Subject Philosophy

This course uses a web-based learning package to enable students to learn independently. The specific objective of the package is to develop a teaching concept which assists students attain a deeper understanding and an ability to critically analyse the social dimensions of environmental issues by enabling the students to independently explore concepts and issues and to interactively access references, information and primary material to help them with tutorial preparation and other assignments.

This material from various media including television, radio, newspaper clippings and magazine articles as well as excerpts from books and articles, tables, graphs, text and other relevant information. It is pluralist in philosophy providing access not only to relevant information, but also to a range of views, philosophies and analytic approaches that can be applied to environmental problems. An important objective is to encourage those who participate in the course to undertake independent examination of environmental issues and problems and to come to their own conclusions and solutions.

The students can access the web-based component of the course on university computers and from home using a modem and an internet provider. It is designed to be user friendly and does not assume any knowledge of computers beforehand. Tutorials will be given in week 2 to ensure all students will be confident to use the web material. Students will be expected to familiarise themselves with material in the package.

The aim of this type of web-based assisted learning is to:

• promote active rather than passive learning
• motivate students
• enable students to learn at their own pace
• allow students choice of which topics and aspects they will cover in more depth
• cater to those students who are more visually oriented and who are often disadvantaged by a more textual or verbal approach
• promote critical thinking and analysis of complex issues

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