Education
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.____________________Table of Contents:00:00 - Introduction05:41 - Interview with Dr. Eileen Underwood24:34 - Video Outage26:25 - Video Back_______________________Interact with Dr. Partin and the Teaching and Learning Professor community at:https://www.facebook.com/theteachingandlearningprofessor/_______________________Support this podcast at RedCircle— DONATE TODAY!!I'm using your donation to buy a new microphone and studio equipment to improve my sound. I need coffee too :-)_____________________ 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. _______________________ ReferencesGolde, 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.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-teaching-and-learning-professor/donations