Friday's iTeach7 had a great turnout with an inspiring keynote by Mike Winiski from Furman University, fascinating faculty contributions, honest and helpful students, and a workshop that tied everything together.
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| Mike Winiski |
Mike Winiski's keynote focused on "Adventures in Project-Based Learning: Cats, Dogs, Drones, and Streetlights." He gave examples of undergraduate student projects that were contained within a term but then also some that kept going and spread to other disciplines. He called these kinds of projects actionable. All projects used GIS (Geogrpahic Information Systems) to analyze data in new ways.
A self-contained project was the discussion of which route
Xerxes took through Turkey (northor south), and based on elevation, water availability, and other geographic features, the researcher concluded that a southern route appeared to have been more likely. A second project analyzed voting behavior combined with violent incidents of various kinds in the 2013 Kenya elections, connecting this data to other demographic information and drawing conclusions about the reasons for violent outbursts in some regions but not in others.
One actionable undergraduate project was the local problem of missing streetlights in a historic and poor neighborhood. With GIS, a drone, collaboration from the department of Physics, student organizations, and other units, the students not only mapped the darkness in this neighborhood, using a drone to collect light data (before it became illegal to fly drones over private property), mapping the data, but then also raising money to increase the number of streetlights to make the neighborhood safer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZrMyKqWZvQ&feature=youtu.be&list=PLDE7Cf9EDcOeGoFVu0ctfmaNfPyqChlfs
gives you more information on the project.
What kinds of actionable projects can you imagine in your courses?
Ana Franco-Watkins, Psychology, discussed game theory and behavioral science in her "Let the Games Begin - Project-Based Learning." In her course, students worked on multiple small projects to apply psychological concepts to various types of games.
Margaret Williamson, Pharmacy, showed the complex team work all AU Pharmacy students participate in during 3 years of their studies in "Pharmacy Practice Experience: A Longitudinal, Team-Based Approach in Pharmacy Care to the Community." Students from different years team up to visit members of the community who need medical advice that is appropriate for Pharmacy students to give out.
Cathleen Erwin, Political Science, described her "Team-based Learning: Facilitating Application in the Classroom," showing some of the methods she is using to make sure student teams are successful.
Minseo Park, Physics, showed us the possibilities of "Fusion of Science and Art: Project-Based Learning in Physics of Music Course," where his students learned to apply acoustical and other physics concepts to building and playing their own musical instruments out of everyday materials.
Three students discussed their perspectives on collaborative learning, reminding us that clear expectations are essential. They also assured us that while group work may not be perceived as popular, it is important to students, and they see the value of these kinds of projects.
After lunch, we continued with a workshop led by Mike Winiski where we identified a course that would benefit from project-based learning and then worked our way through backward design to make the project the integral part of the course, with content and assignments clearly connected to the project.
Oh, and did I say that three of the four faculty presenters teach in an EASL space, and one of the students drew on his experiences as a student in an EASL space?
The recorded presentations are available at
http://aces.panopto.auburn.edu/ -- log on with your AU userid and password and then search for iTeach7.
