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The Hampshire Learning Project

HLP_TrailerThe Hampshire Learning Project (HLP) is an internally funded research project designed to determine the ways that the Hampshire experience contributes to students’ initiative, creativity, appetite for ongoing learning, and desire to contribute to society.

The Hampshire Learning Project has created a short video series to present some of our recent research findings to faculty, staff, and other members of the campus community. The series includes a two-minute overview video and four in-depth videos on important themes that have emerged: 1) advising, 2) critical reflection, 3) intellectual community, and 4) outside-of-classroom experiences.

The findings provide insights into student experiences and highlight areas that work well for students and those where students struggle.  We hope that the Hampshire community can draw upon these research findings to enhance and improve student experiences across multiple areas.

If you have practices that support students along these dimensions (e.g. creating intellectual communities through cohort advising; reflecting on learning each semester, etc.), consider making a short video on your practice to share. Contact the CTL at ctl@hampshire.edu to schedule your video production.

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Inclusive Teaching Workshop: How does ‘who we are’ affect ‘what we do”?

The UMass Center for Teaching & Faculty Development is hosting a series of diversity-related workshops this spring that are open to Five College faculty.  Please sign up for the first this spring!

What: Positionality: How Does ‘Who We Are’ Affect ‘What We Do’?
Speaker: Dr. Jesse Tauriac
Audience: All instructors
When: Thursday, January 29th from 9 AM to 11 AM
Location: UMass Amherst Campus Center (room given after registration)
Register: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/positionality

DESCRIPTION: Often when educators consider starting classroom discussions about multiculturalism and bias, emphasis is placed on analyzing student viewpoints or societal perspectives about various diverse communities and forms of oppression. Much less considered but, arguably, more important is an exploration of our own personal backgrounds and identity dimensions, and recognition of the ways these shape our perceptions of and experiences with individuals from a range of backgrounds. This two-hour, interactive workshop will guide participants in examining and discussing meaningful aspects of our identities, and drawing links to the ways we engage diverse individuals and multicultural topics.

SPEAKER: Dr. Jesse Tauriac is an Assistant Professor of Psychology in the Department of Social Sciences at Lasell College. He has delivered trainings on multicultural teaching and mentoring, culturally competent management and service delivery, respectful workplace environments, and building student cross-cultural alliances. His research interests include factors promoting academic engagement and success among racially and ethnically diverse students, particularly Black American males and first generation college students.

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Feb. 2nd Deadline for 5 College Blended Learning Grant Submission

REMINDER: there is a February 2nd deadlin

e for the 2015-2016 Five College Blended Learning grant cycle. There are two separate blended learning grants:

1. Mellon Foundation: 8-10 projects per year, approximately $13,000 per grant for one year, for a blended course in the humanities or humanistic social sciences (multicampus collaboration is possible, but not required);

2. Teagle Foundation: 2-3 projects per year, approximately $15,000-25,000 per grant for one year, for a blended course in any area by a team of faculty members from at least two different Five College institutions.

For more information and application materials, go to https://www.fivecolleges.edu/blended, or contact Rogelio Miñana, Faculty Director of the Five College Blended Learning Program (rminana@mtholyoke.edu) and Nate Therien, Five College Director of Academic Programs (ntherien@fivecollege.edu).

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New Spring Course Explores Enduring Questions about Art

This spring semester marks the start of a new course that explores the enduring question, “What is Art?” The course will be taught by Dr. Karen Koehler, professor of architectural and art history, with support from a $22,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Organized around five concepts (Origins, Authenticity, Spirituality and Transcendence, Mimesis, and Commitment), this course will use selected texts in philosophy alongside literature, film, visual art and performance to probe a series of sub-questions, such as:

  • What is creative expression?
  • What is artistic authenticity?
  • What makes art transcendent?
  • How do artists see themselves?
  • What is political art?

The course features a film series component, including two films at Amherst Cinema, and a trip to New York City to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  A final digital exhibition culminates the course, where students will explore an object of their choice that raises an enduring question about art.

The Enduring Questions grant program sponsored by NEH is a wonderful opportunity to develop new inquiry-based curricula. For more information visit: http://www.neh.gov/grants/education/enduring-questions

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Back to Eval Writing?

Back to eval writing? Check out our resource page on writing student evaluations (under “teaching resources”). There are resources that might be helpful. In particular, check out the work done by some of your colleagues developing guidelines for writing Division II evaluations. It grows out of an evaluation analysis workshop in which they learned that many evaluations were descriptive and lacked evaluative comments that help students know what they are doing well and what they need to work on next.

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5 College Blended Learning Workshop Cancelled

5C Blended Learning Workshop Cancelled. Due to the impending winter weather and the frenzy of the end of the semester, the 5 College Blended Learning Team has decided to postpone their second blended learning workshop to some time early in the spring semester. More details soon.

Apologies for any inconvenience – more after the winter break.

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e-portfolios and reflection

YanceyIn creating an e-portfolio, a student essentially curates their work. They decide how to group their artifacts (written work, photographs, films, music, visual arts pieces, etc.) and in presenting them, they write across what they have done to demonstrate what they have learned. As faculty, we can ask them to show particular kinds of learning that might suggest to students ways to organize their work and reflect on it.

What we are likely to find as faculty is that having students create e-portfolios puts more of the onus on making meaning on the student and less on us.

Watch this talk by Dr. Kathleen Yancey to learn more.

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Creating Visual Models for Learning

PolioIn Megan Dobro’s Virology class, students chose a “pet virus” that they will study in depth for the semester. The first assignment was to create a physical model of their virus. She has no artistic requirements; it just needs to be accurate. Megan gave ideas such as using clay, paper mache, found objects, or origami using online guides. Students presented their models to the class and showed how they represented the virus’s symmetry, structural components, and maybe dynamic processes. More important than the product, the process of creating a seemingly silly model got students to think more deeply. Looking only at two-dimensional pictures of viruses, students may not have realized that the viral shell has a complex, beautiful symmetry. Or that there are specific ways each viral component fits together, and that tells you something about which pieces rely on each other. Or that viruses are relatively simple particles and it’s amazing they wreak so much havoc on the world. Students might spend 15 seconds looking at a picture, but in the process of making a virus, they take time with their virus, studying all of the shapes and possible ways it can be built and taken apart. They start to ask questions that introduce advanced concepts. See the results of this year’s class models.

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Blended Learning Resources and Conference

Interested in Blended Learning?

Visit the Bryn Mawr Blended Learning Initiative Blog. If you’d like to be kept up to date on the Bryn Mawr project developments and opportunities, please add your name to their mailing list.

OR: Attend the  the fourth annual conference on Blended Learning in the Liberal Arts on May 20-21, 2015 at Bryn Mawr. The focus of the conference will be on using blended learning to improve student learning outcomes and support the missions and cultures of liberal arts colleges. Come share ideas and information about findings, experiences, and best practices with LAC faculty and staff, and get some hands on experience with materials and technologies.

Contact Laura Wenk (lwenk@hampshire.edu) to see if the CTL can help support your attendance.