MCOM 70 Camaro Superbowl ad

I chose the following commercial as my favorite ad of the Superbowl: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHNgyZMqlYc

I thought this advertisement was ingenious for several different reasons: first of all, the fact that it was homemade with high production values was a feat in of itself. Secondly it was one of the few commercials with a strong sense of humor in a year which many companies struggled to separate themselves from the slapstick norm that most Superbowl advertisements adhere to. Finally it was one of the few commercials that I saw that went out of its way to really focus on the product they were trying to sell throughout the entire commercial, unlike some others which were obviously focused on trying to be the funniest thing on television that night while seemingly forgetting that their job was to sell a product.

Final discussion questions: #3

The concept from critical thinking that I felt could have used further discussion over the course of the semester was the concept of counterarguments. I believe that counterarguments is possibly the most important chapter in the entire Epstein text because the basis of critical thinking is arguments, and the concept of counterarguments could be interpreted as half of the knowledge needed to understand arguments fully. I also felt that within the subject of counterarguments the Epstein text failed to elaborate on the concept of refuting an argument properly, there was far too little present in terms of basic explanation and definition to learn the concepts without turning to outside resources. This is all not to say that I did not learn and understand the concept, but merely that I felt that this concept is immensely important and the text seemingly sweeps it under the rug rather than choosing to emphasize learning the nuances of a vast subject.

Final discussion questions: #2

Favorite: My favorite thing about this class was the well structured range of assignments, it seemed as though all of the assignments had great teaching materials provided as well as an easy to understand example when necessary. Additionally all of the assignments had the proper amount of spacing between them, which balanced well with the difficulty of assignments making for a class that required you to learn the material, while never pushing the stress level greatly.

Least Favorite: My least favorite thing about the class was the tests, although I read the book and took notes to accompany my online assignments going into the tests I never knew exactly what the material was going to be. While knowing which chapters the tests are concerning is one thing, a pseudo-study guide would definitely help so that the students know which particular concepts within the chapters are most important to know for the test.

One to improve upon: The only thing about this course that I would change without having to debate myself would be the due dates for the assignments, in that I would push them back to Sunday, or add another day onto the work week provided. I say this because many of those who choose to take online courses, myself included, have absolutely no time within the regular confines of the work day. With that said the requirements of spacing blog submissions by at least twelve hours was incredibly difficult, I had to do much of my work in the middle of the night for this course after I had finally gotten home - being that Sunday is the one day of my week that I dedicate entirely to school work it would've helped to have the blog post time frame to end on Sunday night, although this is all in the end personal preference.

Final discussion questions: #1

Over the course of the semester I have learned how to facilitate better discussion through critical thinking concepts, as well as further developing my ability to present well structured arguments. The basis of my learning this semester in Comm 41 is based around the concept of interacting claims, and how certain types of claims can be built upon to construct the best argument possible - achieving the ultimate goal of critical thinking, convincing the opposing party to accept your argument as truth.

Perhaps the most important lesson I can take from this course is the application of critical thinking concepts to group work, knowing the proper way to communicate and convey ideas to others within a work setting is vital to  functioning as an efficient worker. Through participation in group activities, particularly the filming of the third project involving group facilitation, I learned a great deal about not only participating in discussions but facilitating them as well. I believe that this skill is the most important thing I have learned all semester in Comm 41, as bringing about quality ideas from others is an incredibly useful ability in the corporate world.

Discussion questions week 9: #3

In chapter 15 of the Epstein text we are exploring the relationship between cause and effect in different scenarios within critical thinking. The most important concept found within this chapter is section A9: Two mistakes in evaluating cause and effect. This section is vital to the understanding of cause and effect relationships because it outlines the two common ways people incorrectly evaluate cause and effect relationships: reversing cause and effect, & looking too hard for a cause. Reversing cause and effect is a common mistake made by those who do not understand the nuances of cause and effect relationships, as they only work in one direction – it is important to remember that correlation does not indicate causation. Secondly looking too hard for a cause can be a problem for those unfamiliar with cause and effect relationships as there are many situations where an action is not a cause for a different concurrent event.

Discussion questions week 9: #2 Mission Critical

The mission critical webpage aided my learning process immensely because of the different ways it presented ideas I had learned earlier in the semester, and it provided in depth analysis of the concepts in a way that I had not seen yet. I think the best section of the mission critical webpage was the section on inference identifiers, these words are used to indicate types of arguments and resulting conclusions which I was unfamiliar with before this exercise. The exercises contained in the mission critical website were possibly the most helpful learning tools I've found during this entire course, the way each answer has a different explanation for why it is correct or incorrect was incredibly helpful. After going through lots of the exercises on this webpage I will definitely be bookmarking it for later use, I think it will be a very helpful studying tool for the final as it covers almost every subject we have learned this semester, and in many of the cases it provides better coverage of concepts than even the textbook did.

Discussion questions week 9: #1 Cause & Effect

I found the cause and effect online reading quite helpful for a multitude of reasons, foremost being its broad coverage of cause and effect followed by an in depth summary of different portions of this topic. From reading the Epstein text I was well aware what cause and effect reasoning was, but the website breaks the subject down in layman's terms which helped me vastly in understanding the specifics of the relationship between cause and effect. Specifically the sections concerning casual arguments were very helpful as I did not understand them very well going into this assignment, and the fact that there were multiple explanations for the different nuances of casual arguments really helped me. In addition to the reading, the exercises provided were very helpful especially if you struggled. The absolute most helpful part of this assignment was definitely the explanations given for incorrect answers in the exercises as the few things I still did not understand completely had complete, easy to understand explanations for why I had made mistakes within the exercise.