JCCT Workshops

Articulating the Meaning(s) of Liberal Education
May 13-14, 2008

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Leadership: Dr. Brad Bateman
                  Denison University

Faculty, students, and members of the general public often find it challenging to define the liberal arts.   Yet the future of the liberal arts depends on our ability to communicate the value of our unique form of education for ourselves and for others.  Brad Bateman developed this workshop when he was a faculty member at Grinnell College, so that his colleagues could begin to share a common vision of the liberal arts.  In this interactive workshop, he leads participants through several short texts addressing the multiple meanings of liberal education both historically and in the 21^st century.  Participants engage in dialogue and explore the variety of ways that liberal education can be understood. Ultimately, participants will articulate the meanings of a liberal arts education for themselves and as a community of teachers and scholars.  This understanding will be useful in advising students and can give shape to our ongoing conversations about the curriculum and mission of Gettysburg College.

 

Undergraduate Research  in the Humanities Workshop
January 14-15, 2008

 

Leadership:  Dr. Lee Torda & Dr Jenny Olin-Shannahan
                   Council on Undergraduate Research

 

This workshop will engage participants in identifying, enhancing, and promoting student research, scholarship, and creative activities in the humanities at Gettysburg College. Why do it? We will explore the reasons to mentor and support undergraduate research in the humanities, and we will articulate how student research and faculty mentorship in our disciplines are distinct from the scientific and social science models. How do we do it? The workshop intends to provide practical information about how to implement student-directed inquiry into all levels of the humanities curriculum, from the first semester to capstone experiences; how to address constraints on faculty time; and how to provide opportunities for students to share the results of their research with a broader audience, through publications and presentations. Undergraduate research, scholarship, and creative activities can become more intentional, rewarding, and feasible practices in humanities education--when they are introduced at appropriate skill levels for undergraduate students, and when they are integrated in meaningful ways with curricular and co-curricular goals.

Handouts From the workshop

 

• Approaches to the Capstone Research Project
• Mentoring and Supporting Student Research
• Sample Senior Thesis Syllabus
• Scaffolding Research Skills
• Senior Thesis Assignment
• Senior Thesis Rubric

*All docments used with permission from L. Torda & J. Olin-Shannahan

 

What the Best College Teachers Do
May 16, 2007

 

Leadership: Dr. Ken Bain  
                  Montclair State University

 

What do the best college teachers do to captivate and motivate students, to help them reach unusually high levels of accomplishment? Participants in this highly interactive workshop will explore and use findings from a fifteen-year inquiry into the practices and insights of college professors who have had success in helping their students achieve remarkable learning results. Great teaching involves both insights into learning and a wide variety of "brush strokes," good practices that make a difference. In this workshop we will explore both the thinking and practices of highly successful college educators and ask how those insights and brush strokes can inform the way we teach.  In particular, we will explore what it means to create a Natural Critical Learning Environment and a Promising Syllabus. Participants should feel free to bring a copy of their favorite syllabus and a description of some of their most effective brush strokes, or simply come with their curiosity blooming.

 

Handouts from the Workshop: 

• Praise Review

 

 

Institute for Writing and Thinking
Bard College

Writing to Learn Workshop

January 16-17, 2007

 

 

Leadership: Peg Peoples
                  Bard College Institute for Writing and Thinking

 

This workshop presents inventive writing strategies that help students gain a better understanding of complex ideas that arise in first year seminars, encountered in sources such as historical documents, literary texts, scientific articles, and mathematical problems. Valuable in the classroom-or as part of a homework assignment-writing to learn supports close reading of documents and literary texts; allows students to make personal connections to people, places, and events they study; and encourages students to learn from one another. Working together on pertinent texts, workshop participants experience the ways in which writing stimulates engagement with the language, ideas, and issues in all academic fields. This workshop does not focus on finished pieces of writing, but on ways to use informal writing to develop understanding and as the first step in the process of producing a finished story, poem, essay, critical analysis, or research paper. Participants also explore how writing-to-learn practices invite us to reconsider how we teach-to explore how the academic lecture, collaborative learning, and the act of listening exist in relation to one another and to writing. This workshop focuses specifically on ways to integrate writing into the first year seminar format.