University Times

Six faculty in search of a concept might be an apt synopsis of a teaching innovation project last year at Pitt’s Bradford campus, supported by one of 15 innovation in teaching grants awarded in 2002 by the provost’s Advisory Council on Instructional Excellence.

Building on the premise that students benefit intellectually when they can see relationships among their courses, a half-dozen Bradford faculty from a variety of disciplines, led by David Champion, who teaches administration of justice, and Don Ulin, who teaches English, pooled their brainpower to develop an independent study-style 1-credit seminar clustered around the concept of community.

“We explore the idea of community from a variety of perspectives and methods, including having guest speakers, a seminar-style weekly meeting, an occasional film, posted readings assigned from different disciplines and an academic-style conference where students presented their work at the end of the semester,” said Champion at the third annual Teaching Excellence Fair Nov. 14.

“‘Community’ is broad, but not vague. It is a concept, not a topic, like technology or media or crime. We try to see how to extrapolate that concept from our different courses and bring students from different disciplines together. We’re really nibbling at the edges of the same concept, which adds depth to learning for the students.”

The course is designed with maximum flexibility to foster thematic unity across the curriculum, Champion said. Faculty take turns leading seminar discussions on the readings assigned from their disciplines, which included social science, art and political science, in addition to English and criminal justice.

The 12 students were required to keep journals of their analysis of the readings, attend the seminar sessions and present capstone papers at a conference, that is, a quasi-honors course format. “For these students, this is their first experience with an academic-style conference: Faculty come in and listen and ask questions, and we have all the official conference fringes, like name tags and podiums,” Champion said. “It allows students to appreciate the work of their peers, too.”

Champion said presentations included a paper on the PATRIOT Act derived from writings by George Orwell; the concept of community among the sailors in Samuel Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” and an account of participating in the production of a community mural under tutelage of an art instructor.

Optional course activities include posting reactions and questions on the readings on a course-specific chat room linked to the on-line assignments.

Champion said students’ appreciation of the variety of disciplines grew as the course progressed. “You could see how readings from one discipline related to their other courses in their discussions,” he said. “If you can get students to have an ‘Aha! moment’ the course is a success.”

While the innovation in teaching grant covered expenses only for the first year, Bradford faculty agreed to continue the project this year, focusing on the concept of freedom and obligation.

Rather than intimidating  the dozen students, the 2:1 ratio of students to faculty built on the already strong relationship between the two groups at Bradford, Champion said. “It was some extra work for us, meeting in the summer to build the syllabus and occasionally visiting each others’ classes.

“But anecdotal student feedback from last year, including the fact that a couple students signed up again this year, made us believe that this was a success and worth building on and expanding,” Champion said. “What I think we learned the most as faculty is that we need to shut up and let the kids talk in the seminar sessions; they had so much to say.”

—Peter Hart