Programs - Previously Offered
Communities of Practice - COP (Fall 2008):
Purposeful Educator - Mary Beth Leibham
Summary: Throughout the Fall 2008 semester I worked on a COP project to enhance my teaching. My goal during this semester was to design and refine a course assignment, namely a film critique, for my Psyc260 (educational psychology) course. One issue I have been dealing with in this course is relevancy. It is an educational psychology course for students who are not pursuing education majors. Students who take this course are primarily psychology and communication science disorders majors. Consequently, I find that I have to make an extra effort to convince them that a course in educational psychology is indeed relevant and applicable to their lives.
In previous semesters, I used traditional case studies as one course assignment. Students would read a case and then answer questions related to the case. Their answers required knowledge of ed. psych. theories. The problem with the cases was that they were based within a classroom context. Non-education majors did not find much relevance in these cases. My fear was that students would lack motivation if they did not see the relevance in the assignment. In the Fall 2008 semester I decided to try a different approach to the case studies: the film critique. The film critique required students to select a film that involved teaching/learning issues. Examples of such films include Dead Poets Society, Mona Lisa Smile, Freedom Writers, Lean on Me, etc. Students then applied ed. psych. concepts and theories to the film.
Goal: My ultimate goal was to engage students in higher-level thinking processes and meaningful learning. Through the COP I was able to consult with a team of peers who helped me conceptualize the assignment and refine my objectives and requirements. I am convinced that I had a clearer and more structured assignment because of my interactions with my COP peers. As always, I learned more about the assignment after students handed in their completed work and was able to reflect on the finished products with my COP peers. I left the COP group in December with useful information that I’ve incorporated into the film critique for the Spring 2009 semester. For example, I’ve divided the project into three smaller projects in which I give the students specific concepts to apply to their chosen film. I also will attempt to use more film examples in my own teaching so that students can see me making these important connections between film and theory. I look forward to my continued involvement in CETL activities.
