Semester Example

Fall 2009

85 first year students enrolled in four Essential Studies courses (Humanities, Composition, Social Science Inquiry and Integrated Life Science). This coordinated studies semester block was taught by four Arts and Sciences faculty members: Tami Carmichael, English and Humanities; Carl Barrentine, Humanities and Biology; Yvette LaPierre, English and Humanities; and Mark Magness, Humanities & Integrated Studies. Steve Finney, Languages, also worked with the faculty, teaching a 2 week unit on language and culture.

Theme: "Dangerous Ideas" 

Class Meeting Schedule

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
10 - noon: small group discussion	9:30 - noon: small group discussion	10 - noon: small group discussion	9:30 - noon: small group discussion	no class
no class	2 - 4: small group discussion	no class	2 - 4: small group discussion	no class

* Students attended classes Monday-Thursday. Faculty participated in all class meetings and weekly planning sessions.

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Various small group meeting formats were used as well as occasional large group meetings, including:

CLUs, or Cooperative Learning Units, emphasized individual research investigations. CLUs asked students to think about topics related to contemporary social issues and events, research information, and bring their information back to discussion.

Program Meetings were used for teacher- or student-sponsored mini-lectures, films, large group discussions/activities, guest speakers, panel discussions, etc.

Writing Groups were the occasions for more formal work on writing, although writing occurred in nearly every class meeting. Writing groups allowed students to work with their peers on revision and editing of papers. All formal assignments were designed to help students connect their reading, research, and discussion work in a written form. ISP students normally write 2-3 typed, double-spaced pages each week. In addition, students wrote a journal reflection every week. In doing this they were asked to use the readings and class discussions as a starting point to think about connections in their lives outside of the classroom.

Seminars, the heart and soul of the program, were used to discuss weekly readings. Students read about 150-200 pages each week from a wide variety of both fiction and non-fiction: novels, plays, essays, memoirs, etc.

Reading List:

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian, Sherman Alexie
The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail, Jerome Lawrence & Robert E. Lee
E=mc2, David Bodanis
The Biography of Zero, Charles Seife
A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines, Janna Levin
Lies My Teacher Told Me, James W. Loewen
Isaac Newton, James Gleick
Newton's Darkness, Carl Djerassi & David Pinner
The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd
The Trouble with Diversity, Walter Benn Michaels
The U.S. Constitution, Terry L. Jordan
Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood
Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit, Daniel Quinn
Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy, Jostein Gaarder

A note on grades in ISP:  We are required to give course grades at UND. We do not, however, regularly administer examinations to evaluate our students. Student participation and performance (oral and written) is monitored daily. Students complete written self-assessments of their learning experiences on a regular basis and receive regular written and oral feedback from faculty. At the middle and end of the term, students participate in exams which vary widely in format. Finally, at the end of the semester, faculty meet as a team to determine grades for each individual student.