Brandon J.Vogt, PhD
Lecturer
Geography and Environmental Studies
University of Colorado at Colorado Springs
PO box 7150
Colorado Springs, CO 80933
bvogt@uccs.edu
http://www.uccs.edu/bvogt
What is the central question, issue, or problem you plan to explore in your proposed work?
Research Question: How successful was the Fall 2008/Spring 2009 debut of the new ‘Colorado Living and Learning Community’ (CLLC) at UCCS? More specifically, how well did the new two-course addition to an existing learning community achieve five predetermined (specific) learning community goals and three predetermined (general) goals for college success?
Background: In Fall 2008, a two-course sequence was added to an extant learning community whose focus is the student’s relationship with natural environment. Freshmen enrolled in the learning community’s seminar topic course, which is titled ‘Colorado Living’ (ID101), were required to either live on the same floor in a dorm or take ‘Landforms and Soils’ (GES101), an introductory physical geography course that was adapted for CLLC. The set of CLLC students currently enrolled in GES101 (N=19) are encouraged to take GES101’s sister course ‘Climate and Vegetation’ (GES100) in Spring 2009. Like the CLLC version of GES101, GES100 is also an adaption of the ‘regular’ GES100 course. The Spring GES100 course includes a nine-day field trip across Utah during Spring Break. Both geography courses (GES101 and GES100) are exclusive to CLLC students.
Goals for CLLC: The two sets of goals below direct and are in the forefront of all three courses in the CLLC. Set One below was developed by the instructor of ID101 (Steve Jennings, Associate Professor, Department of Geography and Environmental Studies (GES)) and myself. Set Two below was developed by Constance Staley (Director of the UCCS Freshman Seminar Program). As instructor of both geography courses in the sequence, my assessment of the success of the Fall 2008/Spring 2009 debut of the new LLC at UCCS will be based on a how well my students achieve both sets of goals.
The two sets of goals for the CLLC are listed below. Set One focuses on course content-specific learning objectives. Set Two represents the three goals of college success that frame UCCS’ ‘Freshman Seminar Roadmap to College Success’.
Set One: Specific CLLC Goals
- To understand the role of humans in shaping the natural environment
- To understand the impact of the natural environment on each individual
- To develop strong connections between students
- To develop student connections with faculty
- To develop student connections with the community
Set Two: College Success Involves Blending
- Academic successes
- Personal successes
- Community successes
Why is your central question, issue, or problem important, to you and to others who might benefit from or build on your findings?
Expanding, developing, and diversifying my personal set of teaching approaches is critical as I seek to improve my skills as an educator. Moreover, results from my CLLC experience can benefit future LLC instructors – at UCCS and elsewhere – as they work with students to achieve course, college, and ultimately career success. Considering UCCS has recently committed to expand LLC course offerings campus-wide, my findings, in terms of “what works” and “what doesn’t work,” may be particularly meaningful in coming semesters.
How do you plan to conduct your investigation? What sources of evidence do you plan to examine? What methods might you employ to gather and make sense of this evidence?
To conduct my investigation, I have carefully crafted new and diverse teaching and learning strategies around the two sets of goals described earlier. To address the goals as comprehensively as possible, I have assembled specific classroom activities, field trips, testing protocols, readings, guest speaker topics, social events, and I focus on a central class theme – Colorado. Following are examples of how the specific goals are addressed:
- Goal 1 – To understand the role of humans in shaping the natural environment: Addressed through curriculum (topics include watershed quality, water runoff in developed areas, soil compaction, causes of arroyo formation, geologic hazards triggered by humans, and linked processes with direct human impacts) and field trips (locations include Red Rock Canyon Open Space, UCCS Heller Center, the US Geological Survey in Denver, and several State and National Parks in Colorado, Utah, and Nevada).
- Goal 2 – To understand the impact of the natural environment on each individual: Addressed through classroom and field trip discussions intended to draw connections between the environment and self, during group presentations in which students articulate impacts between the environment and self, and by discussing the concept of “sense of place” from sites visited.
- Goal 3 – To develop strong connections between students: Addressed through interactive classroom activities, the “Pyramid” format for testing (Yuretich et al., 2001), living on the same floor in a dorm, and by the assumption that students will begin building bonds based on mutual interests and goals that manifest as students become acquainted.
- Goal 4 – To develop student connections with faculty: Addressed through faculty members sharing their expertise with the students as guest speakers. Knowledge of faculty members and their diverse interests may prompt students to pursue additional coursework, develop a program of study, and select a major.
- Goal 5 – To develop student connections with the community: Addressed through fieldtrip-based interactions with off-campus community members, the necessity to explore and interview professionals for group presentations, and the expectation that students will encounter various individuals during their nine-day Spring Break field excursion.
Sources of evidence that I will use to assess the success of the new CLLS include comparing the CLLC version of GES101 to two other non-CLLC versions of the same courses taught the same semester (Fall 2008). All three courses cover identical course content. However, unlike the non-CLLC versions of GES101, the CLLC version focuses on a central theme (Colorado) and exposes students to a suite of new and creative teaching and learning approaches, as described above.
To make sense of this evidence, I will statistically compare test, lab, and presentation grades, as well as FCQ results for the CLLC course to the non-CLLC courses. I will use the final class meeting of GES100 for closing reflection in which I will qualitatively ascertain student’s experiences with CLLC: I will engage the students to verbally reflect on the three course sequence, ask the students how the sequence could be improved, and I will distribute a post-test learning community survey similar to a template used by Iowa State University (Shapiro and McFadden, 2001). Finally, in following the work of Brumm, Mickelson, and Steward (2004), in coming years, I will compare the student retention rate of CLLC versus non-CLLC GES101 and GES100 classes.
How might you make your work available to others in ways that facilitate scholarly critique and review, and that contribute to thought and practice beyond the local?
I will regularly meet with my coach and mentor to discuss my role with the CLLC. Also, due to the interest in learning communities I have encountered among faculty members in the GES, I will hold a brown-bag talk during Spring of 2009 to share my results. My results will also be shared at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers in Las Vegas, Nevada, where I will present a paper. Lastly, by publishing my results in a peer reviewed journal, such as Journal of Geography in Higher Education or Teaching Geography, I will receive feedback on my work and will contribute to theory in pedagogy.
Upon realizing the scope and significance of my role as co-developer of new geography-based learning community, I turned to several sources to direct my ideas and to inspire new ones. As examples, I extracted ideas related to gently mentoring students from Gibson, Pogranichniy, and Wiedenhoeft (2003). I extracted the concepts of weaving courses together for instilling a sense of progress in students from Harms, Mickelson, and Brumm (2001). Also, the helpfulness of maintaining a friendly and non-intimidating environment for my CLLC courses stems from reading Pogranichniy et al. (2001). Finally, methods for measuring the success of the new CLLC were identified from various articles posted on the University of Iowa’s “Learning Communities Assessment Tools and Resources” website (Gruenewald, 2008).
What is your record of innovation in teaching and/or the assessment of learning?
I have consistently earned high marks for my teaching and feel that I am well liked by students. I have taught undergraduate and graduate-level courses at three universities: Arizona State University, Texas State University, and UCCS. Courses that I regularly teach include physical geography, geomorphology, geographic information systems (GIS), and a field course to Silverton, Colorado.
In an attempt to maximize and extend student understanding of course content, I typically utilize three teaching approaches in the classroom. The first involves developing a broad contextual framework, the second is a frequent association to an unchanging class theme, and the third integrates current events into the curriculum. Each approach offers students different connections, associations, and perspectives between course content and their own cognition. I believe that students tend to adhere to one or more of these approaches throughout the semester, and subsequently find a broader understanding of new or highly abstract concepts.
Possible mentor: Steve Jennings, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, sjennings@uccs.edu
Possible coach: Barbara Gaddis, Ph.D., Director, Student Retention and First Year Experience Office, bgaddis@uccs.edu
If your project is selected, are you willing to serve as a coach in PTLC in a future year? Yes
References:
Brumm, T., S. Mickelson, and B. Steward, 2004. Learning communities to improve retention and bring meaning to first-year students in agricultural engineering and agricultural technology programs. ASAE Paper No. 04-8034, American Society of Agricultural Engineers, St. Joseph, MI.
Gibson, L. R., Pogranichniy, S. L., & Wiedenhoeft, M. H. (2003). Learning communities as an advising tool. National Association of Colleges and Teachers of Agriculture Journal, 47 (1), 63.
Gruenewald, D. 2008. Iowa State University. Learning Community Assessment Tools and Resources Website. http://www.lc.iastate.edu/assesstools.html (last accessed September 19, 2008).
Harms, P. , S. Mickelson, and T. Brumm, 2001. Using a first-year learning community to help meet departmental program objectives in Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering. Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education.
Pogranichniy, S., L. Burras, T. Polito, and M. Wiedenhoeft, 2001. Freshman learning communities in agriculture: Observations and assessment. Journal of Natural Resource and Life Science Education, 30, 104-110.
Shapiro, H. and M. McFadden. 2001. Iowa State University of Science and Technology Model Learning Community Survey. http://www.lc.iastate.edu/survey.pdf (last accessed September 23, 2008).
Yuretich, R., Khan, S., Leckie, R., Clement, J. 2001. Active-Learning Methods to Improve Student Performance and Scientific Interest in a Large Introductory Oceanography Class. Journal of Geoscience Education, 49:111-119.