Shatter the Glassy Stare: Implementing Experiential Learning in Higher Education--'A Companion Piece to Place as Text: Approaches to Active Learning.' National Collegiate Honors Council Monograph Series

This monograph presents in some detail the ways in which Faculty Institutes--professional development opportunities where instructors immerse themselves in site-specific learning activities exactly as students would, though only for several days--allow participants to acquire the skill to design such adventures elsewhere for their own students. Participants undergo the stress that students feel in radically unfamiliar territory, but equally they experience the exhilaration students exhibit when they see patterns emerge from a dizzying array of fresh stimuli. Integrative thinking and connected knowing are energizing and provocative. Following the Acknowledgments, a Foreword by Bernice Braid, Semesters Institute Facilitators, 2007-2008 Honors Semester Committee Members, and Introduction: (1) Introduction to City as Text™ and Overview of Contents; and (2) You're not Typical Professors, Are You? (Joy Ochs), the following chapters and papers are included: Chapter 1: Campus as Text: (3) Place as Text: Town and Gown (Anita R. Guynn); (4) From Cigarette Butts to the "Stacks" and Beyond (Mary Lou Pfeiffer); and (5) Campus as Text: a Faculty Workshop (Joy Ochs). Chapter 2: Local Neighborhoods: (6) The Lower Ninth Ward: First Impressions, Final Realizations, Future Plans (Janice Allen); and (7) Little Haiti as Text (Peter A. Machonis). Chapter 3: Travel Courses: (8) Adapting an Honors Pedagogy to a General Studies Travel Course (Joy Ochs); and (9) The Adopt-a-Village Project (Rick Ostrander). Chapter 4: Science Related Applications: (10) Turning Over a New Leaf (Devon L. Graham); and (11) Gourmet to Galapagos: Experiential Learning in the Sciences (Kevin E. Bonine). Chapter 5: "Mythos, Logos, Ethos" Writing Exercise: (12) Crete Faculty Institute: A Change in Pedagogical Style (Kathy A. Lyon); (13) Crossroads and Beyond (John Kandl); and (14) Do You Get the Blues? (Stephen J. Nichols). Chapter 6: Philosophical and Practical Considerations: (15) Platonic Thoughts on the Frustrations of Experiential Learning and Teaching: Reflections after the New Orleans Discovery and Recovery Institute (Alen W. Grose); and (16) Experiential Learning and City as Text™: Reflections on Kolb and Kolb (Robert Strikwerda). The following are appended: (1) NCHC Faculty Institutes from 1998 to 2007; (2) Template for Institute Design; (3) How to Organize City as Text™; (4) City as Text™ Strategies: Mapping, Observing, Listening, Reflecting; and (5) Written Assignments. An about the authors section is included. (Individual papers contains references.) [For the companion piece, "Place as Text: Approaches to Active Learning. 2nd Edition. National Collegiate Honors Council Monograph Series," see ED566722.]