What is “Tackling a Wicked Problem”?
Starting this fall, Plymouth State University is embarking on a new curricular initiative called Tackling a Wicked Problem (TWP). This is a course required of all first year students, designed…
“I thought there was going to be more teaching done in the class”
I spent several hours yesterday and today looking through the student course evaluations of the 45 sections of First Year Seminar that we offered at Plymouth State University this fall.…
Why is PSU Moving to Clusters?
President Birx wrote a blog post (which I've referenced more times than I can count) about the Four Tools of Clusters. It's important to note that three of the four…
The New Education: First Year Seminar
I've been busy for the last month or so IndieWebifying my web site. That's been really fun. But I've also been started planning for my new position as Coordinator of…
Goal Setting and Institutional Change
I've been thinking about institutional change a lot lately. As I move into my new role as the Coordinator of General Education at Plymouth State University, I've been thinking about…
Workshop
Wicked Problems April 27th, 2018, 12:30 to 1:30 at HUB Hage Room Rachelle Lyons and I will be presenting a workshop on wicked problems for anyone interested in the topic.…
PCA 2018
I went to the Popular Culture Association Conference last week. My presentation was called Wicked Problems in Popular Culture: An Open Pedagogy Experiment in Engagement in which I talked about my experience with…
Guest Post from Alex Richard
A couple of weeks ago, my First Year Seminar (FYS) classes discussed ways that we might assess the learning outcome in our class related to General Education. In particular, at…
General Education and Clusters Revisited
Back at the beginning of the semester, I wrote about the realization I had that President Birx's Four Tools of Clusters mean that when we talk about "cluster curriculum," we…
Lessons Learned Five Weeks In
The semester is five weeks old and my experiment with open pedagogy in Plymouth State University's First Year Seminar has been an up and down experience so far. I have…
Getting Students to “Own” Their Education
The most exciting aspect of the integrated cluster initiative for me is the idea that we will redesign our classes to provide students with experiences that will encourage (require? is…
First Open Ped Lesson
I've had 2 classes with my First Year Seminar students so far and I've already learned a huge lesson about using open pedagogy. I have planned several exercises for the…
Open Educational Resource for First Year Seminar
My major summer project has been to create an Open Educational Resource to be used as the common text for Plymouth State University's First Year Seminar. The first draft is…
Information Literacy, Fake News, and Habits of Mind
Although I haven't posted in several weeks, I have been doing a lot of reading, writing, and thinking. In particular, I've been working on pulling together the Open Educational Resource…
AAC&U General Education Conference
Annette Holba, Annemarie Conlon, Sandra Van Gundy, Hilary Swank, and I attended the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) General Education Conference in Phoenix last week. The AAC&U is…
The First Year Seminar and Wicked Problems
The First Year Seminar Coordinating Council (FYSCC) is facilitating a workshop during Plymouth State University's January Jamboree. We will be discussing the changes we envision as the First Year Seminar (FYS) becomes…
