Accelerated Honors courses are either specially designed courses or sections of courses that cover notably more content or go into greater depth, often at a theoretical level, than non-Honors versions of a course. Accelerated Honors courses often combine material that is otherwise taught over multiple courses and more total credits.
General Structure
- Typically lower enrollment caps than in non-Honors sections or standard sequences of similar content
- Enrollment not limited to students declared in the Honors Program; there may be other requisites related to ensuring student preparedness for the course
- All students in an Honors Only section complete the same work, following an Honors-specific syllabus; no way for individual students to opt out of Honors while in that section
Why teach an Accelerated Honors course/section?
Departments and instructors may develop Accelerated Honors offerings to allow dedicated students a quicker path to upper-level coursework and/or to develop deeper competencies in particular aspects of a field while still at the undergraduate level. Accelerated Honors courses can facilitate rewarding student-faculty collaborations during and beyond the semester. Additionally, students pursuing Honors in the Liberal Arts are required to have a certain number of their Honors credits come from Honors Only or Accelerated Honors courses, and Accelerated Honors courses can help attract some of the university’s most intellectually curious and motivated undergraduates to explore your department and discipline.
Examples of Accelerated Honors courses
- Economics 111: Principles of Economics-Accelerated Treatment (4 credits)
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An accelerated introductory course in economics. It is both a crash-course in micro and macroeconomics, teaching students the underlying concepts of all econ theory: supply, demand, opportunity cost, income, monetary policy, inflation, etc… Through a small-class experience, this course is designed to engage students with the “economics problems of the world” in a setting more discussion-based than a large lecture. Economics 111 satisfies the same requisites as taking Economics 101 and 102 separately.
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- Physics 247: A Modern Introduction to Physics (5 credits)
- Calculus-based introduction to physics intended for Physics, AMEP, and Astronomy-Physics majors. Mechanics, waves, thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, topics in modern physics; with computation. A more mathematically rigorous and in-depth introduction to physics than the other introductory physics sequences.
- French 105: Accelerated Introductory French (4 credits)
- Accelerated development of communicative literacy skills in French and exploration of the contemporary French-speaking world, equivalent to the completion of both French 101 and French 102.
Grading Policies
Guiding Principle
Course content and pace supports meaningful depth of learning while also supporting students who may not have previous experience with the topic beyond listed enrollment requisites.
In all cases, faculty are encouraged to clearly articulate grading policy in their syllabi and explain expectations at the beginning of the semester.
Assignments
All students in the Accelerated Honors section(s) should be required to complete the same work and will be graded with the same (Honors) syllabus. Honors credit cannot be removed for individual students.
Accelerated Honors sections frequently have different assignments or assessments than the non-Honors sections of the course. Just as there is great flexibility in designing Honors assignments and courses, instructors are free to select the grading options and rubrics that best reflect their course activities and desired learning outcomes.
B or Better Rule
Students must earn a final grade of B or higher in an Honors course in order for the course credit to count towards an L&S Honors degree requirement. This is true for all types of Honors courses and for all L&S Honors degree tracks.
If a student completes an Accelerated Honors course but earns a final grade below a B, DARS will not count the course credit toward Honors-specific requirements for that student. The transcript will still show that the student was in an Accelerated Honors version of the course.
Contact Us
We are eager to support you at any stage of developing or teaching an Honors course. We would also love to hear and share your ideas of what has worked well while teaching an Honors course!
Email Christine Evans, Associate Director of Advising and Curriculum, at cmevans3@wisc.edu.