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Today’s guest is an associate professor of biological sciences at BGSU. She’s been faculty at BGSU since 1985 and the director of the BGSU Herpetarium since 1997. Her research interests include developmental genetics, reptile and amphibian husbandry, egg incubation, as well as student engagement and attitudes. She is a good friend and mentor. Please welcome Dr. Eileen Underwood.
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Table of Contents:
00:00 – Introduction
05:41 – Interview with Dr. Eileen Underwood
24:34 – Video Outage
26:25 – Video Back
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Interact with Dr. Partin and the Teaching and Learning Professor community at:
https://www.facebook.com/theteachingandlearningprofessor/
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MATT
Testing… Testing… 123 Testing…
INNER DIALOGUE MATT
Hi Matt! Did you remember to push the record button? Last time
you forgot and you had to rerecord the entire introduction.
MATT
Who said that?
INNER DIALOGUE MATT
Me. I’m your inner dialogue. You can call me at IDM.
Short for INNER DIALOGUE MATT.
MATT
OK. Hi IDM. If you’ll excuse me I’m recording an
introduction to a podcast.
INNER DIALOGUE MATT
I know. Do you realize that you are terrible at podcasting?
You’re obviously reading a script and you look like a
deer caught in headlights. Maybe you should try mixing
it up a little bit.
MATT
OK. Like how?
INNER DIALOGUE MATT
You’ll think of something. Before you record, why don’t
you tell me about your topic.
MATT
I am talking about Learning Communities. I’m also
talking about the Marine Lab and the Herpetarium.
INNER DIALOGUE MATT
Sounds kind of interesting. What is a Learning
Community?
MATT
Nobody can say for sure.
INNER DIALOGUE MATT
What?! So, you don’t actually know what a Learning Community
is?
MATT
There really isn’t a good clean definition that everyone
can agree on, but basically, it’s a group of people who
have common academic goals and attitudes. They have
become very popular in colleges and universities in the
United States. There are residential learning
communities and non-residential learning communities.
INNER DIALOGUE MATT
Don’t tell me. Tell the camera.
(MATT NOW TALKS TO THE CAMERA)
MATT
In residential learning communities, students live together
and share common extra-curricular activities. Today we’ll
be talking about the non-residential learning
communities. According to a 1999 paper by George Washington
University professor Karen Kellogg, there are five types of
non-residential learning communities commonly found throughout
the literature. The first type, are linked courses, where
groups of students take the same two courses together. Usually
one is content-based and the other is application based. We do
this at BGSU.
For example, many of our freshman biology majors will
take a biology course and a psychology or philosophy
course together, so they see the same people in both
classes and hopefully get to know each other better. The
second type is called learning clusters, where groups of
students take three or four courses linked together. The
third type is called freshman interest groups, which are
similar to linked courses but also includes a peer
advising component. An upperclassman serves as a peer
advisor and meets with the freshman weekly. The fourth
type it’s called federated learning communities, where
students take linked courses and a professor from a
different discipline called a master learner takes the
courses with the students. The master learner meets with
the students regularly to discuss the courses. The fifth
type is called coordinated studies, where a group of
students and faculty work together on a full-time block
of courses which may last an entire year.
INNER DIALOGUE MATT
There are just 5 types of non-residential
learning-communities?
MATT
No. There’s actually many more types of non-residential
learning communities. We have two live animal labs here
in the biology department at BGSU and that I would like to
talk about today. They don’t fit into any of the 5 common
categories I just listed, but they are definitely learning
communities, bringing faculty and students together on a
regular basis to peruse the same academic goals.
In the Marine Lab students take care of aquariums
and work on aquatic research projects. In the
herpetarium or reptile lab students take care of
reptiles and do reptile research projects. There are
also Professional Learning Communities, Where
like-minded professionals get together and talk about
topics related to their profession. I’ve facilitated a
bunch of professional learning communities for faculty
where we got together and talked about all aspects of
Teaching and Learning.
INNER DIALOGUE MATT
Sounds interesting, but are there any benefits to
learning communities? It sounds like a complicated
scheduling nightmare.
MATT
Scheduling can be difficult, but there is a huge body of
literature around this
indicating a huge number of benefits. According to Karen
Kellog (1999), benefits for students include “increases
in academic achievement, retention, motivation,
intellectual development, learning, and involvement in
community.” Faculty can be re-energized, empowered, feel
valued, become more creative, and more committed to the
college or university. Distinguished Syracuse University
sociology professor Vincent Tinto (1994) studied student
retention and learning communities. In a 1994 paper, he
explains that
learning communities provide a strong sense of belonging
for students and a strong sense of belonging is key to
student retention in a college or university.
INNER DIALOGUE MATT
Nice job! It looks like you found a fairly interesting
topic and you have done your homework. Now quit wasting
everybody’s time and introduce your guest.
REFERENCES
Golde, C. M., & Pribbenow, D. A. (n.d.). Understanding Faculty Involvement in Residential Learning Communities, Journal of College Student Development. Retrieved November 12, 2019, from http://chris.golde.org/filecabinet/facultyinvolvement.html.
Kellog, K. (1999) Learning Communities. ERIC Digest. Washington, D.C.: ERIC Clearinghouse on Higher Education.
Tinto, V. (2003). Learning Better Together: The Impact of Learning Communities on Student Success. In Promoting Student Success in College, Higher Education Monograph Series (pp. 1-8). Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University.
very good and very useful article.
Biaya Aborsi
Thank you very much!! I really appreciate your comments.
What are good examples of online learning communities? What kind of subjects are best suited for studying in such an online learning community? Test preparation (GMAT, SAT)? Languages? What else?
That is a good question and I have been thinking about that a lot. There are various podcasts that have communities around them as well as platforms such as Reddit and Facebook. I recently started one for eductors on Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/groups/843819442746262/]. Exercise communities are very common, but they sometimes include misconceptions and misinformation. Some communities are very large, the discussions seem impersonal, and sometimes people are rude to each other. Absolutely, any topic is suitable for a learning community. You can find whole courses with learning communities at Khan Academy https://www.khanacademy.org/
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