Hi all, Jeff asked us to provide some thoughts on how we got students into groups for our IF courses. So, here are some of my observations. I have worked a lot with student groups and have put a lot of thought into how to design assignments for groups, etc. Usually...
Hi all, I'm now two weeks into my IF sponsored course, which is a senior capstone seminar called "Facilitating Public Conversations about the Environment." There are 21 students, about half of whom have had me for a previous class. They are a good group-- very...
Earlier last year, I came across a striking passage in a book on how computer “games” should be re-shaping education. One needn’t be familiar with the specifics of the game mentioned in the passage’s first sentence to follow the author’s thinking. However, it is...
What is the future of a college education in the USA? The recent economic downturn seems to have sharpened the already well-known trend toward seeing a college education largely in terms of enhancing one's economic security. And as our uncertain economic times...
Now that it's been well over a month since my last post, it's hard to know how to sum up all the things that have happened. I'll start at the conclusion: Thursday was the last day of my IF course. All 15 of our first-year seminars are invited to participate in...
If you have not been to a university campus since the 1960s or 1970s, you might be surprised to find how similar the classroom environment is to that which you might remember from forty or more years ago. While technology has transformed the average classroom into...
Since my last post, several things have happened. My students finished their first round of discussions, so everyone has tried their hand at facilitating. It went reasonably well, although I'm changing some small things to make the next round better. I also had...
My students re-grouped this week to work on the school presentation. They rallied into four teams according to their interests: rap song, a skid, a short video, activity to engage the target audience (8th graders!) I asked the class to use an IF-like process during...
After reading Maria's recent post about what she will do next with her IF class now that they are not in their original groups, I realize that I feel I'm at a bit of a crossroads with my class as well. Tomorrow is our last small group discussion on the question...
This week is a short week in my IF class, Art: I Know It When I See It. We had only one class meeting, since it's fall break, so I had to make the most of it. First, I've already had to overhaul my syllabus - the groups' progress has been slower than I had...