A learning community course cluster in which students learn biology, chemistry, mathematics, and political science while performing community service is to be developed.
This proof of concept project includes the production of documentary materials, including instructors' guides and laboratory manuals. The laboratory manual allows students to easily access techniques in biology and chemistry that are useful for environmental studies. An instructors' guide, including materials on coaching student teams, allows the laboratories to be taught by teaching assistants.
Faculty development workshops at the annual California State University Teacher Scholar Summer Institute are one avenue for system-wide dissemination. To disseminate nationally information regarding his project, the project team is to submit the results of summative analyses (student attitudes and student learning outcomes) for publication in science teaching journals such as the Journal of College Science Teaching and American Biology Teacher.
The project is based on the prevailing theory of learning, which suggests that students build their own knowledge through active participation in learning. Learning communities and service-learning is used to increase student engagement. As supported by motivational theory, students are to apply science and mathematics to complex, real-world problems as they learn.
Assessment instruments will be administered to measure science literacy, attainment of general education goals, and student ability to make connections among key science concepts across the science disciplines and to apply mathematical concepts to new situations. Interviews and/or surveys of students and faculty will be conducted to ascertain student and faculty perceptions about the new courses and about community service.
