Educational Advances
Team-teaching 'Blacks in Paris': An Experimental Approach to New Forms of Knowledge in the Humanities View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Juliette Rogers, Duchess Harris
This paper details our experiences with two new interdisciplinary team-taught courses for a mix of students from both of our disciplines, American Studies and Francophone Studies. During January-May 2022, we created a new course called Blacks in Paris; we followed this classroom experience with a two-week field course in Paris called Paris Noir, also taught together. Both courses focused on diverse cultural groups living as expatriates or exiles in France: African Americans from the U.S. and Francophone artists and intellectuals from Africa and the Caribbean. While other U.S. universities offer courses either on African Americans or on Francophone communities in Paris, our courses provide a unique interdisciplinary approach to understand the complex history of Black Internationalism and Transatlantic Migration while questioning notions of Citizenship, Diversity, & Inclusion. In the semester-long course, we examined narratives from the French and Haitian Revolutions and the impacts of the abolition of slavery in the U.S. We also compared and contrasted 20th-century cultural, literary and political movements such as the Harlem Renaissance, Pan-Africanism, and the Negritude movement. In the two-week field course, our focus shifted to contemporaries who are studying or engaging with communities in Paris today, both African American and Francophones of African descent. We made surprising discoveries about how our students interacted with these complex new forms of knowledge, and about the ways our classroom teaching and field work components complemented eachother. We will conclude the presentation with an outline of our strategies for redesigning our courses for Spring 2024.
Developmental Writing and Student Success: Do Remedial Courses Work? View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Cara Miller
Despite mixed reviews about the efficacy of developmental writing courses, they are a mainstay on most college campuses. In fact, a recent Hechinger Report noted that a significant number of students who enroll in college each year (more than half at some institutions) aren’t prepared for college-level work (Butrymowicz, 2017). Based on test scores, GPA, and students’ self-perceptions, they are placed in developmental courses intended to help them “catch up” on conceptual knowledge and study skills that will help them succeed in their courses and persist to graduation. Basic composition is no exception. At-risk students are placed in remedial composition courses that offer more class time (4 credit hours compared to 3), smaller class sizes, and more individualized attention. The problem is that many students in these courses aren’t thriving. While some students do benefit from the additional support, studies show that these courses have minimal—and in some cases a detrimental—effect on other students' success (e.g., Boatman & Long, 2018; Scott-Clayton & Rodriguez, 2015). Using a mix of recent studies as well as student data from Anderson University, this paper examines the efficacy of developmental writing courses and the reasons some students fail. It also explores alternative support options for at-risk students.
Intercultural Encounters as Experiences of ‘Beauty’ in a First-year University Classroom View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Sharon Rudman
The manner in which we experience the world perceptually (through our senses) is core in determining our preferences and the choices we make on a daily – and larger – scale. It is by means of both our external and internal senses that we assess – albeit implicitly – encounters with aspects of aesthetic worth in the world around us. These encounters may be with actual works of art or magnificent views of nature but they may equally occur in the routine and even mundane aspects of everyday life. This paper references ‘Everyday Aesthetics’ and African philosophies of beauty in considering the potential of such everyday aspects of beauty in prompting both attitude and behaviour change in terms of those considered ‘other’. In support of this idea, reference is made to extracts from student reflections on classroom interactions with those from different ethnic and racial backgrounds. These reflections imply themes analogous to the human response to beauty - including the desire to replicate the encounter, the feeling of having been awakened to a fresh experience of the world, a sense of conviction regarding future action and an awareness of previous error in judgement. There were also signs of ‘radical decentring’, prompting a move from restrictive subjectivity to generosity of spirit regarding the ‘other’. In light of the student responses, this paper argues that, as educators, we have the opportunity to facilitate healing and constructive intercultural communication by the facilitation of similar spaces in our classrooms.
