Patricia Williams Professor of Cultural and Historical Design University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point Friday, August 14, :00 pm The hybrid format, freshman students, and no tests

The course is an introduction to diverse cultures through architecture and other forms of material culture. Students from all majors enroll in the course.

What do I want students to get from my course? To develop a personal approach to thinking and the learning process To develop an awareness of the value and scope of the liberal arts To be conscious of alternate points of view and cultural diversity

THAT’S A TALL ORDER…… Can it be done? We can start the process by….

… LOOKING AT THE BIRD

“You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird... So let's look at the bird and see what its doing -- that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something”. Richard Feynman ( ) US educator & physicist

COURSE FORMAT One weekly face-to-face 75 minute period plus outside-of-class activities using D2L (Desire 2 Learn) Courseware

COURSE ACTIVITIES

In-class group ‘warm-ups’ prior to lecture cultural information quotations cartoons

We often view the world from our own perspectives

In-class PowerPoint lecture with lecture notes available beforehand on D2L

ACTIVITIES OUTSIDE OF CLASS:

Interview a Foreign Student

See a non-Western film and listen to a Wisconsin Public Radio program on a non-Western subject.

Report on items from two material culture data bases

Attend a campus or community non-Western event: entertainment, lecture, or dine at a non-Western restaurant

Keep a weekly D2L Learning Journal with an entry for each lecture period. For this and all Outside Activity Reports, use Fink’s Taxonomy as a writing guide.

DISCOVERING FINK’S TAXONOMY A taxonomy of Significant Learning developed by L. Dee Fink, University of Oklahoma, clarified and defined what I was trying to do in my course… it became the student writing guide for the course.

And just what does Fink’s Taxonomy have to say about Significant Learning?

Each kind of learning relates to other kinds of learning; achieving any one kind of learning simultaneously enhances the possibility of the other kinds of learning being achieved.

Interactive Nature of Significant Learning

Fink’s basic model of active learning

FOUNDATIONAL KNOWLEDGE provides basic understanding necessary for other kinds of learning (students need to “know” something)

APPLICATION allows other kinds of learning to become useful. (learn new kinds of action, like critical, creative, practical thinking; skill development, like communication)

INTEGRATION gives learners a form of intellectual power (gain understanding of the connections between different things)

THE HUMAN DIMENSION informs students about the human significance of what they are learning (learning about Self and/or Others; enables more effective interaction)

CARING develops the energy for learning; nothing significant happens without it. (new feelings, interests, values; produces energy for learning more about a subject and making it part of life)

LEARNING HOW TO LEARN enables continued learning with greater effectiveness. (becoming a better student; engaging in inquiry; becoming self-directed)

CONCLUSION :

Using Fink’s Taxonomy to guide student writing helps us to look more carefully at “the bird”.

Thank you for your attention. Handouts with examples of work which illustrates how students used Fink’s Taxonomy will now be reviewed and discussed.