COR 120 Work in Progress

Just to keep folks up to date where we're going with COR 120....

The last entry in this blog noted the texts we've selected for next semester. Betsy has arranged for these to be arriving (we hope!) around our October 15th division meeting date.

In COR 120, we'll all be able to configure each module more personally; while there will be an assignment at the end of each module that all of us will share in common, we're trying to build in an additional "track" focusing on more personal visions of community for students and instructors to personalize within each module. In addition, while each module with have a bloc of readings keyed to that module's major questions, getting from A to B within that module will be more completely in the hands of the individual faculty members this time around. And we're building in more opportunities, by limiting the quantity of assigned readings and creating more space in the class schedule, for faculty to introduce materials or examples of their own, in tune with their own interests.

Note that you'll have to do this via materials that you can provide, or the students can obtain, without additional expenditures or logistical commitments by the bookstore or the division--we're talking library, online and personal collections, for instance. Given the nature of the material we are focusing on, this should not pose any real difficulty.

As we roll this out next month, you'll have ample time to investigate the texts, design some assignments, and figure out how you want to customize your approach to community. While we'll be focusing everyone on some "cornerstone" issues in community, you'll be tasked with adding additional depth to the class by bringing in other issues and concerns involving the definition, structure, and interaction of communities.

We'll have more soon!

COR 120 Work in Progress

Work in Progress: Concepts of Community (COR 120)

The CDT felt it would be good to give everyone in the division a heads up as to where we stand with the next Core sequence concepts course.

The team, Jen Vincent, David Kite, Bob Mayer, working very closely with Cinse Bonino for instructional development and assignment planning, has mapped out the general questions, specific texts, and overall flow we want for spring. While the details (ah, the details!) remain as always devilish, you can expect essentially three modules dealing with the origin/definition, structure/functioning, and interrelationships of American communities, four major texts with elements from a fifth, a Global Module, and a major research-oriented paper.

The team is refining the language for the three questions, but the gist of it is:

What is a community?
How do communities function?
Why and how do communities interact?

The final list of texts is as follows:

Albion’s Seed, by David Hackett Fischer
Republic, by Plato (trans. C.D.C. Reeve)
Teachings From the Worldly Philosophy, by Robert Heilbroner
The Virtual Self, by Ben Agger
and selections from Bowling Alone, by Robert D. Putnam

The goal of the course is to get students inquiring into history, philosophy, sociology, and economics as they pursue questions surrounding the origins, composition, and interaction of American communities.

The structure of the course will be somewhat looser than COR 110, in that faculty will be tasked with coming up with more examples fitting the basic instructional parameters this time, rather than having the lion’s share predetermined. One goal is to have faculty create relevant entry points into each module, using each faculty member’s area of personal expertise and interest.

The research paper, coupled with a group project, will drive the information literacy goals for the course, and will build on material developed by the students during the semester. COR 120 will push students rather deeply into developing their research and information literacy skills.

The Global Module, which can begin at any time from about week four through week eight, depending on overseas partners, will focus on one of several themes; instructors may not have a choice of what themes they work with due to the vagaries of setting up international connections but all the module themes will be quite easily integrated into the COR 120 coursework. Gary Scudder is lining up partners in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, and with luck Asia as well. Certainly a goal is to have as much instructor choice here as is feasible, and even when the module theme is predetermined, the way it is integrated will be largely up to the instructor, as long as certain basic parameters are met.

The team will be designing another two required institutional assessment assignments for the ePort; as before, the ePort will be available for more instructor-defined uses as well.

CDT Updates: Ideas for 2nd Year Courses

This month the CDT is focused on the master course for COR 120. This means that in most of our meetings we are working with Cinse Bonino (the instructional designer for these classes). But, our second main goal for this semester is to develop formal course proposals for the 2^nd year core classes. This is on the back burner right now, but I expect that in later October through December it will be our central concern.

Bob Mayer is posting an update on the COR 120 course, so I simply wanted to review our basic ideas for the sophomore year classes. These have not changed all that much since we sent out a series of course ideas to the faculty last March (I’ll try to attach those write-up here), but there have been some important developments since then.

First, some reminders about the overall plan for the year: The major theme of the second year is the Western tradition. The goal is to give students a solid grounding in some of the most important ideas and developments within our own culture before expanding into other global cultures in the third year. This is not a hard and fast line. Some courses are going to do more by way of comparing Western ideas to other traditions – and we are very much aware that the “Western” tradition includes many different experiences and perspectives. So, our guiding question really has become “What are the really central ideas, innovations, contributions from the West that students need to understand?”

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Here’s a quick overview of course ideas:

COR 210:Scientific Revolutions (FALLSEMESTER) This class will look at some major scientific revolutions in a historical, social and cultural context . Right now we are thinking in terms of looking at three major scientific revolutions: the Copernican Revolution in astronomy to Newton’s work (PHYSICS); the rise of modern atomic theory in the 19^th c. (CHEM); and Evolution/Darwinism (BIOLOGY). Our goal here involves discussing some important scientific ideas, but also we want to give students the chance to reflect intelligently on how science develops. We want them to learn to think of scientific ideas in light of the cultural attitudes and changes that produced them and how ideas like these also have an impact in art, literature, politics, etc.

COR 220: Aesthetics & the West. (FALL SEMESTER) The focus of this class is to get students thinking about artistic expression in all of its forms – music, painting, design, poetry, fiction, film, photography. Students will read about various forms of literary and aesthetic expression, for example considering how holistic and qualitative expression complements the analytic
and quantitative thinking they are studying in the concurrent COR 210 class. Echoing the art component of COR 110, they will be exposed to different varieties of literary and aesthetic expression, reflect upon this kind of expression, and they will be asked to engage in it themselves.

Dave and Robin have already expressed support for an “art studio” component of these courses where students will have some sustained instruction in a particular form of literary and artistic expression. For example, some students might take a studio that involves creative writing in poetry or in prose, others might take sustained instruction in drama, photography
or film, and still other art studios might be offered in arts such as drawing, sculpture, music.

COR 230: Capitalism and Democracy. (SPRING SEMESTER) What could be more Western? This is a class where students can think seriously about the foundations of our economic and political lives, and learn how these are rooted in the Western
tradition. Our hope is that this class will be rooted in contemporary experience – talking about problems and possibilities facing economics and politics today (mass media, globalization, community) and will use these as a starting point to explore the foundations of these issues.

COR 240: Religion & the West. (SPRING SEMESTER) We are still thinking about the basic idea here, but we want a course that (1) makes students aware of the important role that religion had in shaping our culture and our nation; (2) makes them think about how religious and spiritual traditions are the root of many of our contemporary (and secular) attitudes and values; (3) helps them see how other cultures with very different religious traditions think about the world in different ways (this, of course,
pre-figures themes to be taken up in the third year).

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So – this is a snapshot of where things might go. Most of these ideas have been out for some time now, but we figured people might like a reminder. Unlike the first year classes (with its deliberate consideration of interdisciplinary thinking) we were less concerned about making sure each discipline receives equal treatment in every class. For example, probably Art and Literature have a stronger perch in COR 220, and science, history, philosophy and mathematics have a strong connection with COR 210. Surely political theory and economics get more consideration in COR 230. But these courses really are interdisciplinary thematic courses, and allow room for all kinds of literature and methods.

Other points:

• Some books from COR 100’s will be brought back in the COR 200s.
• Some schoolwork and term projects from COR 100s might be the starting point for coursework in the 200s (reinforcing the value of the ePort)
• We hope to include Global Modules in one or both semesters. Our hope is these will become a desired component – whether required or not – in many classes.
• Some coursework might deliberately connect two different classes (e.g. you can see how a student’s course project in COR210 might be developed in common with the project in COR220 as the course themes are quite complementary).

Please let us know what you think – and we are always desperate for good text ideas. These are not developed course proposals yet, so now is the time for suggestions and changes. I expect that when mid-October rolls around and COR 120 is settled, plans for the second year are going to need to become very definite very soon.

Best,
David