Transcript Slide 1

First Year Academics
June 2014
Dr. Jenne Powers
Director of First Year Academics
Assistant Professor of Humanities & Writing
Dr. Grace Kim
Associate Professor of Psychology
Dr. Eleonora Villegas-Reimers
Associate Professor of Education
Prof. Scott Votel
Assistant Professor of Humanities &
Director of Composition Programs
Field Experiences
First Year Seminar (FYS)
First Year Seminar (FYS)
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Human Biology
Citizenship in Context
Moving our Minds
Rhythm and Resistance
Introduction to the Arts
World Religions
Women in Literature
Anthropology and Globalization
Questioning Russian Authors
Media and Race
American Leaders
Film and Fiction
FYS Learning Outcomes
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Use critical thinking and inquiry to recognize, investigate, analyze, and
solve problems and to value the process of that discovery
Bring wide-ranging disciplinary knowledge to their lives and
professions, and pursue a lifetime of intellectual growth;
Communicate effectively using written, oral, and digital means and
appreciate the creative and practical functions of language;
Read and analyze texts and/or other media closely and critically for
main ideas, supporting ideas, details, meanings and assumptions
Connect and synthesize disparate information and ideas, and adapt to
personal, intellectual and professional challenges;
Understand, evaluate and analyze evidence and/or data in one or more
fields of academic inquiry
Demonstrate research (and information literacy) skills by locating,
evaluating, and synthesizing information
FYS Goals
What is your purpose in pursuing higher
education?
What role will you play in the Wheelock
community?
 Team approach
 Cohort model
 Personal connections
English (ENG)
Composition at Wheelock at a Glance
 Two primary composition courses at Wheelock
• ENG 120 – Critical Reading and Writing I
• ENG 121 – Critical Reading and Writing II
 Students will take a placement exam during FYI
• Some students will be placed into ENG 121 in the
fall, though the majority of students will be placed in
ENG 120
• The placement exam, in conjunction with SAT/ACT
scores, is meant to assess the right composition
track for each student (i.e. ENG 120 is not remedial
and ENG 121 is not advanced)
Critical Reading and Writing I and II
(ENG 120/121)
 Instructors start with two basic assumptions
about writing
1. Writing is a process that involves pre-writing,
drafting, revising, editing, and sharing
2. Writing is a necessary part of both encouraging
and demonstrating critical thinking
 Our primary goal is to teach our students how
to use writing to both generate ideas worth
writing about and then to share those ideas in
the most appropriate and effective way
ENG 120/121 Goals
 We believe that successful students will be
able to achieve 7 key goals in ENG 120/121
1. Embrace writing as a process that involves prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and sharing
2. Use writing to engage in critical thinking and to
illustrate the process of that critical inquiry for an
audience
3. Generate productive questions and seek
insightful answers both through formal research
and thoughtful reflection
ENG 120/121 Goals, cont
4. Recognize genre conventions as a way to
anticipate the needs and expectations of a given
audience
5. Craft rhetorically effective, logically cogent, and
structurally sound essays that utilize the
conventions of different genres
6. Use library resources (including FLO catalog and
online databases) to conduct productive research
7. Demonstrate the literacy skills necessary to pass
all portions of the WLCE
Wheelock Literacy and Communication Exam
 WLCE serves two primary purposes
1. Diagnostic of a writer’s strengths and
weaknesses, allowing us to tailor instruction to a
student’s individual needs as a writer
2. Assessment of literacy skills taught in ENG 120
and ENG 121, which reinforces the college’s
commitment to producing students who are
prepared for academic, professional, and civic
life beyond Wheelock
WLCE, continued
 WLCE contains two individual tests:
1.
Copyediting
 Students learn standard grammar and punctuation
conventions throughout the semester
 Exam consists primarily of copy-editing sentences
2. Critical Response
 A short passage that introduces an issue and argues a
position by a single author
 Students have two main tasks:
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Summarize succinctly and accurately the passage
Enter into a discourse with the author by either corroborating or
refuting the argument
Graded Pass/Fail by two independent readers
WLCE, continued
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Successful completion of the WLCE is a graduation requirement
Completion of the WLCE is also a requirement of most pre-practicum
and practicum courses
Once a student has passed a section, she has completed her WLCE
requirement
Students who need WLCE support after ENG 111, can register for
RWS 100, a once-a-week individualized tutorial with a composition
instructor, to receive additional support
Writing Support
 The vast majority of your student’s
assignments, especially final exams, will take
the form of essays
 To assist all students with their writing, we
offer three primary support systems:
1. Writing Center
2. Writing Coach Program
3. WLCE Tutorials (RWS 100) after successful
completion of ENG 121
Human Growth and Development
Human Growth and Development (HGD)
 Provides foundational knowledge about lifespan
development
 One of the corner stone courses at Wheelock College
and a critical course for many professions
 Taught by fabulous professors! Most students take HGD
for their entire first year (HGD I & II).
 Classroom learning & application in real life through field
placements (3 hours x 10 weeks = 30 hours/each
semester)
Q: What will my son or daughter do/learn in
HGD?
 Gain critical thinking skills about how people develop,
grow, and change through the lifespan.
 Consider individual growth AND individuals in contexts –
families, schools, communities, cultures
 Learn about important theories in developmental
psychology
 Learn to observe children’s behaviors with a scientific
eye.
 Write analytic papers & give oral presentations
The Fall Semester: HGD I
 From prenatal development to early childhood (around
age 5)
 Learn about theories; write observation & analysis papers
on:
 Physical development
 Cognitive development
 Language development
 Socio-emotional development
 Field Placements in early childhood settings
The Spring Semester: HGD II
 Middle childhood (school age), Adolescence, &
Adulthood (early, middle, late); Death and Dying
 Expanded focus on contexts – families, peers,
schools, communities, cultures
 Field Placement options are more diverse - e.g.,
schools, community settings; working with
children, adolescents, adults, etc.)
 Assignments are more diverse – interviews,
autobiographical analysis, current event critiques,
etc.
Q. How can I support my student’s learning in
HGD?
 Please ask about what she is learning.
• What age group?
• What theorists? (e.g., Piaget? Vygotsky? Bronfenbrenner? Gilligan?)
• What types of development? – physical, cognitive, language, socioemotional, etc.
 Please ask about her field placement.
• What is she learning from the children?
• From the site?
• About herself?
 Please ask her what she thinks about current events in
relation to her learning in HGD class.
• E.g. What does she think about bullying in schools? How can
people prevent bullying? How can she apply what she learned in
HGD?
Q: How can I support my student’s learning in
HGD? (Continued)
 Please encourage your child to take ownership of her
learning.
• Encourage her to utilize resources – meet with
professors, field experience office, peer tutors, writing
center, oral presentation coaching, etc.
• Support her in trying new experiences.
• Encourage her to pace herself and persevere.
• Remind her you and many other people at Wheelock
are behind her, wanting her to succeed.
Thank You