Understanding the Habits of Mind
A major goal of our Tackling a Wicked Problem class is to introduce students to our General Education program's Habits of Mind, which are the learning outcomes of the program. Understanding…
Climate Change Projects
My students in Tackling a Wicked Problem engaged in their first project on Friday of last week when they participated in the Climate Strike. They decided that instead of coming…
Climate Change One Pager Assignment
My section of the Tackling a Wicked Problem course is focused on climate change. I gave the students the following list of phrases and challenged them to explain the ways…
Cluster Learning, Community, and Change
With more than 70 of my colleagues, I have spent a significant portion of my summer participating in the Cluster Pedagogy Learning Community (CPLC). Although the community will continue to…
INCAP Report
This is part of the report that I am planning to submit to the General Education Committee at PSU next week reflecting on our experiences with our potential new Integrated…
TWP and Information Literacy: An Action Plan
I'm in the middle of planning my section of Tackling a Wicked Problem for the Fall 2019 semester. One of the most important aspects of the class is that students…
Connections: Cluster Pedagogy and Habits of Mind
For me, pedagogy is part of an always unfinished project intent on developing a meaningful life for all students. --On Critical Pedagogy, Henry Giroux I'll start this post with a…
PSU at the Institute for Project Based Learning
For the last five summers, the Center for Project-Based Learning at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) has offered a project-based learning institute for teams from colleges and universities who are interested…
TWP Action Plan
At the June 4 meeting of the Tackling a Wicked Problem instructors group, we were asked to develop an action plan to lay out things we need to learn about…
OER for Tackling a Wicked Problem
Draft of the #OER for our new Tackling a Wicked Problem course. Feedback welcome! https://wicked-problem.press.plymouth.edu/
How Humans Learn: Curiosity
I have found that the first chapter of Joshua Eyler's book How Humans Learn connects nicely with what we're trying to do with Tackling a Wicked Problem. The chapter is…
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…
IS4220 Wrap Up
Today was the final exam period for my section of IS4220--Signature Project. The students presented their final project to members of various offices across campus, including Admissions and MCCS, as…
Progress Report: Cluster Initiative
I have had a couple of conversations recently in which people expressed concern that we have not accomplished much with the cluster initiative. I think this concern is coming up…
The National Conversations about Gen Ed
Brigid O'Donnell and I went to AAC&U's General Education Conference in February. The name of the conference was Creating a 21st Century General Education Program: Responding to Seismic Shifts. My…
INCAP Pilot Update
I can't believe how quickly half of the Spring semester has flown by! There is a lot going on in the world of General Education at Plymouth State University and…
January Jamboree 2019
I have been meaning to write a post about Plymouth State University's January Jamboree event but January and now 10 days of February have slipped by me. The only reason…
“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.…
Complex Lives, Tragedies, and Empathy
As the General Education Coordinator at PSU, I've been working on the First Year Seminar Poster Symposium since before the Fall semester started. Like everyone else involved in the event,…
Implementing Cluster Pedagogy in the General Education Program
I am excited that Plymouth State University is the recipient of a grant from the Davis Educational Foundation to implement Cluster pedagogy in our General Education Program. I have written…
