The Eastern Integrative Learning Experience (ILE) What is Integrative Learning? Integrative learning entails providing students with coherent curricula, significant learning and life experiences outside of the.
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Transcript The Eastern Integrative Learning Experience (ILE) What is Integrative Learning? Integrative learning entails providing students with coherent curricula, significant learning and life experiences outside of the.
The Eastern Integrative
Learning Experience
(ILE)
What is Integrative Learning?
Integrative learning entails providing
students with coherent curricula,
significant learning and life experiences
outside of the traditional classroom
context, and ample opportunity for
guided reflection, enabling students to tie
the disparate parts of their academic,
personal, and professional lives into a
holistic, transformative university
experience.
Why Integrative Learning?
• A concept with an existing body of literature
• Speaks directly to Eastern’s overarching goal -being the “best”
• An umbrella for the academic initiatives which
we have been pursuing for several years: Study
Abroad, Undergraduate Scholarship, Honors,
Service Learning
• Includes many elements of the educational
experience we have offered for many years
Characteristics of Integrative
Learning
Intentionality
Reflection
Problem-solving
Collaboration
Engagement
Metacognition
Integrative Learning
Requires:
Intentionally and purposefully including
two activities in courses and in cocurricular activities:
1. Connecting (skills and knowledge from
multiple sources and experiences)
2. Reflecting (on learning, experience,
and the connections between them).
High Impact, Integrative
Experiences
First-Year Seminars and Experiences
Collaborative Assignments and Projects
Writing Intensive Courses
Study Abroad
Research, Scholarship, Creative Activity
Student Teaching
Internships
Service-Learning, Community-Based Learning
What do these have in
common?
Each puts the student in a practical
situation in which she has problems
to solve or challenges to overcome.
Each requires the student to apply
skills and knowledge acquired in one
context to a situation in a different
context.
How can we prepare students
to take full advantage of these
experiences?
Instill habits of reflection
Encourage students to be intentional
about their choices, both academic
and personal/professional
Provide experiences in which
students can practice integrating
skills and knowledge from one
context into another
“One of the oddest things about
the university is that it calls itself a
‘community of scholars,’ yet it organizes
itself in a way that conceals the
intellectual links of that community
from those who don't already see them.”
--Gerald Graff. “Colleges Are Depriving Students of a
Connected View of Scholarship.” Chronicle of Higher
Education. 13 Feb. 1991
Types of Integrative
Learning
Horizontal
Vertical
Global
Personal
“Cosmic”
Adapted in part from SUNY Oswego catalyst project
Horizontal Academic Integration
Provides opportunities for students to
reflect upon connections among their
courses through exercises such as oneminute papers, focused class
discussions, reflective assignments.
Vertical Academic Integration
Encourages students to reach back and
review/use skills used in prerequisite courses
to enhance learning in current course.
Encourages students to reach back to
general education courses to provide
grounding and inform learning in major
courses.
Global Academic Integration
Encourages students to make connections
among courses using an overarching concept
or theory that applies to many courses.
Personal Integration
Encourages students to apply
academic learning to outside-ofclass experiences.
Encourages students to bring
personal, social, cultural, and
professional experiences to bear on
what they are learning in class.
“Cosmic” Integration
Enables students to recognize the
interconnectedness of all things.
What have we accomplished?
Positives:
Presidential buy-in
General diffusion of the idea
Website with information and student examples
Departmental discussions – predominantly listings of
things already being done
An increase in the number of integrative
experiences
Not a lot of vocal or overt push-back
Many faculty doing things consistent with IL
EIU’s Integrative Learning Web Site
Elements of ILE
EIU Reads
Appreciative Advising
General Education
Major/Minor Curricula
Student Life
Co-Curricular Experiences
EIU Reads
Enhances critical reading skills
Develops social/academic skills
through interactions with faculty and
students
Can provide a follow-up assignment
wherein the student reflects on her
own reading tastes, strengths, &
abilities
Appreciative Advising
Academic advisors include discussions
of student’s career goals and personal
aspirations while recommending
courses and co-curricular activities.
General Education
• Include assignments that allow student to reflect
upon her own learning process
• Include assignments that allow student to connect to
other coursework
• Chosen to coincide with student’s academic and
career goals
• Provide opportunities in each course to connect to
material in other courses: e.g., literature connects
to psychology, political science to ethics, sociology
to history, fine arts to physics . . . .
Major/Minor Curricula
Classes build upon disciplinary
expertise but also reach back to
General Education classes in science,
social science, fine arts, humanities
Include assignments that allow
students to reflect on learning
process, human experience …
Some Considerations
• How often can personal/professional
reflection be incorporated into
coursework?
• Can students’ personal/professional
aspirations be contextualized through
their coursework?
• Can academic content be applied to
out-of-class experiences?
• How coherent is the curriculum and is
that coherence explicitly explained to
students?
• How can Reflection be embedded in
the curriculum and be required before
and after all major integrative
activities
Honors Pilot
• The Presidential Scholars Program has included
several elements to promote integrated
academic and personal development:
Academic Plan
Required participation in student
life activities
Required high impact experience
• For all freshman Honors students, the new 1credit required class
CAA
In the curricular development/approval
process, what might be CAA’s role?
• Can College curriculum committees be asked
to consider IL as they look at course proposals?
• Can there be particular expectations of
General Ed. proposals for intentional inclusion of IL?
• Could there be a review of General Ed. with
an eye on IL?
• Other?