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Weaving Learning Across the Campus: First Book Project Goes Online at Maryland

Phyllis Peres, PhD

Paulette Robinson, PhD

Carol Burbank, PhDCopyright Phyllis Peres, PhD, Paulette Robinson, PhD, Carol Burbank, PhD. This work is the intellectual property of the author. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the authors. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the authors.

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Agenda

The Laramie Project: Administrative Laramie Goes Online: Technical Using Laramie to Teach: Pedagogical

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Introduction to First Year Book

First Year Book – a campus-wide initiative for all first year students

A program sponsored by Office of the Associate Provost for Academic Affairs and Dean for Undergraduate Studies

Program began in 1993 with Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address”

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As a Campus-wide Community

• First Year Students at Maryland have various academic homes and identities

• These include Honors, College Park Scholars, Gemstone, Thematic Living-Learning Programs, First Year Focus Clusters and Learning Communities, Academic Majors

• First Year Book Project as a learning community that cuts across disciplines

• A shared intellectual experience for all first year students and beyond

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Past Experience with First Year Book

• Past experiences with the First Year Book have been successful within select courses, programs,etc.

• 2001-2002 poetry collection, Blessing the Boats

• 2000-2001 novel, Snow Falling on Cedars• The First Year Book communities in the past

have consisted of “learning silos”

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The Laramie Project Selection

• 2002-2003 selection – The Laramie Project• First time partnership with Student Affairs –

Campus Book• A text about community• Hate crimes on campus• Criticism of Maryland’s 2002-2003 First Year

Book selection• How to address issues?

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Goals of Putting the First Year Project Online

• Activities• Next steps for students• Playwright’s presentation• Resources for Faculty• Linked resources for students• Online archive• Breaking out of the silos –

interdisciplinary/inter-course discussions

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What This Means

• Teaching and Learning interactive communities

• The means for inter-course communication, activities, and projects –interdisciplinary perspectives

• WebCT as the base for a shared learning experience across the First Year and across campus

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Administrative Challenges

– Putting a structure/schedule into place to facilitate the use of the space.

– Creating a list of faculty who will use the First Book in their classes and uploading students into the space.

– Getting faculty to come to a workshop to create activities across classes

– Motivating faculty to use the space for student discussions, submitting activities, submitting student work, teaching across courses

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Faculty Workshop

• Orientation to the WebCT space• Small group activity to create activities faculty

could use to process the Laramie Project—generated 5 activities that could cut across more than one class.

• Invitation to submit additional activities as well as student work for a project archive

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Creating the WebCT Space• Graphic artist/web developer managed the

WebCT space created for the project.• She also created the look and feel as well as

the organization of the space with a collaborative team.

• Paulette loaded in over 3,000 students into the space and more than 50 faculty at the beginning of the semester from lists collected by Phyllis.

• Instructional Web-developer as well as graphic artist created the project map for the project.

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The Laramie Project Space

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Special Projects

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Events

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Resources

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Project Map

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Discussions

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Polling

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Activities

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Technical Challenges

• Collaboration between partners—getting timely feedback

• Finding staff time for the project

• Technical expertise for the project

• Getting materials to put into the space

• Getting students and faculty into the space

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CULTURAL RIPPLES: The Design Concept

• Events in Laramie rippled out to challenge American homophobia and intolerance

• The play creates similar ripples wherever it is performed

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CULTURAL RIPPLES: The Design Concept (cont)

• History, cultural change and art/theatre overlap in the interface design as in The Laramie Project.

• Topics in the different circles are both distinct and inter-related

• Projects in each topic approach challenging ideas from different angles and disciplines

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Interactivity:Students Communicate...

• Across ripples• Across courses• Across majors

• Anonymously• Through owning

their strengths• Intellectually• Politically• With and about

cultural ethics

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Benefits of Modules and Problem-Based Learning

• Concrete tasks lead to analysis• Assignments grounded in questions• Paradoxes can be built into the process• Projects are shared among students• Projects become building blocks for further

work• Interdisciplinary collaboration honored

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BENEFITS FOR FACULTY

• Community-building tool• Shared database of teaching ideas• Collaboratively driven by faculty, OIT

professionals, students and administrators• Archivable documents for tenure package or

potential publication• Accessible experiential training for improving

online teaching effectiveness.

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CHALLENGES FOR FACULTY

• Human resources must be in place:– Understanding/articulate OIT professionals– Motivated and articulate faculty– Existing and accessible college network – Ongoing training available throughout project– Deans/administrators committed to funding and

organizing project (outside & inside OIT)– Genuine pedagogical collaboration

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CHALLENGES FOR FACULTY

• Technology resources must be in place:– Computer labs for students who need

access and/or speed– Adequate internet connections at school– Supporting programs already in the system– Classrooms must support website display– Up-to-date faculty computers

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Next Steps

• Continued development of WebCT resources and technology to transform the First Year Book Project to a true interdisciplinary learning community

• Taking full advantage of WebCT capabilities

• Faculty/TA/Peer training• Academic partnerships

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Collaboration through technology is a lot of work; it’s only worth doing when it enhances communication,

community, and curriculum.

The point is to create a tool

for teachers and students.

We start with a good reason to teach this way, and build from there.