Holly Swyers

"The Pod" Collaboration part of ACM Pedagogic Resources:ACM Teagle Collegium:Project Reports
At Lake Forest College, we are in the midst of revisiting First Year Studies and are looking at ways to improve students' transitions to college and to engage them in the liberal arts mission of the college. At the initial Teagle-sponsored workshop that led to the Collegium, three faculty members learned about recent scholarship on meta-cognition, aka thinking about how one learns. We could see potential value in having first year students become more aware of their own learning strategies and exposing them to new strategies. We also were struck by research that shows that students have difficulty seeing the interconnectedness of different facets of college life (academics, athletics, residence living, etc). With these issues in mind, we created a "pod" of first studies classes, described below under "context." We hoped to investigate the following questions: To what extent can meta-cognition serve as a shared frame for engaging students across disciplines and college roles? How does close collaboration between faculty members and other college professionals affect the experience of first year students?

"The Pod" Collaboration part of ACM Pedagogic Resources:ACM Teagle Collegium:Activities
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