Transcript How do you design or convert a course to a Serving the Common

How do you design or convert a
course to a VUSM 300,
Serving the Common Good,
Mission Seminar?
Leanne Hedberg Carlson, Service Learning Coordinator
Michael Smuksta, The Lakota of the Great Plains
Val Kokott-Rebhahn, Mentoring: The Praxis of Psychology
Viterbo University Outservice
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Designing or Converting a Course
• Why Service-Learning?
• What is required in a VUSM 300 course?
• Will you design a new course or convert an existing
course?
• How will you align the Core Curriculum Outcomes with
your discipline’s Ways of Thinking Outcomes (WoT) and
the specific course learning outcomes?
• What reading from your discipline will you include?
• What assignments will you use to assess
these outcomes?
• Advice from the Field
Why Service-Learning?
•Service-Learning is Embedded in
Viterbo’s Mission and Values
•Why Service-Learning in Higher Education?
A Student-Focused Perspective
•The Role of the Service-Learning Coordinator
Student Perspective
SL Makes Students More
–Tolerant
–Altruistic
–Culturally Aware
Student Perspective
Service-Learning Students Show
– Better leadership and communication skills
– Higher grade point averages
– Stronger critical thinking skills
(Zlotkowski, Successful Service-Learning Programs [1998])
Faculty Perspective
• The New American College (Boyers)
• Reinvigorated teaching
• American Association for Higher Education
Forum for Faculty Roles and Rewards
• Sense of community
• Scholarships of application, integration and
teaching
• Publishing opportunities
(Zlotkowski, Successful Service-Learning Programs (1998))
What is Service-Learning?
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Volunteering: recipient benefit
Internship: skill and career development
Practicum: work-place learning
Field Study: data gathered via observation
Service-Learning
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Reciprocal
Systems level inquiry
Change agents
Reflection
Linked to specific learning outcomes
Learning
and
Reflection
Teacher
Academic
Content
Student
Service
(Revised from Learning Through Serving, Cress C.M, et al, 2005)
The Service-Learning Coordinator
• Protects community relationships that
faculty have already established
• Provides resources for community sites
and SL infrastructure
• Promotes a shared understanding of SL
• Collects and records SL data
Serving the Common Good:
Student Learning Outcomes
• Students will summarize evidence of change
in their attitudes and actions toward taking a
servant leadership role to further social justice
and the common good.
• Students will process an intercultural
experience from multiple perspectives while
demonstrating an ability to act in a respectful
and supportive manner.
Common Readings of VUSM 300
• Paul Loeb, Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in a Challenging Time
(St. Martin’s Griffin, 2010) http://www.paulloeb.org/soul-studyquestions.html
• Excerpts from John Rawls’s (1971) A Theory of Justice (Harvard university
Press, 1971), in Blackboard
• Other articles and websites on the Common Good
– “Catholic Social Teaching,” http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-andteachings/what-we-believe/catholic-social-teaching/index.cfm
– “Themes of Catholic Social Teaching,” http://www.usccb.org/beliefsand-teachings/what-we-believe/catholic-social-teaching/themes-ofcatholic-social-teaching.cfm
– Martin Luther King, Jr., “The Drum Major Instinct” (excerpt) @
http://www.scribd.com/doc/71576019/Community-Conversations-forYoung-Adults-MLK-Toolkit Go to http://mlkkpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_th
e_drum_major_instinct/ to hear the complete speech and read along
as King speaks, 39 minute, 11 seconds.
Common Assignments
• Blackboard Common Good site with Resources
• Detailed instructions provided for
– Journal Entries
– Final Integrative Reflection Paper
– Final Presentation
Converting a Course: History 351
(The American West) to VUSM 340
(The Lakota of the Great Plains)
• Native American history as part of History 351
• Prior spring break service trips to the
Cheyenne River Youth Project (CRYP) in Eagle
Butte, SD
• Concern: Would the students “bond” as the
service trip was a required activity for the
course?
Service-Learning Activity:
A Spring Break Immersion Experience
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CRYP
Service Work
Interaction with children and teens
Speakers
Student Placements with professionals in
allied fields
Aligning Student Learning OutcomesService Learning
Common Good
Seminar Learning
Objectives
Common Good
Seminar Learning
Objectives
VUSM 300 / Lakota
of the Great Plains
Outcomes
Assigned Work
Students will
process an
intercultural
experience from
multiple
perspectives while
demonstrating an
ability to act in a
respectful and
supportive manner.
Students will
summarize
evidence of change
in their attitudes
and actions toward
taking a servant
leadership role to
further social justice
and the common
good.
•Define, analyze, and
evaluate the meaning
of the “common
good.”
•Define, analyze, and
evaluate the meaning
of “social justice” on
issues related to Plains
Indian history.
•Participate in service
learning at the
Cheyenne River Youth
Project (CRYP) in Eagle
Butte, SD.
•Class discussion of
secondary sources
on Catholic Social
Teaching, the
Common Good,
Rawls’s Theory of
Justice
•Process the
experience in
reflective journal
entries, a final
integrative paper,
and a final
presentation.
Aligning Student Learning Outcomes, e.g.,
Intercultural Knowledge and Competence
Core Curriculum
Historical Analysis
–Ways of Thinking
Lakota of the Great
Plains Outcomes
Assigned Work
Intercultural
Knowledge and
Competence is "a
set of cognitive,
affective, and
behavioral skills
and characteristics
that support
effective and
appropriate
interaction in a
variety of cultural
contexts.”
The student will
develop historical
perspective by
relating subject
matter to the
broader historical
context in which it
occurred
•Understand the
historical idea of
agency among
Plains Indians in the
evolution of the
American West
•Describe complex
cultures and history
of Native peoples of
the Plains and their
adaptations to their
surroundings and
changing
conditions.
Class discussion of
primary and
secondary sources
Primary Source
analyses
Journal Entries
Integrative Paper
Integrative
Presentation
Discipline-Specific Reading
• Daniel J. Gelo, Indians of the Great Plains (Pearson Education, 2012)
• Jeffrey Ostler, The Lakota and the Black Hills Penguin Books, 2010
• Colin Calloway, ed., Our Hearts Fell to the Ground: Plains Indian
Views of How the West Was Lost (Bedford Books of St. Martin’s
Press, 1996)
• Other excerpts, articles and websites on the Plains Indians in
Blackboard, e.g.,
– Ian Frazier, On the Rez (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2000)
– Colin Calloway, “Grandfather’s Axe: Living with a Native American
Past” from Reflections on American Indian history : honoring the past,
building a future, edited by Albert L. Hurtado ; introduction by Wilma
Mankiller (University of Oklahoma, 2005)
– Sioux Nation of Indians, et. al. v. The United States. (1974)
Discipline-Specific Assignments
• 2 page response paper answering this question:
Based on the reading to date from Gelo, Indians
of the Great Plains, chapters 4, 5, and 8 and
Ostler, The Lakota and the Black Hills, chapters
1, 2, and 3, how did the Plains Indians in general
and the Lakota specifically define and
implement “the common good”?
• 3 Primary Source Analyses
• Oral Presentation of a contemporary Issue
related to Plains Indians / Lakotas
Discipline Specific Assignments, cont’d
• 5-page essay answering this question:
– Karl Marx wrote, “Men make their own history,
but they do not make it as they please; they do
not make it under self-selected circumstances,
but under circumstances existing already, given
and transmitted from the past.” In what ways
does Marx’s observation apply to the history of
the northern Plains Indians from the period of
American migration westward on the Oregon
Trail in the 1830s to Wounded Knee in 1890?
Discipline Specific Assignments, cont’d
• First, consider how northern Plains Indians made “their
own history” as they responded to the demands and
pressures imposed by the United States citizens and
government in the nineteenth century, 1830-1900.
Which actions of the northern Plains Indians were most
effective, least effective, and why?
• Second, describe the “circumstances existing already,
given, and transmitted from the past” that constrained
their choices?
• Third, reach a conclusion that states how the lives of
northern Plains Indian people changed and ways in which
their lives displayed continuity and resilience?
Advice / Suggestions / Concerns/
Reflections
• Distribution / weight of grades: minimum of
1/3 Common Good; 2/3 history; 40/60 split
• Excellent resources on the Serving the
Common Good Blackboard site
• “Meshing” the readings / assignments of the
Common Good and of your discipline
• Number of journal entries?
Three 5-page entries, two from CRYP
Some SCG Course Ideas
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Meeting the Needs of Children
Discovering Self in Serving Others
Understanding Play at the Discovery Center
Natural Disaster Preparedness and Relief
Enriching Arts Through Service-Learning
Service Learning: A Sociological Experience
Confronting Poverty
SCG Course Ideas (con’t)
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Citizenship, Service and Social Change
Community Psychology
Small Group Communication
Urban Gardens
Poverty, Gender and Microcredit
Youth Empowerment and Engagement
Contemporary Issues in Youth Development
Arts and Community Development
Community Partners
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Boys and Girls Club
Hamilton School
RiverfrontInc.
La Crosse YMCA
Myrick-Hixon Ecopark
Mississippi Valley Conservancy
Place of Grace