Hi Joan,
The concept of the Honors section (regular or add-on) is that the students get an expanded intellectual experience that goes beyond that available in the regular classroom. The instructors get the chance to experiment with new material and to (if they are brave enough) become co-learners with the students. Basically the instructor should try to have fun these classes can really rejuvenate your teaching.
So some examples –
In Physics the students in the “add-on” get exposed to either quantum physics or relativity depending on the teacher. The regular physics class in essentially Newtonian. Students (mostly Engineers) really like this they feel that they are entering the “real” world of physics
In one of the add-ons I used to teach I allowed the students to choose controversial topics in biology - we spent one class just brain storming – they would often pick topics way outside my field – I would read up on the topic and give them the appropriate biological back ground then we would have a class discussion on the implications of the topic. I actually miss this class as it really made me keep-up in allsorts of areas of Biology and the students felt a real “ownership” of the class.
In another Biology example Jim McGraw has the students make music videos about environmental topics – turns out this is VERY challenging the first set of students who did it thought they were in for a soft semester and got a bit of a shock but they really enjoyed the class and are incredibly proud of the videos they made (as they should be).
Sometimes you get unintended outcomes for the instructors Beth Thomas is currently doing an add-on for Biol 102 being the first time she has done one she approached it rather cautiously. She has a bunch of poets, lawyers, historians and philosophers all doing projects on different topics in biology – In one class they did the plague the student doing the presentation brought an historic perspective to the topic and the class had a great discussion on the impact of disease on society. This has become a pattern and the students are bringing their own perspectives to the topic creating a class somewhat different from the one Beth had envisioned but one she is finding very stimulating particularly in the sometimes unfortunately intellectually apathetic atmosphere of non-majors biology.
From an instructor’s point of view you have incredible freedom both in content and in pedagogy it is OK to try something a bit out there.
Here’s an idea for history (I did this in my History of Biology class for just one topic and it worked quite well) – pick a series of important debates (abolition, votes for women, entering World War I) assign students to a particular debate and have them using the facts available at the time conduct a debate. I did it with germ theory and it was very good.
A political science class could look at the cases on the current Supreme Court docket and talk about them.
An environmental geography class could look current issues in environmental policy.
A stats class could be based on “A statistician reads the newspaper”
Does this help or do you want something different?