Content Knowledge:
The case readings and practice questions are designed to promote comprehension of:
The above content is most appropriate for U.S. classes in political science, law, and international relations. Instructors in other disciplines such as philosophy may prefer principles derived from Aquinas rather than norms based on the U.N. Charter. Instructors in Europe may prefer factual content related to their national law and leaders rather than the U.S. Constitution and President. Historians may want to explore the might makes right challenge posed by Athenians in Thucydides' Melian dialogue.
Cognitive Skills:
The self assessment questions are designed to promote not only students' ability to recall facts but also to develop higher order reasoning. Bloom's classic taxonomy of learning objectives distinguishes cognitive from affective reasoning. Six cognitive skill levels include: "knowledge, comprehension, analysis, application, synthesis, and evaluation."6 More recent guidebooks for preparing achievement tests also recognize a hierarchy of skills and employ similar terminology: "recall, understanding, critical thinking, problem solving, and creativity."7 THRO exercises based on those models may be appropriate for use in courses on educational psychology and human learning.
Selected response items such as multiple choice and matching questions are effective instruments for knowledge/recall, comprehension, analysis/critical thinking, and application/problem solving, but not for evaluation and synthesis/creativity. Those skills must be developed and tested with "supply" or constructed response exercises such as short answer and essay. An appendix to each case Teaching Note reproduces all the multiple choice and short answer questions available online. Examples to illustrate each question type in the problem "A Just War?" appear below:
Knowledge/Recall: facts, terms, events, and individuals
a. Kosovo b. Bosnia c. Croatia d. Serbia e. Yugoslavia
1. Montenegro never seceded and remains a junior partner
2. Territory where Ottoman Turks defeated Serbs in 14th Century
3. Predominantly Eastern Orthodox province of former Yugoslavia
4. Nationalist leader Milosevic intensified wars of Yugoslav succession
5. Most likely to ally with Albania
Comprehension/Understanding: understand, translate, interpret, extrapolate, identify, clarify, explain, convert, distinguish, define, find, exemplify, illustrate, list, and demonstrate
a. U.S. Constitution, Article I
b. U.S. Constitution, Article II
c. 1973 War Powers Resolution
d. 1949 NATO Treaty
e. Dayton Peace Accords
Analysis/Critical Thinking: differentiate, infer, order, compare and contrast, interrelate, and recognize assumptions
a. Milosevic refused to negotiate
b. NATO foreign ministers were divided
c. The KLA demanded independence
Application/Problem Solving: anticipate, expect, hypothesize, infer, predict, relate, generalize, reason by analogy, classify, and hypothesize
a. The 1960s Tonkin Gulf Resolution authorizing a military response after communist North Vietnamese ships attacked a U.S. destroyer
b. The 1991 debate and vote in Congress to approve Operation Desert Storm before U.S. ground troops initiated combat in the Gulf War.
c. The 1983 Reagan administration deployment of U.S. peacekeepers in Lebanon without regard for the War Powers Resolution
Synthesis/Evaluation/Creativity: select and use criteria, critique, defend, judge, value, justify, discriminate
Did U.S. and international law grant the President authority to use armed force against Yugoslavia without prior approval of Congress and the U.N. Security Council?
Active Learning Rationale/Cognitive Skills/Normative Reasoning
