Advice for Future Implementations

Part of the InTeGrate Grand Valley State University Program Model

Consideration of context:

The Project Team is fortunate to be hired into the GVSU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS) where science education faculty are valued and placed with their colleagues in their science discipline. Thus, we serve the Integrated Science Program and not individual departments. Our long-standing Integrated Science Endorsement was itself a compromise between faculty. We welcomed the opportunity to revisit the required courses and better prepare our students. We were fully supported by the CLAS Advising Center and the Dean of CLAS. The team at GVSU had equal representation of all science disciplines and we discussed changes and science education faculty not directly involved in the program also had input. Fortnightly or monthly meetings of the Integrated Science Program faculty provided a frequent meeting time.

The cultural reality that hampered our progress was the approval process for new programs/majors and courses. The CLAS Curriculum Committee was reviewing hundreds of proposals and a full academic year passed before our work was reviewed and passed to the University Curriculum Committee. The UCC approved the program and courses in the summer of 2016 however this was too late to have the courses scheduled for the 2016-2017 academic year. Students can begin the new Integrated Science major in the Fall of 2016. SCI 440 will be offered fall 2017 and SCI 450 in winter 2018.

Things that worked well that we would do again

The face to face group and small group meetings were critical to our success. During much of the school year we are just too busy to be sharing deeply on our content and pedagogy. The project allowed us time for this fruitful discussion. Connecting with our 2YC partners has been great and we are frequently sharing ideas, planning the next joint field trip, our guiding a transfer student along their career path.

Strategies for overcoming challenges

Perhaps the biggest challenge was selecting modules that fit with our course objectives. Although the modules are excellent they did not align with the chemistry and physics content we wanted in that methods course. In contrast, some of the modules, such as Exploring Geoscience Methods and Mineral Resources do fit well in the Earth and life science methods course. Introducing the modules will allow us to illustrate the curricular materials development process and the InTeGrate materials rubric. The 2017 InTeGrate Faculty Mentoring Network might offer some interesting biology options.

Things to think about before you start this type of project

Get in line early. We invested significant time to writing the new major and the two new courses before the project officially started and promptly submitted for review by the college and the university. That said, with more than 120 proposals in the queue, progress was slow. Without university approval we couldn't offer the new courses.