“Developing Curriculum for a Multi-Course Interdepartmental Learning Community to Promote Retention and Learning for Underprepared Engineering Students”
by Rachel A. Milloy, Matthew Moberly, and Rebecca Powell | Xchanges 9.1
Looking Back and Looking Forward: Instructors Reflect
Focused Instruction
Months of preparation went into re-designing the English component of the ILC, and by the time the semester started, participating instructors had a clear sense of the program’s purpose. However, that did not mean students understood why they were in the ILC, how the courses were connected, and what they could expect from their experience in the program. Through our experience, we found that it is important to communicate the purpose/expectations of the ILC early and often. To accomplish this, instructors must periodically check in with students by setting aside class time to openly discuss how students experience the course and learning community. Additionally, explicitly articulating how assignments and activities would inform their other classes helps reiterate the purpose of the learning community to students.
Instructor Collaboration
Bi-weekly meetings among participating ILC instructors occurred throughout the semester, and the purpose of these meetings was twofold. First, these meetings promoted discussions about curricular changes that needed to be made throughout the semester in order to meet students’ needs. If an assignment in English 111 was not reflecting the goals of the ILC, it was at this point where we made necessary adjustments in order to re-calibrate ties between courses. These meetings also allowed us to learn more about the work and values of faculty members outside of our own disciplines, something we feel improves our understanding of how the work we do in English 111 does/can inform other coursework. Additionally, we had an opportunity to share how our students were doing in each class in order to collectively praise students or intervene with students.
Interdisciplinary Partners in Student Success: Final Thoughts
As writing instructors, we were concerned about being seen as a service course, subservient to the more esteemed engineering offerings. Oftentimes, required general education courses, like first-year composition, are viewed as mere service courses. This collaborative model of course development (and delivery) re-frames the traditional first-year composition course as an opportunity to build curricular partnerships with other disciplines, rather than be subsumed to the demands of other disciplines. What we have experienced is that by developing assignments to align with both course and program goals and outcomes, interdisciplinary subject matter can combine to do good work.
As we continue to develop the ILC and reflect on our experiences, it has become clear that the motivations that informed its construction — to position students as active participants in their learning, to build relationships and collaborate with peers across courses, and to begin thinking about real world problems through several disciplinary perspectives — were the same motivations that allowed us to develop the ILC itself. We had to actively question our courses and curriculum and engage in bridge-building between disciplines. We had to reach out to faculty across disciplines and foster strong working relationships with our colleagues teaching within the ILC. And, we had to look at these courses through a disciplinary lens in order to find common values and learning objectives that formed the foundation of our curriculum building. When asked to adapt our course for the ILC, we said “yes.” We volunteered, and in that volunteering, we gained a wealth of knowledge about disciplinary collaboration and about ourselves as teachers and learners. We became our own learning community. We encourage you to do the same.