|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Engaged in LearningNew kind of class brings students and professors together
By Meg Cullar
It's going to take Daniel Keith two full years to earn a lab science
credit at Baylor. It's not that Keith--who just finished his freshman
year--is especially slow. It's that he's enrolled in a new type of
class at Baylor--an Engaged Learning Group, or ELG.
Instead of spending the typical three hours per week in class and more
time in a lab, Keith, along with twenty-two other students, is getting
one hour of credit per semester in the "Energy and Society" class. They
will take the same class, with the same three professors, for four
semesters. During the last one, in the spring of 2009, they will
conduct a research project.
 Two
other ELGs also began in the fall of 2007: one on Film and Global
Culture and one on the Hispanic Family in Transition. Students can earn
fine arts or English credits by taking those classes, which are also
team taught by multi-disciplinary groups of professors. Without the
laboratory component, those classes run only three semesters and
provide three hours of credit. All told, about 130 Baylor students are
enrolled in the three classes.
Three new ELGs are slated to begin in the fall of 2008.
The freshmen in the energy class say they signed up for it to learn in
a new way. Keith, a business major, said the science part of the class
is hard for him, but that he sees energy as an important topic for his
future career. "The engineers will build things, but I will finance or
market them," he said.
Abbie Lawson, an education major, has already planned her research
project--designing an energy-based curriculum for secondary schools.
And Amanda Perkins, an environmental studies major, will be designing a
rooftop garden along with classmate Katie Barney, also an environmental
studies major.
The Energy and Society class is taught by Dr. Ian Gravagne, assistant
professor of electrical and computer engineering; Dr. Ken Van Treuren,
professor of mechanical engineering; and Dr. Larry Lehr, senior
lecturer in environmental sciences (pictured with Amanda Perkins and
Katie Barney).
Van Treuren said the idea for the energy ELG grew out of a desire to
teach energy literacy to all kinds of students. "Whether you're going
to be in journalism, politics, economics, or engineering, you just need
to know about energy," he said. "Our dream is to provide a course that
will get any student who comes into it energy-literate by the time they
walk out the door."
One of the challenges, he said, is to help the non-engineers become
comfortable with the numbers. "We did that in the first semester," he
said. "We learned about wattage and power. In the second one, we looked
at conversion chains and how energy gets from its primary source to its
end use." This fall, the team plans to cover the social, economic, and
political aspects of energy.
"But the last semester is probably the most unique," Van Treuren said.
"We will use the Baylor campus as a laboratory for energy. Our students
have already proposed several projects--everything from recycling
vegetable oil from our dining halls to energy audits of various
buildings."
This class is so special that it recently won a grant from the National
Science Foundation (NSF). Gravagne said the Course, Curriculum, and
Laboratory Improvement grant from the NSF is a program designed to
stimulate innovative curriculum. "In a nutshell, its purpose is to
provide resources to develop new and innovative ways of teaching and
learning. We received $145,000, and most of it will go to purchase
equipment."
Through the grant, Baylor will purchase a computerized hydrogen fuel
cell, Van Treuren said. "That is one of the technologies being talked
about to replace the internal combustion engine," he noted. "We will
also purchase a miniature steam power plant that will fit on a table
top, but will have all the components that you see in a power plant
that generates our electricity."
"It's a pretty big deal for an undergraduate student to work with this
sort of equipment," Lehr said. The equipment will also be available for
research by engineering majors.
The grant allowed this ELG to go above and beyond the usual, but the
university does provide monetary support to ELGs, said Tiffany Hogue,
Baylor's assistant provost for institutional effectiveness and
coordinator of the ELGs. She said each ELG gets a budget that provides
faculty stipends and operational funds. "This allows them to take field
trips and to provide honoraria for special outside speakers," she said.
The ELGs grew out of Baylor's recent accreditation process, Hogue said.
"We were required to submit a Quality Enhancement Plan or QEP," she
said. "It mainly shows how you plan to improve student learning. We had
a university-wide call for QEP ideas, and we received thirty-four ideas
from about 150 people on campus. Two ideas rose to the
top--undergraduate research and learning groups. The ELGs really
address both."
Once the ELG concept was established, professors who wanted to provide
a class presented a proposal to a fourteen-member committee primarily
composed of faculty members. If the professors currently teaching ELGs
want to teach them again, they will have to re-apply, Hogue said.
While the classes offer only one hour of credit per semester, the
professors' investment typically goes well beyond that. They often eat
with the students, in addition to the field trips and other special
projects that they plan. The sixty students in the Hispanic Family in
Transition class have been dining together two or three times a week,
and they are divided into three groups that go into the community for
tutoring of non-English-speaking Hispanics through Baylor's LEAF
(Learning English Among Friends) program.
Students coming into ELGs for fall 2008 can find out about the
classes--in entrepreneurship, religion, and the global community--and
apply online. But most of the recruitment takes place at summer
orientation, Hogue said. Students who want to sign up have to apply and
write an essay for entry.
And in addition to learning, eating, and serving together, the students
enrolled in ELGs also live together. During the inaugural year, male
students lived in Penland and females lived in Collins. For the second
year, those ELG students will live in the North Village.
But for the incoming ELG students this fall--an estimated 150 of
them--home will be Kokernot for both males and females. The residence
hall is being renovated this summer and split into two sides. Although
a permanent wall will keep the male and female living quarters
completely divided, common study areas will enhance learning for the
students.
Ruben Nuñez, a mechanical engineering major from Houston who is in the
energy ELG, said that the group interaction has been one of the most
rewarding parts of the class, although he signed up because of an
interest in the environment. "We're going to stick together," he said.
"These guys are like my best friends."
|
|
|
|
|
.jpg)
