LNT 501 Graduate Colloquium Credit Hours: 4 hours CRN: Term Year: FALL 2011

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1 LNT 501 Graduate Colloquium Credit Hours: 4 hours CRN: Term Year: FALL 2011 Online from AUGUST 23 DECEMBER 9 at bb.uis.edu Instructor:Eric Hadley-Ives UHB 3028 Office Hours: Tuesdays from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Wednesdays 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Phone: hadleyiv@uis.edu Fax: Course Description Introduction to the Liberal and Integrative Studies Program. Focuses on the skills, knowledge, and attitudes necessary to become a self-directed, autonomous learner at the graduate level. Topics include an examination of collegiate education philosophy, theory, and practice; dynamics of power; self-assessment; goal-setting; designing effective learning experiences; documenting and evaluating independent learning; organizing learning resources; and designing a curriculum within a discipline. This 4 credit hour course is intended to serve as an introduction to the Liberal and Integrative Studies Program and to help participants refine the necessary skills, knowledge and attitudes to complete a self-designed graduate degree. To be taken as the first course after admission into the LNT Program. Full admission to the program is dependent upon a student taking this course. Students have 12 months from the date of the start of the semester following their admission in which they must complete LNT-501 Graduate Colloquium. Failure to complete LNT-501 Graduate Colloquium within 12 months of the start of the semester of a student s admission will result in the student being suspended and removed from the LNT program. Students who put off their graduate studies for a year or more after admission should seek an admission deferral so that they will not need to re-apply to the program. Students should have their first LNT Committee Meeting within 12 months of the start of semester following their admission to the LNT Program, but failure to have a successful first LNT Committee Meeting within 12 months of admission is not grounds for suspension and removal from the LNT Program. It is, however, grounds for an academic hold being placed on a student by the LNT Department, so that they will be unable to register for classes until they have either held their first LNT Committee meeting or consulted with their LNT advisor to explain why they are delaying their first LNT Committee Meeting. Page 1 of 1 Reasonable accommodations are available for students who have a documented disability. Please notify the instructor during the first week of class of any accommodations needed for the course. Late notification may cause the requested accommodations to be unavailable. All accommodations must be approved through the Office of Disability Services (ODS) in the Human Resources Building (HRB), Room 80,

2 Course Objectives/Learning Outcomes By the end of the course, participants will be able to: understand the Liberal and Integrative Studies degree process; discuss the theory and practice of self-directed learning; formulate a philosophy of education; participate in a process of selfassessment; refine writing, thinking, and communication skills; and, design a draft of an individualized degree plan at the graduate level. Associated with these goals are the following Course Goals: 1) To introduce the theory and practice of self-directed, person-centered learning. 2) To assist in developing lifelong, autonomous learning skills and attitudes. 3) To provide assistance in designing an individualized degree program. Course Procedures and Expectations Class sessions will consist of discussion of readings, sharing of information, and experiential exercises. Part of the process of self-directed learning is to draw upon your own experience and to use it as a resource for yourself and others. It is therefore important for you to participate all sessions and to complete the assignments in preparation for class and for writing your degree proposal. In this course particularly, teacher and students share responsibility for the success of the course. In addition to your attendance, participation in class, and completion of assignments, I expect you to take responsibility for your learning by seeking the help you need, setting high standards for your work, and being open to exploring your own learning style and philosophy by examining those of others. Preparing your degree proposal is a process and requires a great deal of reflection, writing, and rewiring in order to communicate clearly with your committee. I will do my best to serve as a resource and guide in your process, so that we may work together as collaboratively, respectfully, and collegially as possible. An online Blackboard section has been established for the class. This will be your main interface with the on-line course, and it will facilitate the sharing of materials, especially for those who are using distance learning to participate in the class. Papers must be submitted through Blackboard (using the assignments area rather than sending work by mail or attachments), and materials that are being shared may be shared through Blackboard. Log in to Blackboard by directing a web browser program to bb.uis.edu and using your Enterprise Login ID and password. Evaluation 2

3 INO 501 is a Credit/No Credit course. Successful completion of the course is based on participation in class activities and fulfillment of written assignments. Your work in INO 301 should result in the production of nine documents: 1) A Journal. Keep a learning journal as a tool for self-directed learning and to prepare for discussion. See topics for consideration under each date. Be prepared to share your ideas/entries in class discussion. Journals will be shared with your instructor in the Sixth Session and the Eleventh Session. They will be optional after the eleventh session. 2) A learning autobiography. (due in the Sixth Session) This draft of an autobiography that focuses on your learning experiences and education (formal and informal) should be no longer than 20 double-spaced word-processed pages. Refer to the Faculty and Student s Guide (elsewhere called The INO Student/Faculty Handbook) for a description of this autobiography and exercises for all parts of the Degree Proposal. 3) A Goals Statement: Complete a draft of a statement of your educational goals (Due in the seventh session) 4) A statement of your philosophy of education. (Due in the tenth session) 5) Learning Needs Statement: An inventory of your learning needs (Due in the eleventh session) 6) An Inventory of your learning resources (Due in the twelfth session) 7) A narrative curriculum in which you list, describe, and justify all the courses you intend to take toward your degree. (Due in the thirteenth session.) Include with this narrative curriculum a draft proposal for your independent study (or studies). Add to the narrative curriculum a one page schedule of when you intend to take classes. 8) A draft of a hypothetical independent study proposal you might want to take and include in your narrative curriculum (also due in the 13th session). 9) A Degree Proposal including all of the above (except not the journal) is due in the fourteenth session. You ll probably make revisions after receiving feedback on the assignments, so everything before this final degree proposal may be considered a draft. This Degree Proposal is a final document, and after being approved in INO-501 you may schedule a committee meeting for your committee to approve your Degree Proposal. The final Degree Proposal must be submitted at the end of the course (December 9 th is the last day of class, but our final exam is scheduled for the following week, so although the due date is December 9th (last day of the 15th session), you can still get credit for the class if you turn in a flawless proposal as late as December 14 th, the day before the last day of final exams, which is December 15 th. You do not need to feel constrained by the due dates. Most students will follow the process and schedule their first committee meeting between December 1st and the end of January. Some students will schedule a first committee meeting during even 3

4 earlier, probably at some time in November. However, some students might not be able to schedule their first LNT Committee Meeting until early February, as that can happen. Required Texts The following are required for INO 501 and may be obtained at the UIS bookstore or through online booksellers such as Amazon.com, alibris.com, and abebooks.com: 1) INO Student/Faculty Handbook (also should be available electronically in the Course Documents folder in the course Blackboard site) This handbook was written by INO faculty and gives you an overview of the program and procedures. You will be well served to print out the PDF of the most current handbook. You will want to refer to the handbook throughout your degree process (all the way to graduation, not just this course) and will be expected to know and understand the information therein. 2) Peter Elbow's Writing With Power: Techniques for Mastering the Writing Process (Second Edition). New York: Oxford University Press (1998). 3) Sam Keen and Ann Valley-Fox, Your Mythic Journey: Finding meaning through writing and storytelling (1989). 4) Carl Rogers, A Way of Being (1980). Other readings will be used throughout the course and will be available electronically. We strongly suggest you use Kolb's Learning Style Inventory (KLSI) - Self Scoring Version. This is an instrument that will help assess individual learning styles. Be sure you get the version that you score yourself. The UIS Bookstore has many, many copies available (for $12.50), and will ship them to you (for about $5). You ll bring your results from the KSI or some other learning styles inventory to the fourth class session. We no longer require you use this specific version of a learning style measure (there are many ways to measure theory, and we faculty are unconvinced that anyone Late Work and Incompletes If you keep up with the assigned reading and writing throughout the course, you will not find it an overwhelming task to complete the work on time. Later assignments build upon earlier work, and the effectiveness of course activities depends on your preparation. Please schedule your time carefully and seek help early if you are having difficulty keeping up. Time management is the key to juggling work, studies, family, community activities, hobbies and leisure (remember leisure?) Incompletes will be granted only in extraordinary circumstances. Tentative Schedule 4

5 Course Calendar or Schedule Week Topic 1 8/23 Introduction Course Orientation * Learn more about your classmates * Overview of INO process * Defining self directed learning 2 8/30 * Preparation for Writing the Autobiography. Carl Rogers, A Way of Being pages Review information about journaling in the INO Student / Faculty Handbook. Pages 3-77 of Peter Elbow s book Writing with Power. Write: begin writing in your journal. As a sample autobiography what did you find interesting, surprising, or frustrating about Rogers chapters? What might you apply to your own autobiography? What might you do differently? Note what you learned in the Elbow reading about writing. Which things would you want to try? Examine your goals and barriers in using the journal as a learning tool. Do: Collect 6-10 photographs of yourself, close friends and/or relatives from different time periods in your life. Try to scan these or somehow get these into digital format, and then upload them to class (as attachments to discussion board posts or URL links to public albums you have in Facebook, Picasa, Shutterfly, Snapfish, etc.) with the purpose of highlighting important aspects of your life. 5

6 Week Topic 3 * Self-Directed Learning 9/6 Carl Rogers, A Way of Being. Introduction, pages & Keen & Valley Fox, Your Mythic Journey. Pages ix-6, /13 * Learning Styles and Values Your goals for yourself in the INO Program and anticipated highlights and difficulties. Your thoughts on self-directed learning and what connections you make to the Rogers reading. An experience you had with self-directed learning in which you learned a skill. Identify the skill. Work on your autobiography. Choose at least three questions from the "Viewpoints" section of Chapter Four of Keen and Valley-Fox to write toward (especially page 69). Select the most relevant to begin your autobiography and bring to class to share. Do: Bring (or post online) the beginning of your autobiography. Carl Rogers, A Way of Being. Pages Pages of Peter Elbow s book Writing with Power. Articles and essays linked from the course webpage for this session. From the Rogers reading, what kinds of educational values does Rogers have? Where do you educational values fall? Rogers does not give much attention to race, class, and gender. Where do you think these things fit into his scheme of educational values? In yours? (Note the non-sexist writing information in the Faculty/Student guide) What helpful hints did you glean from Elbow on the subject of audience? Continue writing (From the second session) on your goals for yourself in the INO Program. Work on your autobiography. You ought to have at least a first draft or rough draft of most of the autobiography done by the fourth class session. Do: Read and do the Kolb Learning Inventory. Post your Learning Style Inventory results to class. 6

7 Week Topic 5 * Educational Goal Setting 9/20 Keen & Valley Fox, Your Mythic Journey. Pages Pages & of Peter Elbow s book Writing with Power. A Silent Success: The Master s Degree in The USA. This is a hand-out that will be available for download on Blackboard. The Master s Degree: A Policy Statement. This is a hand-out that will be available for download on Blackboard. For your goal statement, write a dialogue on your significant values and how they developed. Consider several questions from the Viewpoints section of Chapter 1 of Keen and Valley-Fox to elaborate on your values. For goal setting and your philosophy of education reflect on your preferred learning styles and patterns. Record a learning experience and identify the learning style. Your thoughts on Elbow s revising and feedback techniques. What kind of feedback would be most helpful to you on your drafts? Work on your autobiography. It is due in one week. Do: Define your Discipline. Identify how your discipline is similar to other disciplines and how it differs from those similar disciplines. List some of the skills and knowledge that a person with mastery in your discipline would have. Bring your list to class (or post it online). It may be helpful to look for lists of skills and knowledge posted by professional associations, university departments, or professional regulation agencies. You might interview people who have expertise in the area where you intend to work. This should be a short (one page) definition of your discipline. 7

8 Week Topic 6 9/27 * Writing Feedback Keen & Valley Fox, Your Mythic Journey. Pages Pages of Peter Elbow s book Writing with Power. Complete the self-appraisal for your own writing process in the Guide and record in your journal. Reflect upon your basic life values and goals (from the goalsetting exercise we did in session 5). Choose some Viewpoints questions from Keen and Valley-Fox from Chapter 5 for developing the Goals Statement. Finish writing your autobiography. Begin working on your goals statement. Do: Post your learning autobiography in two places. You must post it in the class to share with your classmates, and you must post it in the assignments area so your instructor can read it and give you feedback (the instructor can t share feedback on your assignments with the whole class. Feedback from instructors is generally private between you and the instructor). Remember that this is a learning autobiography. There have probably been many events or circumstances in your life you would not want to share with your classmates, and you can probably leave all that sort of stuff out of the autobiography, and instead focus on your learning experiences in college, high school, in your occupation, with your hobbies, etc. Post your journal to your instructor, or mail it. If you have been typing your autobiography and your journal so that they are easily available in electronic format, you may send them to the instructor as attachments or post them in the assignments section of Blackboard. If they are not available in electronic format or if you simply prefer to turn in a paper copy, please feel free to do so. You could either scan the written pages and post the scanned version in jpg or pdf to the assignments area, or you could mail in the actual journal to your instructor. 8

9 Week Topic 7 * Goals Statement 10/4 Rogers, A Way of Being. Pages Keen & Valley Fox Writing with Power. Pages Belenky and others (handout) 8 10/11 * Meeting with instructor for feedback on goals statement and autobiography. Write: Your instructor has your journal this week, but will return it to you during the next class session. Finish writing your goals statement. Begin working on your philosophy of education. Do: Post your goals statement to class in two places. One copy should be posted in the assignments area for you to share with your instructor and the other copy is for you share with your peers. Some of our class this session will be spent reading peer goal statements and giving them feedback. The goal statement may be turned in to the instructor in electronic format. In the face-to-face version of the class we use this eighth session as a time for students to meet faceto-face with the instructor rather than meeting as a class. Therefore there will be no discussion board questions, but you should have a scheduled phone conversation with your instructor, or come in to meet face-to-face if you live near campus. List your learning needs (academic and informal) that evolve from your goals and identify those that University work (classes) will fulfill. Reflect on Elbow s views on voice. What does he mean by voice? Select several passages in your autobiography or some other work that demonstrates voice for you. In preparation for writing your philosophy of education consider Rogers person of tomorrow and Belenky s Connected Teaching. Which of their ideas might inform your philosophy? Which not? Choose some Viewpoints questions from Keen and Valley-Fox to think about Transcending Here and Now. 9

10 Week Topic 9 10/18 * Personal Philosophies of a Graduate Education. * The Learning Needs Statement Loren Eiseley, The Illusion of Two Cultures. (hand-out also available online in Blackboard). Describe coursework that would help you meet your goals in a self-designed curriculum. Brainstorm a list of learning resources: people, literature, organizations, facilities, locations, etc. How do these fit with your work situation or previous school experiences? Assess your learning needs now. What is the optimum learning experience for you at this time in your life? Consider how the journal has worked as a learning tool for you and how you might use it in the future. Choose some Viewpoints questions from Keen and Valley-Fox to think about Transcending Here and Now. Work on your philosophy of education. Begin working on your learning needs statement. Also begin working on your learning resource inventory /25 Do: Find a statement or idea about education from some book, article, or online resource that you think offers a good statement about education (perhaps especially graduate education). Post a key sentence or paragraph or page from this source to class to share. * Inventory of Learning Resources If any articles are handed out in the previous course session you could read those. Do a mid-semester self evaluation of how you have been progressing in this course. Finish a draft of your philosophy of education. Work on your learning resources inventory and your learning needs statement. Do: Finish your philosophy of education statement and post two copies of it to class (one for your instructor and one for a peer to review in the discussion board). 1 0

11 Week Topic 11 11/1 Learning Strategies / Narrative Curriculum List. The INO Committee Read over the UIS Course Catalogue, looking for courses that would meet your learning needs. If any articles are handed out in the previous course session you could read those. How do you feel about your committee, and who are you thinking about having on your committee, or who have you asked to serve on your committee? What are you thinking about doing with your INO independent study? React to feedback you received on your philosophy of education statement. Freewrite on specific knowledge, understanding, skills, attitudes, and value changes that need to be incorporated into your learning needs statement. Make a list with these five types of learning needs to determine the balance of your statement. Freewrite to generate ideas for independent study topics. Brainstorm a list of learning resources and explain why these are important to your degree plan. Work on making up your degree committee. Generate a list of people and explain why they would be good for your program. Before meeting with faculty to discus course selections and your committee, do a dialogue in your journal about how you think specific courses belong in your program. Draft ideas for your interdisciplinary curriculum. What coursework and other learning activities will meet your educational goals and learning needs? Finish a draft of your learning needs statement (see the Faculty Student Guide-Handbook). Work on your learning resources inventory. Do: You only need to post your journal and submit two copies of your learning needs statement (one for your instructor and one for peers in the discussion board). We are doing peer review of the learning needs statement. 1 1

12 Week Topic 12 * The Narrative Curriculum 11/8 If any articles are handed out in the previous course session you could read those. Write: You may decide to continue writing in your journal, but it is being reviewed by your instructor until this session, and after being given back to you it will not be collected again. Finish a draft of your Inventory of Learning Resources. Work on your narrative curriculum. Do: Try the unsent letter method of journaling by writing a letter to your family explaining why you chose the INO for your degree. Make appointments to meet faculty during their office hours so you can talk to them about your interests and the possibility of their serving on your committee. You need two academic advisors in addition to the instructor of this class (who is your INO advisor unless you change advisors) /15 * Completing INO 501 If any articles are handed out in the previous course session you could read those. Write: Finish your Narrative Curriculum (also known as a learning strategies statement). Finish a draft of an independent study proposal. Do: Post two copies of your narrative curriculum and your independent study proposal. One to share with peers and another to turn in to your instructor / / /10 * Completing INO-501 This is a week to complete any materials if you are behind schedule. If you are on schedule, you may ask your instructor to give you approval to schedule your first LNT graduate committee meeting. Last class. Celebration. Turn in your final degree plan. No class or final exam. Schedule your first LNT graduate committee meeting. Fill out course evaluation and instructor evaluations. 1 2

13 Tips: Remember to use your UIS . For legal reasons faculty are discouraged from sending information about your work or assignments to any address other than the address given to you by this university. There is a Blackboard site for this course. Since our class is online I intend that you to use the Blackboard site as a means for sending me your work electronically (through the assignments area). The discussion boards from the online version of the course are available at the Blackboard site, and your instructor will check these discussion boards a couple times each week and hopefully get involved in any discussions that are raised there. Also, many resources used by students who take this course online are available at this course section s blackboard site, and you re welcome to look over those and use them. Purchase and carefully read the entire LNT Student Handbook as soon as possible. All of the major assignments are detailed in this manual. Even though the LNT Manual is available online, you must have a printed or a PDF copy of the student handbook for reference throughout your degree. The LNT degree process is a complex one. The student handbook provides the needed detail to help you design a successful curriculum. Plan to read and reread the material in this handbook many times as you progress through the LNT 301 course. Special Note...You will also need to have graduate level writing skills to pass this class. As your instructor in this class, it is my responsibility to certify your communications skills. Your learning autobiography becomes the document that goes in your permanent file to demonstrate your skills. I will tell you to get help from our friendly and competent Center for Teaching and Learning if I do not believe you have the writing skills you will need to satisfactorily compete at the graduate level. t is your responsibility to do this as soon as possible so you can pass this class and enjoy success in your other graduate courses. Be sure to allocate enough time for your class! Some students make the mistake of thinking that they only need to devote a few hours each week to this course. Credit for a course at UIS is based on the assumption that a typical 4 credit hour class meets 3.5 hours a week for 16 weeks (56 hours, although our course meets only 15 weeks). The university also assumes that a typical student spends 2 hours of outside preparation time for every hour in class ( hours). So, in a semester you ll probably spend hours working on this course or any other 4-unit course. That means you should allocate about 10.5 hours a week for this class (6% to 7% of your time). A typical student employed full-time might take two classes and allocate their time like this: 2.0% To Bed (nothing scheduled. Prayer, meditation, music, perhaps short reading): 2.7% Transformative time (activities with social improvement or self-improvement as the goal. Religion and service or volunteer time. Exercise is included. Short prayers after waking or before sleeping are counted as personal maintenance or to bed activities. Civic engagement, communicating with government or attending public meetings, and working in service to your community all count in this category.) 4.0% Personal maintenance (grooming, dressing, washing, etc.. Exercise is counted as transformative time Meditating might be included.) 4.0% Private time (Watching television, recreational internet use, reading the paper, magazines, books, hobbies, movies, fun by one s self) 5.0% Moving (Going from home to workplace and back, time spent in the car or waiting for and riding the bus or riding one s bike, etc.) 5.0% Household maintenance (cooking, shopping, washing dishes, laundry, cleaning up, fixing things, repairs, paying bills, etc.) 12% Study (Time on school work) 10.2% Family maintenance (activities with family including helping with homework, eating together, conversations, projects, games, etc. By family is meant any beloved person sharing a household with you, even if you have no children. Correspondence with parents or extended family would be included here.) 1 3

14 23.8% Employment (Time you have sold to someone or otherwise use to get money to pay for everything else) 31.3% Sleep (aim for 8 hours of it each night) Date Syllabus Prepared: 9/11 EJHI 1 4