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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Although I've categorized this post as related to Integrated Clusters, I've done that for my own ease of finding it in the future. The post is really about Design Thinking which…
I was interviewed on Monday about the cluster initiative for a new podcast focused on higher education in general and Plymouth State University in particular. I think the interview went…