Setting the stage for identity, learning, and the liberal arts

Laff, Ned Scott

doi:10.1002/tl.200

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…These two may overlap, but they are not necessarily the same. Laff (2005) has argued "we cannot say for certain that there is a relationship between what we perceive in what we teach and the lives our students lead" (p. 8). We want to claim that the study of sociology fosters our students' sociological imagination and affects their liberal learning experiences because it has affected ours.…”

Section: Our Claims About Teaching the Sociological Imaginationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Students' Lived Experiences as Text in Teaching the Sociological Imagination

Hoop

2009

Teach Sociol

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Although we may claim our students are developing a sociological imagination, it is quite another to realize this in our teaching and our students' performances. Through a professional move from teaching in Chicago to Maine, I was led to rethink how I teach the sociological imagination. I argue that if we are to teach the sociological imagination, we must consider our students' contextual backgrounds more carefully and use student's lived experiences as “text” from which they exercise and develop their sociological imaginations. I illustrate this approach with an assignment designed to use students' experiences from rural and small towns in Maine. The assignment challenges them to use their sociological perspective to look at the relationship between “private troubles” and “public issues,” and to demonstrate using a sociological imagination to reflect on their biographies.

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Section: Our Claims About Teaching the Sociological Imaginationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Students' Lived Experiences as Text in Teaching the Sociological Imagination

Hoop

2009

Teach Sociol

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“…This dual focus distinguishes liberal education from a purely vocational or skills-oriented learning experience. Additionally, Laff (2005) argues that the skills of liberal learning are inextricably connected to personal growth and human development. Thus, the benefits of liberal learning extend to both the individual and society, mutually reinforcing the growth of the other.…”

Section: Defining the Context Of A Liberal Arts Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Liberal education is broadly understood as a "philosophy of education that empowers individuals with broad knowledge and transferable skills, and a strong sense of value, ethics, and civic engagement" (Association of American Colleges and Universities [AACU], 2006). While the curriculum of liberal education is often debated, there is general consensus that liberal learning is characterized by a strong focus on intellectual and scholarly growth, civic responsibility, and human inquiry (AACU, 1998;Laff, 2005;Lopatto, 2006). The end product of a liberal education is the creation of productive, responsible, and creative citizens who value the benefits of lifelong learning.…”

Section: Defining the Context Of A Liberal Arts Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Promise of Liberal Learning: Creating a Challenging Postsecondary Curriculum for Youth with Intellectual Disabilities

Carroll¹,

Blumberg²,

Petroff³

2017

Exceptional

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Five years ago, a small group of higher education faculty at The College of New Jersey asked the question, "What would it look like if we created a postsecondary program for young adults with intellectual disabilities (ID) on the campus of a highly competitive four-year college?" Ultimately, our answer was that following the logic of normalization and inclusion, we should approximate the postsecondary experience of typically developing young men and women. We were aware of program models that were emerging in other places, but believed that our approach should reflect the characteristics of our existing campus and surrounding community. We had no idea how hard we would work, how much we would learn, and how many benefits would accrue to all the parties involved,

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“…The course helps students identify the personal values that have informed their educational choices, situate their learning in cultural and systemic context, apply formal ethical frameworks to their implicit decision making processes, and project their current values and decision making processes onto future endeavors and impacts that they hope to achieve. While other Olin courses frequently ask students to consider the context and consequences of a specific technical project, Change the World focuses on the student as a person and a practitioner, not only on the narrowly scoped work at hand [11].…”

Section: Change the World: Olin's First Gcsp Coursementioning

confidence: 99%

WIP: Liberal Arts Help Engineering Students Change the World

Wood¹,

Martello²

2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings

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She is a distinguished researcher in the fields of both water and sanitation, as well as a researcher and practitioner in using interdisciplinary thinking and approaches to solving environmental and sustainability problems. Dr. Wood is also pursuing her interests in the areas of equity and justice through education and engagement with context and values. In addition to her teaching and advising duties at Olin, Dr. Wood serves as the Director of the Babson-Olin-Wellesley Three College Sustainability Certificate Program, the Director of Olin's Grand Challenge Scholars Program, on the Catalyst Board of the open source journal Murmurations, as a member of Olin's Sustainability Steering Committee, and as a member of Olin's Context and Ethics in Engineering Education Working Group. After graduating from Harvard University with a B.A. in Dramatic Literature, Dr. Wood worked professionally in theater and wrote and recorded two musical albums. She then returned to school to study engineering, earning a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Rutgers University. Dr. Wood then went on to earn a Master of Science in Engineering in Environmental and Water Resources Engineering and a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin, while working with the Austin chapter of Engineers Without Borders as a volunteer and project lead for a project in Peru. She has published and presented on incentivizing decentralized sanitation and wastewater treatment, on sustainability of coastal community water and sanitation service options, as well as on integrating liberal arts and STEM education, currently through the vehicle of the Grand Challenges Scholars Program. She has co-designed workshops oriented toward educational change for Olin's Summer Institute and the joint Olin College-Emerson College event: Remaking Education. Her love of learning was first fostered by an unusual elementary school education that was deeply interdisciplinary with a substantial arts curriculum, which has informed all her subsequent thinking about the potential for education to transcend conventional models.

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Setting the stage for identity, learning, and the liberal arts

Cited by 4 publications

References 9 publications

Students' Lived Experiences as Text in Teaching the Sociological Imagination

Students' Lived Experiences as Text in Teaching the Sociological Imagination

The Promise of Liberal Learning: Creating a Challenging Postsecondary Curriculum for Youth with Intellectual Disabilities

WIP: Liberal Arts Help Engineering Students Change the World

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