University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln NCHC Monographs Series National Collegiate Honors Council 2010 PLACE AS TEXT: Approaches To Active Learning (Second Edition) Bernice Braid Long Island University - Brooklyn Campus, braid@liu.edu Ada Long University of Alabama - Birmingham, adalong@uab.edu Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.edu/nchcmono Part of the Curriculum and Instruction Commons, Curriculum and Social Inquiry Commons, Educational Methods Commons, Higher Education Commons, Other Education Commons, and the Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education Commons Braid, Bernice and Long, Ada, "PLACE AS TEXT: Approaches To Active Learning (Second Edition)" (2010). NCHC Monographs Series.edu/nchcmono/25 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the National Collegiate Honors Council at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in NCHC Monographs Series by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Place As Text: Approaches To Active Learning NCHC Monograph Series Place As Text: Approaches To Active Learning Second Edition Bernice Braid and Ada Long, Editors National Collegiate Honors Council ISBN 978-0-9825207-5-8 PLACE AS TEXT: Approaches To Active Learning Editors Bernice Braid and Ada Long Jeffrey A.
Portnoy Georgia Perimeter College jeffrey.edu General Editor, NCHC Monograph Series 2nd Edition Published in 2010 by National Collegiate Honors Council 110 Neihardt Residence Center University of Nebraska-Lincoln 540 N. 16th Street Lincoln, NE 68588-0627 (402) 472-9150 FAX: (402) 472-9152 Email: nchc@unlserve.edu http://www.org © Copyright 2000 and 2010 by National Collegiate Honors Council International Standard Book Number 978-0-9825207-5-8 Managing Editor: Mitch Pruitt Production Editor: Cliff Jefferson Wake Up Graphics, Birmingham, AL Printed by EBSCO Media, Birmingham, AL TABLE OF CONTENTS Dedication and Acknowledgments. 5 Preface to the Second Edition. 7 Ada Long and Bernice Braid Introduction.
9 Bernice Braid Honors Semesters: Anatomy of Active Learning. 11 William Daniel Honors Semesters: An Architecture of Active Learning. 19 Bernice Braid Internal Assessment of Honors Semesters. 29 Ann Raia External Evaluation of Honors Semesters.
37 Ada Long Student Perspectives on Honors Semesters. 43 Elizabeth Beck Other Structural Models of Active Learning City as Text™. 51 Bernice Braid Faculty Institutes. 54 William Daniel Summer High School Field Experiences.
55 Bernice Braid Sleeping Bag Seminars. 57 Joan Digby College Recruitment Exercises. 58 Bernadette Low Orientation Exercises. 58 Bernadette Low Professional Development Exercises.
59 Bernadette Low Other Courses. 59 Bernadette Low Partners in the Parks. 60 Joan Digby 3 Public Products of Personal Discoveries. 65 Ada Long An Example of Active Learning in the College Classroom.
69 Shirley Forbes Thomas Active Learning in a National Context Honors Milestones. 77 Ann Raia, Rosalie Saltzman, and Ada Long Future Directions. 83 Ada Long Recommended Readings. 87 Bernice Braid and Ada Long Appendices Planning an Honors Semester.
93 Elizabeth Beck and Lillian Mayberry Planning a City as Text™ Walkabout. 99 Bernice Braid Planning a Sleeping Bag Seminar. 103 Joan Digby Resource People. 105 Ada Long Sample Honors Semester Evaluation Forms Pre-Semester Faculty Questionnaire.
111 End-of-Semester Faculty Questionnaire. 112 Post-Semester Faculty Evaluation/Assessment. 113 Pre-Semester Student Questionnaire. 114 End-of-Semester Student Questionnaire.
115 Post-Semester Student Assessment/Evaluation. 116 End-of-Semester Evaluator’s Summary of Group Discussion. 118 About the Authors. 119 4 DEDICATION To John and Edythe Portz, godparents of NCHC’s active-learning projects ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Newt Smith, Ann Boucher, and Ryan Feagan contributed prelimi- nary materials for this text.
Several members of the Honors Semesters Committee of the National Collegiate Honors Council were especially helpful in provid- ing editorial assistance: Susan Bagby, Elizabeth Beck, William Daniel, Ron Edgerton, Lillian Mayberry, Nora McGuinness, Rosalie Otero, Ann Raia, and Shirley Forbes Thomas. Norm Weiner, Larry Andrews, and Emily Walshe provided research assistance. Members of the NCHC Publications Board provided helpful comments on the manu- script for the second edition, especially the always wise and helpful Jeffrey A. Jerrald Boswell served as managing editor of the first edition, pro- viding invaluable skills and services leading to its publication.
Mitch Pruitt and Cliff Jefferson of Wake Up Graphics served as man- aging and production editors of the second edition, carrying on the fine tradition of Jerrald Boswell. Cover design by Cliff Jefferson of Wake Up Graphics, based loosely on the original cover design by S. 5 6 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION ADA LONG AND BERNICE BRAID The decade since publication of Place as Text: Approaches to Active Learning has seen an explosion of interest and productivity in the field of experiential education. The substance and terminology of “experi- ential education” and “active learning,” which have been mainstays of the National Collegiate Honors Council since the 1970s, have moved out into higher education and become a national movement in theory and in practice.
Numerous books and articles are now available on the topic, and active learning has become the focus not just of classes or special projects or honors programs but of entire self-sufficient pro- grams within the academy. With this expanded interest, the first edition of Place as Text has been out of print for over a year, so we present a sec- ond edition that expands, restructures, and clarifies information pro- vided in the first. Happily, however, we have found that the first edition remains up to date in most ways. The pedagogies described in Place as Text have stood the test of time remarkably well.
One structural change in the second edition requires some explana- tion. All the materials focusing exclusively on Honors Semesters have been grouped together in the first half of the monograph. Most read- ers will not be planning to propose an Honors Semester, but all should be aware that this material is the basis and background for all the other forms of active learning, including City as TextTM, that are extrapola- tions from it. The principles of active learning described in the chap- ters on Honors Semesters are thus crucial to all the other models of active learning included in the monograph.
The decade since the first edition of this monograph has been a busy one for the NCHC Honors Semesters Committee, which has continued its mission of offering active-learning options such as Honors Semesters for honors students throughout the country, Faculty Institutes for administrators and teachers interested in incorporating active learning in their courses and programs, and City as TextTM experiences for par- ticipants at annual conferences. A new spinoff of the City as TextTM approach called “Partners in the Parks” has been developed within the past three years and is described in this second edition and in fuller detail in a monograph entitled Partners in the Parks: Field Guide to an Experiential Program in the National Parks. The committee has also pro- duced a companion monograph to Place as Text titled Shatter the Glassy Stare: Implementing Experiential Learning in Higher Education, edited by Peter A. Machonis (2008), which focuses on recent, innovative 7 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION applications of City as TextTM teaching strategies; it features chapters on campus as text, local neighborhoods, study abroad, science courses, writing exercises, and philosophical considerations, with practical materials for instituting this pedagogy.
Finally, another monograph in this series—Writing on Your Feet: Experiential Learning, Reflective Practices, and Communities of Discourse—is well along in the planning stage. The editors and authors of this second edition would like to thank Mary Middlemas for her help with the typescript, Jeffrey A. Portnoy for his invaluable help as General Editor of the NCHC Monograph Series, and Mitch Pruitt, our excellent Managing Editor at Wake Up Graphics. 8 INTRODUCTION BERNICE BRAID National Honors Semesters began as an experiment.
Drawing from a broad national base—the membership of the National Collegiate Honors Council—they assembled students from varying academic dis- ciplines, widely divergent geographies, and diverse cultural back- grounds. From their inception, national Honors Semesters have been viewed by the NCHC Honors Semesters Committee, which is charged with their design and oversight, as a living laboratory in forging con- nections. From social links essential to communal life, to intellectual links fundamental to integrated thought, Honors Semesters have been designed not only to enable but also to provoke these linkages. Planning for the first program, offered in 1976, began in 1973 and aimed to incorporate the heightened awareness of a national bicenten- nial celebration into a richly textured, direct, and unmediated experi- ence of “Americana.” Participants came from all corners of the United States to Washington, D., for NCHC’s Washington Bicentennial Honors Semester.
They sought to discover patterns and construct a composite personal portrait of American culture as they themselves wit- nessed it in its showplace capital city. Students grappled with the notion of “America” through seminars on constitutional issues, public policy, and urban segregation. They tested their perceptions through field research in the inner city and creative expression of local children’s games, in folk art, and in music. In the end, they constructed a personal profile of America that was rich and quite particular to this group.
The intentionality of site-specific inquiry, multi-disciplinary readings, self-initiated explorations, and dis- covery was not lost on these pioneers. Elements of their life that bound them together ran from group projects for course credit to group din- ners they hosted, from house meetings and self-governance to public presentations of their project results. This conjunction of a national pool of students, relatively prepared to take risks, and a blueprint for experiential learning, anchored in curriculum but focused on the local setting, was central to the experi- ment. Since this first semester, there have been twenty-eight others, including seven at overseas sites.
In structure, they have remained the same. Themes chosen to reveal local truths and historic challenges have varied, but all have embodied a particular pertinence to the selected site. The immediacy, power, and permanence of affective impact resulting from the Honors Semester have persisted. 9 INTRODUCTION Institutionally, NCHC’s Honors Semesters Committee went from Ad Hoc to Standing Committee status.
It continues to design, implement, and oversee specific programs, but with the help of a Lilly Fund Grant in 1984, it began a systematic effort to introduce aspects of the integra- tive structure—especially the field explorations and self-reflective writ- ing of City as TextTM and the pedagogical approaches—to colleagues able to attend Faculty Institutes; twenty-five of these institutes have been offered so far and, along with all the Honors Semesters, are listed in the chapter called “Honors Milestones.” The committee has offered miniature City as TextTM experiences at conference sites (also listed in “Milestones”) as a means of helping faculty and students appropriate, in modest measure, those sites.* Some four hundred campus locations are now venues for application of City as TextTM laboratories to a variety of programs, within honors and outside it, on campus and off. Honors Semesters, in their elemental architecture and replicability, remain a paradigm of connected learning and organic structure. Although connected and organic education is a hallmark of many cam- pus-based honors programs, the full impact of national Honors Semesters is hard to reproduce without the full panoply of structural elements in each of NCHC’s projects. With students who know one another but rarely take the same courses, which is the case on most campuses, the cohesiveness-in-multiplicity and intellectuality-in-social- interaction remain elusive.
This monograph presents a story of an experiment and a blueprint of sorts for anyone interested in enriching an existing program or will- ing to experiment with pedagogy and modes of inquiry. Examples of successful extrapolations illustrate how adaptations can work in differ- ent locales and with several age groups. Contributions to this mono- graph attempt to describe and recount, to explain, and to invite col- laborators into a team effort of unusual complexity and singular success. * City as TextTM was designed by Bernice Braid for the National Honors Semesters and has been adapted extensively to other uses.
The trademark is held by the National Collegiate Honors Council, which should be acknowledged by all who use the title and design concept. 10 HONORS SEMESTERS: AN ANATOMY OF ACTIVE LEARNING WILLIAM W.