Graduate-level courses should be more demanding, sophisticated, and rigorous than undergraduate ones. While it may be appropriate for undergraduate courses to include a significant component of rote learning of facts or mechanical application of knowledge, it is to be expected that graduate courses will emphasize theoretical, conceptual, methodological, or systematic treatment of material. They should deal directly with the research content of the field and with the discipline's research methodologies.
When graduate courses cover the same topics as or are cross-listed
with undergraduate courses or when undergraduate courses are offered for
graduate credit, special efforts may be necessary to ensure the integrity
of the graduate component. Graduate courses should build on basic undergraduate
courses; they should assume that students grasp the fundamentals of the
discipline. Reading assignments to graduate students may be more extensive
than those to undergraduates, and should stress primary materials and professional
research rather than textbook-style synthesis. Graduate students should
undertake more challenging projects than undergraduates. Such projects
may demand extensive writing; they should encourage a greater degree of
originality and should emphasize critical analysis rather than simple description.
Graduate students should be able to defend the rationale and methodology
of their projects; they should be able to evaluate their sources. Graduate
students should be expected to take an active role in class discussion;
they may be asked to give special presentations and to attend special sessions
restricted to graduate students. Written examinations directed to graduate
students should emphasize questions requiring theoretical, conceptual,
methodological, or systematic treatments of the material.
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