Opening Sessions at the January Teaching Workshop

Learning Through Experience - Challenges and Strategies
Panelists: Tanya Denckla-Cobb, Associate Director, Institute for Environmental Negotiation, Architecture
                Dana Elzey, Associate Professor, Materials Science & Engineering
                Janet Horne, Associate Professor of French and History
Moderator: Dorothe Bach, Associate Professor and TRC Assistant Director; German

Most teachers understand the important role experience plays in the learning process. But, integrating experiential learning into the traditional classroom setting can seem difficult at times. Courses that actively engage students in real world experience, such as academic community engagement (ACE) courses or study abroad programs, introduce their own set of challenges. This panel will explore such questions as: How can we effectively integrate experiential learning into an existing course? How can teachers make sure that students actually learn from experience what they want them to learn? What type of interventions help students process community experiences in a constructive way? How can we support individual students in making the most of their personal experience?

Student-Centered Study Abroad: What Students Are Learning, What They’re Not, and What We Can Do About It

Michael Vande Berg, Vice President for Academic Affairs, Chief Academic Officer, CIEE: Council on International Educational Exchange

Study abroad participants are presumably given opportunities to learn and develop in significant ways while they are abroad. However, recent studies show that all too often undergraduates return home without having made the sort of progress, linguistically or interculturally, that most of us assume they should make. Several of these studies indicate that if most students are to develop interculturally, educators need to intervene in the students’ learning while they are abroad. During this workshop participants will:

• briefly review key findings from the Georgetown Consortium and other studies
• learn about the developmental model and learning goals that inform most intercultural training today
• participate in an experiential learning activity they can use to help their students begin to meet those goals.

Mr. Vande Berg has generously given us permission to post his slides online. Click here to see his PowerPoint presentation.

Study Abroad Course Design Institute: Designing Significant Study Abroad Experiences
Dorothe Bach, Assistant Director and Associate Professor, Teaching Resource Center; German
Marva Barnett, Director and Professor, Teaching Resource Center; French

In this two-day workshop, faculty participants will design or substantially redesign a study abroad course so that it promotes significant, longterm learning. Individually and in small learning teams, faculty will:

• Define meaningful, integrated course goals
• Explore novel ways to know to what extent students are meeting these goals
• Develop learning activities aligned with the goals
• Map out the structure of the course

Participants in similar Course Design Institutes we've offered have praised the experience in ways such as these:

[The Institute] has given me tools to help me better fulfill my learning goals, keep my teaching fresh, effective & interesting.

I emerged from the Institute having a much richer sense of the possibilities and the types of bonds that can be forged between my students and the subjects they study.

Legal and Risk Issues Involving International Programs
William P. Hoye, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, IES Abroad

This interactive workshop on legal and risk management issues effecting international programs is designed for:

• Study abroad professionals;
  
• Faculty who take students abroad;
  
• Administrators with oversight responsibility for international programs;
  
• Legal counsel; and
  
• Risk managers.

In this program, participants will discuss:

• Real life incidents;
  
• Claims and court decisions that have arisen in the context of international programs involving college students;
  
• Steps faculty and staff can take to help protect the health and safety of their students from reasonably foreseeable harm on study abroad;
  
• Proactive risk assessment and crisis management; and
  
• Specific risk reduction, and transfer & mitigation techniques that colleges and universities can use to help better protect their students, faculty, and staff in the context of international programs.