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“Full STEAM Ahead!”
Atlantic Center for Learning Communities Retreat Agenda
October 22-24, 2014
Holy Family Passionist Retreat Center, West Hartford, CT
Wednesday, October 22
4:00 -6:00 p.m.
Check-in and poster set-up
6:00 -7:00 p.m.
Dinner
7:00 p.m.
Keynote and Q&A
Main Conference Room; Piet Hut, Ph.D., Astrophysicist and Professor of Interdisciplinary
First Floor
Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study.
Reception and poster displays of learning community programs and best
practices (following keynote presentation)
Thursday, October23
8:00 -8:30 a.m.
Breakfast
8:40 -10:10 a.m.
Learning Exchanges (Concurrent Sessions)*
1. Follow-up Discussion with Piet Hut: “Freedom from Identification
in Practice”—Monastery Lounge
2. “Integrating the Arts into the Curriculum” (Chris Desessa, Johnson
& Wales University)—2nd Floor Classroom
3. “Steaming’ Initiatives in a Learning Community Seminar: A Model for
Integrating Science, Math, and the Arts into Learning Communities”
(Lloyd Sheldon Johnson, Lori A. Catallozzi, and Tua’ Nefer, Bunker Hill
Community College, and Beverly Morgan-Welch, Executive Director
Museum of African American History, Boston and Nantucket)—Main
Conference Room
10:10 -10:30 a.m.
10:30a.m.-noon
4.
Break
5. Practice”
Learning Exchanges (ConcurrentSessions)*
1. “Integrating Biology and English” (Emily Bradshaw and Keith
Huneycutt, Florida Southern College)—Monastery Lounge
2. “Core Sciences in First-Year Learning Communities” (Nick Richardson
and Patricia Tooker, Wagner College)—Main Conference Room
3. “Learning Communities 101: Developing and Implementing Learning
Communities” (Anne Love, Wagner College and Terry Novak, Johnson
& Wales University)—2nd Floor Classroom
12:00 -1:15 p.m.
Lunch with round-table discussions
1:30 -2:45 p.m.
Student panel, reflections on learning communities
George Hill, Moderator (Kingsborough Community College)
Main Conference Room
2:45 -6:00 p.m.
Team Time; Opportunity for singles from similar schools to connect
6:00 -7:00 p.m.
Dinner
7:00 -9:00 p.m.
Reception and Talent Show
Main Conference Room
Friday, October 24
8:00 -8:30 a.m.
Breakfast and Checkout of rooms
8:40 -10:00 a.m.
Learning Exchanges (Concurrent Sessions)*
1. “Training Peer Leaders to Support Developmental Mathematics
Learning Communities” (Alice Welt Cunningham, James Kennis, and
Olen Dias, Hostos Community College CUNY)—Main Conference
Room
2. “The Sounds of Port Richmond: Community Theater & College
Partnerships” (Arlette Cepeda and Kevin Farrell, Wagner College)—
Monastery Lounge
3. “Creating General Education Courses for the STEM Learning
Communities” (Laura Jackman, Iowa State University)—2nd Floor
Classroom
10:00 -10:10 a.m.
Break
10:10 -11:30 a.m.
Learning Exchanges (Concurrent Sessions)*
1. “Full STEAM Ahead... but Steady as You Go” (David Bugg, SUNYPotsdam, and Pat Morelli, The University of Hartford)—Main
Conference Room
2. "Reuniting the Arts and Sciences" (Jim Dutcher, Holyoke Community
College)—Monastery Lounge
11:30a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Lunch
12:30 p.m.
Departure
*Learning Exchanges: Topics & Facilitators
Workshops offered through the annual ACLC Retreat provide opportunities for teams and individuals to
work together to identify, design, and ultimately implement learning community strategies that can
strengthen teaching and learning at their home institutions. Facilitators design workshops that encourage
participant interaction and rich conversations about the ways in which effective learning community
strategies can be applied in a variety of settings.
Wednesday, October 22
7:00-8:30 p.m.
Keynote Address: Piet Hut, Ph.D., Institute for Advanced Study
“Reality, Identification, and Freedom”
What are the relationships between the different types of realities addressed in science, in technology,
in arts, in mathematics, or in other ways of knowing? While exploring these different types of
realities, is it possible to suspend judgments, savoring a freedom from identification in which both
belief and disbelief are suspended? Science offers one such approach, using the scientific working
hypothesis. What about other ways of knowing? After a brief introduction, the audience will be
invited to partake in a joint discussion about the possibility of freedom from identification.
Thursday, October 23
8:40 – 10:10 a.m.
1.
Follow-up Discussion with Piet Hut: “Freedom from Identification in Practice”
Following up on last evening's discussion, we will explore actual ways to investigate
freedom from identification, moving across different disciplines, starting with the use of
phenomenology in science and philosophy.
2. “Integrating the Arts into the Curriculum” (Chris Desessa, Johnson & Wales University)
This session will demonstrate ways to integrate art in the classroom. The session will discuss
the reasons for incorporating art in the curriculum and methods of incorporating art in the
geography classroom. This session will be expanded into integrating the arts into various
disciplines by using specific activities aimed toward each subject. Ideas will be shared on how
to collaborate to incorporate arts in the classroom.
3. “Steaming’ Initiatives in a Learning Community Seminar: A Model for Integrating Science,
Math, and the Arts into Learning Communities” (Lloyd Sheldon Johnson, Lori A. Catallozzi,
and Tua’ Nefer, Bunker Hill Community College, and Beverly Morgan-Welch, Executive
Director Museum of African American History, Boston and Nantucket)
This session will engage participants in a process of integrating the sciences, mathematics, and
the arts into an existing learning community using culturally-inclusive, place-based curricula.
The workshop is modeled after a successful collaboration between the Museum of African
American History, a national historic site, and Bunker Hill Community College. The
Museum’s current “Black Books” exhibit provides the context, resources and expertise for a
curriculum that validates the lives and cultures of all students, particularly African American,
Latino/a, Asian American, First Nation, LGBTQ, and other marginalized student populations.
10:30 a.m. – noon
3. “Integrating Biology and English” (Emily Bradshaw and Keith Huneycutt, Florida Southern
College)
Learning communities encourage students to evaluate ideas for themselves, seek out
underlying principles, examine evidence, critically evaluate arguments, and become deep
learners; in addition, the learning community environment broadens and deepens the students’
learning experience by including social interaction and peer reinforcement in the learning
environment. We have formed a cross-disciplinary learning community between Biology and
English to introduce first-year Biology majors to historical and current primary literature
sources that emphasize foundational biological concepts. Studying these writings by
biologists, students will understand what it means to be a scientist and come to understand that
science still has many unanswered questions. By closely examining well-written literature by
professionals in their chosen field – Biology – these students will also improve their own
writing. Facilitators will discuss the process of constructing an interdisciplinary learning
community, share strategies and preliminary results from this Biology-English learning
community model, and discuss their expectations and goals for the rest of the course.
Participants in this workshop are encouraged to bring ideas for learning communities that they
plan or hope to put together.
4. “Core Sciences in First-Year Learning Communities” (Nick Richardson and Patricia Tooker,
Wagner College)
Learning Communities (LCs) offer high-impact practices of active learning and practical
application, but such practices demand devoted class time and room for reflection. Core
science courses that serve as prerequisites for more advanced courses have specific and fixed
content that offers no space in which to incorporate the ideals of LCs. Wagner College’s threecourse model for first-year LCs solves this conundrum by providing a Reflective Tutorial
(RFT)—a course dedicated to critical thinking, frequent writing, reflection, and practical
application through experiential learning—that bridges two content courses based on a welldeveloped theme. This structure allows any course appropriate for first-year students,
including core science courses, to be incorporated in a LC. Two faculty members work as a
team to create the three-course LC. Each faculty member teaches one of the content courses to
the same students and then both team teach the RFT, which replaces the traditional first-year
writing course. In this presentation we will describe our LC, which combines Health and
Society with Gen Chem1and share other examples of core sciences in other LCs at Wagner.
5. “Learning Communities 101: Developing and Implementing Learning Communities” (Anne
Love, Wagner College and Terry Novak, Johnson & Wales University)
Designed for faculty and administrators new to learning communities, this workshop offers
participants an overview of best practices in learning communities including key elements
necessary to the success of a learning community. This is an opportunity to begin or continue
creating specific learning community ideas for the participant’s home institution. Participants
will come away with goals, objectives and a timeline for learning community implementation
as well as resources to use as they continue their work.
Friday, October 25
8:40 – 10:00 a.m.
1. “Training Peer Leaders to Support Developmental Mathematics Learning Communities”
(Alice Welt Cunningham, James Kennis, and Olen Dias, Hostos Community College CUNY)
Our workshop involves an interactive session training instructors to assist students to become
peer leaders. After introducing our program (now in its fifth semester) using peer leaders to
support our two developmental mathematics courses (Basic Math Skills and Introductory
Algebra), we will show a video of Professor Kennis teaching percent word problems three
different ways: by direct translation, by proportional analysis, and geometrically. We will then
ask our audience, working in groups, to prepare and present peer-leader led supplemental
instruction sessions based on the video. Although our topic involves developmental
mathematics, the strategies addressed should prove equally fruitful for instructors in the arts
and can be applied by all participants at their home institutions. Each of the three facilitators
has worked extensively with peer leaders and has participated in our institution’s twice-annual
peer-leader training programs.
2. “The Sounds of Port Richmond: Community Theater & College Partnerships” (ArletteCepeda
and Kevin Farrell, Wagner College)
Working in concert with leaders from Wagner College, Project Hospitality, Staten Islands’
largest nonprofit service provider, and the national organization Imagining America, the
Sounds of Port Richmond theater group was created. Guided by the mission of Imagining
America to “create democratic spaces to advance knowledge and creativity through publicly
engaged scholarship that draws on humanities, arts, and design, [IA] catalyzes change in
campus practices, structures, and policies that enables publicly engaged artists and scholars to
thrive and contribute to community action and revitalization.” Kevin Bott, Associate Director
of Imagining America and an expert on applied theatre, conducted a 14-day workshop in the
Port Richmond neighborhood of Staten Island that sought to engage Wagner students, local
artists and activists, and other interested community members in creating a "tent revival for
democracy" that was grounded in the history and culture of Port Richmond and that builds on
creative and activist work that is already being done in the community. During the two-week
program, participants learned about the histories, theories, and ethics of communitybased/grassroots theater while also being guided through the practice of creating it.
3. “Creating General Education Courses for the STEM Learning Communities” (Laura Jackman,
Iowa State University)
Institutions, students, instructors, and evidence all support the use of learning communities in
higher education, but the specifics of designing a general education course for the STEM
disciplines can be challenging. College students are required to complete various general
education courses such as composition, math, humanities, etc. This workshop is a hands-on
approach to incorporating STEM principles into non-STEM classrooms—what does this look
like in reality? In addition, how can we link key course concepts between subject areas?
Participants are encouraged to bring their own course materials to the workshop, which will
provide the opportunity to link STEM concepts with subject areas.
10:10 – 11:30 a.m.
1. “Full STEAM Ahead . . . but Steady as You Go” (David Bugg, SUNY-Potsdam, and Pat
Morelli, The University of Hartford)
This workshop, intended primarily but not solely for newer LC practitioners, will include some
sharing of tools and methods that can be applied to the development of effective LC activities
and assignments. Using various LCs – 2 and 3 course sets plus multiple course mergers –
facilitators will focus on student engagement, faculty buy-in and training, active learning
practices, institutional benefits, and assessment. Consistent with the retreat theme, all examples
used in the workshop will illustrate the integration of the humanities with sciences or social
sciences with physical sciences.
2. "Reuniting the Arts and Sciences" (Jim Dutcher, Holyoke Community College)
Integrating arts and sciences in a learning community, particularly lab sciences, can require
some compromise and some practice, but the benefits are well worth the challenges. We will
briefly discuss some strategies for successful integration and then participants will design a
learning community. Teams and individuals are welcome.