Workshop for Designing a Stony Brook Freshman Seminar
Participants will imagine and plan freshman seminars that utilize complex societal concerns, or other topics of mutual interest to faculty and students, as themes to foster intellectual discussion and build community between professors and first year students.
- OVERVIEW (TIME: About 5 minutes): The facilitator will summarize the plan for the workshop. Each person should have a stack of sticky notes and a marker, and each team should have a sheet or two of flip chart paper for their final poster.
- IDENTIFY PERSONAL AND INSTITUTIONAL GOALS FOR SEMINARS (TIME: About 5 minutes). How might the seminar experience contribute to your professional development? How might the seminars benefit the institution? We’ll quickly gather ideas in an open discussion format.
- FORMING TEAMS (TIME: About 5 minutes): Please quickly move your chairs to form teams of three or four persons. For this workshop, it is recommended that you work with people outside your own discipline. Briefly introduce yourself to your teammates.
- ESTABLISH DESIRED LEARNING OUTCOMES (TIME: About 10 minutes): What do you hope that your students will gain from participating in the freshman seminar experience? You may find it helpful to describe the traits and skills of the “ideal” student in your seminar. What qualities do you want him/her to exhibit – both during the seminar and as a result of the seminar? What should he/she know, do, and care about as a result of this experience? Write down your ideas and share them with your team. Pick the team’s three “favorite” outcomes to highlight on the final poster.
- BRAINSTORM POSSIBLE SEMINAR THEMES (TIME: About 5 minutes): Brainstorm responses to the following question: If you were to teach about a civic issue, which ones might intrigue you AND your students? Consider issues that you think are important for all students (i.e., citizens of this locale, region, nation, and/or planet) to understand and engage in, and try not to be constrained by your own expertise or discipline in identifying possible themes for your seminar. Put EACH of your ideas on a separate sticky note. Be sure to write large enough for others to read your note from a distance of a few feet. Please DON’T comment (verbally or non-verbally) on each other’s topics now, just spill ideas.
- CHOOSE ONE SEMINAR THEME TO DEVELOP (TIME: About 10 minutes): As a team, sort the “stickies” into groups of related themes, and quickly come to consensus on one theme/civic issue that your team will develop as a seminar model. Give each person a chance to briefly describe their “favorite” theme, and if your group members have difficulty coming to a consensus, be prepared to take a leap of faith and settle on one of the themes.
- IDENTIFY RESOURCES (TIME: About 10 minutes): Brainstorm which disciplines, faculty members, staff members, undergraduate upperclassmen, external/internal experts, and community resources might contribute to engaging in the theme (and write down each idea). Students are often inspired by the passion and knowledge of guest experts, and experts’ visits have the added benefit of exposing freshmen to unfamiliar career options.
- ENVISION THE PROCESS (Time: About 10 - 15 minutes): Brainstorm ideas for implementing your seminar. What will you do on the first day? How much work should be expected from the students (in and out of class)? What will your meeting space (arrangement of chairs, etc.) look like? What assignments (literature of various types, writing, films, attendance at dramatic performances, etc.), research projects, service work, and novel teaching methods (electronic discussions, directed discussion, role play, etc.) could you employ to ACTIVELY engage students? Put EACH idea on a separate sticky note to later arrange them for the poster.
- MAKE A SUMMARY POSTER OF YOUR MODEL (TIME: About 10-15 minutes): Use your markers and a sheet of flip chart paper to distill out and summarize some of the key ideas and/or activities in your design that might underpin a real learning opportunity for students. Make sure your poster includes at least some of the following: a title that portrays your theme, your team’s three desired learning outcomes for students, the basic seminar structure, embedded activities and resources, and proposed activities for implementation.
- PRESENT YOUR POSTER (TIME: 2-3 minutes each!) A volunteer will quickly overview your team’s seminar plan. Don’t worry here; no one expects perfection. Any member of your group is free to take your poster home.
A Few Helpful Resources
Effective Seminars:
"The seminar creates a space where respect for other learners is paramount in the midst of the exploration of ideas and concepts. While the seminar should be a safe place, it is not necessarily a comfortable place. The exploration of new ideas and concepts can threaten students' already established meanings. Students are encouraged to take risks in the seminar, to assert long-cherished ideas about the world and struggle to reshape old knowledge and/or create knowledge with others. Students engage with and reflect on the material and each other. In this way, risk and respect become polarities that together create the learning environment."
— McCartney, Evergreen State College, WA
This exercise, modified for use at the SENCER Summer Institute 2006 (contact Ellen Goldey for more info), is modeled after the Designing a Learning Community in an Hour heuristic developed by Jean MacGregor and Barbara Smith.
