Freshman Learning Community
Fall 2009
“The Good Life”
Dr. Roger Bradley, ECO 201: Macroeconomics
Dr. Judith Burdan, ENG 171: Honors English Composition I
Dr. Art Vanden Houten, POS 203: Introduction to Political Thought I
Mr. Brian Nesselrode, Systems Librarian
Learning Community resource website: http://flagler.edu/library/lc/goodlife.html
This Freshman Learning Community links together three General Education courses—ENG 171, ECO 201, and POS 203—around a common theme: the good life. Students in this Learning Community have been assigned common student housing and will attend classes together. In addition to class meetings, students in the Learning Community will attend co-curricular activities and group meetings as designated by their instructors.
Why a Learning Community?
The ultimate goal of Flagler College’s Freshman Learning Community initiative is to enhance both the academic and social engagement of students at the outset of their college experience. Our objective, through this experience, is to foster an educational environment in which you will become engaged partners in your own academic journey; in which you will discover compelling reasons to seek a personal commitment to learning; and in which you will be encouraged to pursue challenges, pose questions, and seek out answers. Our hope, then, is that by participating in the Freshman Learning Community experience, you will be a more engaged student both within the classroom and beyond.
From an academic perspective, the Learning Community will present an interdisciplinary approach to your general education courses, allowing you to focus on issues from multiple perspectives beyond that provided by a solitary faculty member. In addition, the Learning Community will focus on interpersonal skills that will help you to develop a supportive community of peers from the beginning of your college experience. Ultimately, participation in the Learning Community will be both challenging and rewarding, fostering a deep and productive relationship with Flagler College that we hope will endure throughout your years here.
A Common Theme: The Good Life
This Learning Community poses the question: How do we define “the good life”? Is it measured by our accomplishments? Our material possessions? Our relationships? Our standards? Our moral and ethical choices and their consequences? Do our notions of “the good life” transcend time and space, or are they inevitably influenced by and bound to the culture we live in? Is it something to be defined individually or corporately?
As part of this Learning Community, students will have the opportunity to investigate—through reading, conversing, and writing—the broad historical phenomenon called “the good life,” as it takes shape as a particular narrative (simultaneously personal and cultural) within the context of politics and economics.
Learning Community Student Learning Outcomes
In addition to the learning outcomes listed in the individual course syllabi, students completing the freshman Learning Community will:
· Demonstrate collaborative learning skills with both faculty and peers.
· Be able to make written and oral presentations in a credible and coherent manner, drawing upon interdisciplinary works.
· Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of integrated, interdisciplinary perspectives on the concept of the good life.
· Be able to explain and apply concepts from more than one academic discipline to the common theme of the good life.
· Exhibit improved critical thinking skills, such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of ideas and facts across the academic disciplines.
· Demonstrate an ability to find and use academic resources to fulfill interdisciplinary assignments.
Learning Community Requirements
Students enrolled in this Freshman Learning Community have agreed to remain enrolled in the three courses that it comprises. If, for some reason, exceptional circumstances arise and a student needs to drop one of the courses, he/she will also be dropped from the remaining two. Thus, under such circumstances, the student will need to find three alternative courses in which to enroll.
In line with Flagler College policy, Learning Community students are expected to attend all class meetings. Students with more than three unexcused absences in any of the three Learning Community courses will lose five points (i.e. half a letter grade) from their final course grade for each subsequent unexcused absence in that class. Further, as Flagler’s attendance policy states, “A student who is absent, for any reason, (excused or unexcused), for more than 20% of the scheduled class meetings for the academic semester (nine absences for a MWF class) will not receive a passing grade for the course in which this occurs.
In addition to class meetings, Learning Community students will be required to attend certain co-curricular activities, a listing of which is provided on the final page of this syllabus. Additional details will be provided by your instructors as necessary. Absences from required co-curricular events will count toward students’ total number of absences. Attendance (or non-attendance) at these events will figure into class participation grades for the individual courses in this Learning Community.
Finally, Learning Community students will be required to complete an online informational survey at the beginning of the semester and an online assessment survey at the end of the semester. Failure to complete these surveys will negatively impact students’ class participation grades for the individual courses in this Learning Community.
Integrated Learning Community Assignment
As well as the course requirements detailed in your individual course syllabi, Learning Community students will be required to complete an integrated assignment common to all three courses. This integrated assignment will constitute 30% of your final grade in each course.
For your shared assignment in our Learning Community, we want you to work together to create an oral history that explores the notion of “the good life” through the experiences, perceptions, and values of a single individual. In your project, you will interview an individual and use their experiences and/or perspective to make an argument about a larger historical or social context. This project is intended to give you an opportunity to draw together the concepts, theories, and arguments, and to apply the rhetorical strategies, that you have explored over the course of the semester.
Your group project will have a written (10-12 pages) and a video (10-15 minutes) component. You will also complete some background research for this project and include it in your paper.
Required Co-curricular Activities
All students will attend the following:
Friday, September 4
IGNITE Welcome Event
3:30pm, Ringhaver Student Center, Virginia Room
Tuesday, September 22
Helen Whitney, Woodrow Wilson Scholar (producer, director, writer of documentary films)
“Richard Avedon: Darkness and Light,”
5pm, Flagler Auditorium
Thursday, December 3
Showing of Oral History Projects
7pm, Gamache-Koger Theater
Friday, December 4
IGNITE Wrap-up Event
Time and Place TBA
Each student will choose one from the following list:
Wednesday, September 30
Victoria Barnett, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
7pm, Flagler Auditorium
Tuesday, October 6
Frank X. Gaspar (poet)
5pm, Gamache-Koger Theater
Saturday, October 10
The Amsterdam Cello Octet
8pm, Flagler Auditorium
Friday-Sunday, October 23-25 and
October 30-November 1
Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean
Time TBA, Flagler Auditorium
Friday-Sunday, November 6-8
Florida Literary Arts Coalition Conference
Times and Places TBA
Saturday, November 7
Jud Mitcham (poet) and
Diana Abu-Jaber (novelist)
7:30pm, Flagler Room
Saturday, November 7
Jacksonville Lyric Opera
Die Fledermaus
8pm, Flagler Auditorium
Sunday, November 15
Petronel Malan (pianist)
2pm, Flagler Auditorium
Wednesday-Sunday, November 18-22
Fat Pig
Time TBA, Flagler 2nd Stage
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