, and public administration, so I have a really broad educational background. I love working with students, helping them to develop the thinking skills and professional skills that will help them to be successful in their careers and to be great contributors to society. When I am not in class with my students, I do lots of administrative and leadership work for the university. I help to design new courses and new degree programs to challenge our students. I also serve on the boards of a couple of non-profit organizations in the Dallas area. I have three grown sons and a new grandchild. I enjoy jogging, reading novels with my cat Emma sitting on my lap, and cooking. And my name is Dr. Susan Watson. I will be your other lead instructor for this course. I have worked in several different environments including universities, public administration, and as a consultant. My Ph.D. is in Economics, with a focus on Applied Microeconomics. This discipline is largely where I learned the process for analyzing problems and decisions. I find the applied nature of economics applicable to everyday life decisions. I spend most of my free time with my two teenage daughters. If I am not driving them to their activities, I am watching them compete in their athletic pursuits. I also enjoy playing tennis and reading about psychology. I only took one college class in psychology, but I find myself fascinated by this subject because the social aspect of the environment plays such a huge part in understanding the world around us. I look forward to this course and working with you as we discover new ways to learn and analyze the things we observe, as well as uncover new methods to solving problems. This class focuses on the essential skill of asking and answering good questions. No matter what your specialty is, you will need to make decisions – often as a member of a team. Inquiry is the asking of a question, but when we refer to the inquiry process, we mean not just asking the question or questions, but also asking it in a logical or systematic way with a specific plan for gathering information that will effectively answer the question. The answer to a question that is studied through an inquiry process should lead to an increase in our knowledge, and often to the ability to make a decision based upon that knowledge. It often leads to even more questions! So in this class, we will break apart the questioning process, learning about different types of inquiry, learning how to organize it well, and understanding where the inquiry process can break down if we are not careful. By learning to think carefully about inquiry, you will be a better employee, a better boss, and a more capable citizen - contributing to your community. In this class, we work on several key skills that an education person should be able to use – in particular critical thinking. Critical thinking, communication, and teamwork are some of the top skills identified as essential by many employers, and they are also the foundation for work within organizations such as non-profit agencies. You even use these skills at home! We want you to become a great questioner, curious about yourself and the world around you. We want you to be able to answer questions in a logical, systematic way so that you can make good decisions. So we will spend some time in the course making sure you know what critical thinking is and being aware of when you are using it well – and poorly! So please plunge into the next part of the course! We hope you will enjoy your learning experience.
