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…
A New Open Ed Experiment
I have been teaching Introduction to Media and Cultural Studies (CM2770) for a long time and for a long time, I've been concerned about text book prices. This introductory course…
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…
Cluster Curriculum is General Education
After a busy summer, today is the first day of classes at Plymouth State University. The lead up to this new semester was full of meetings and presentations as we…
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…
“Open” and the Cluster Initiative
President Birx has explained that a cluster-based curriculum would be one in which students could identify and articulate the connections between all of their courses, that they could explain the ways…
Student Persistence and the Cluster Initiative
The First Year Seminar (FYS) Fellows have already met for many hours this summer to work on our Fall offerings of the course. We are designing some common assessments as…
Beyond the Skills Gap Revisited
I wrote a couple of months ago about reading the book Beyond the Skills Gap with my small book club. We just getting ready to meet to talk about the…
Year End Cluster Reflection
Yesterday, I sent out the agenda for the last Arts and Technologies cluster meeting of the academic year. (For those interested--the meeting is May 17, 3:30-5pm, in Frost Commons.) In…
Cluster Leadership Pilot
At the last town hall meeting, President Birx said that one of his priorities is to pilot new leadership models in a couple of the Integrated Clusters. Since that time,…
Lots of Activity
In the three weeks since my last post, there has been a flurry of activity on campus regarding the integrated clusters and possible changes to many aspects of the way…
A Guide’s View of PSU’s Week
Our first week back to campus after the Undergraduate Spring Break was a busy one relative to the Integrated Cluster initiative. Here are some of the conversations and activities I…
Beyond the Skills Gap
I first learned of Beyond the Skills Gap in an October, 2016 article in Inside Higher Ed. In January, my small book club (Ann McClellan, Pat Cantor, and I) decided…
PSU and the National GE Conversation
As I mentioned in my previous post, I recently attended the American Association of Colleges and Universities' 2017 General Education and Assessment Conference. Nearly every session I attended was directly…
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…
Lessons Learned from Reviewing Cluster Project Proposals
One of the sessions that I was involved in during the January Jamboree was about the lessons learned regarding successful cluster projects so far. Annette Holba, Cindy Waltman, Laura Dykstra and…
Arts and Technologies Curriculum Discussion
During PSU's January Jamboree (JJ), I was involved in four sessions: First Year Seminar Update, General Education Update, Lessons Learned from Cluster Project Proposals, and the Arts and Technologies Curriculum…
