The Great Questions Foundation Summer Course Redesign Workshops focus on helping faculty members incorporate the discussion-based study of transformative texts in general education courses they teach at community colleges. In each workshop, 10 community college faculty members will collaborate with two experienced faculty leaders on developing discussion-based pedagogy, student-centered study questions, assignments and a redesigned syllabus for a general education course they teach at their home institution. Expect to have meaningful and helpful discussions with community college faculty colleagues representing a number of institutions and academic disciplines from all over the country. Workshops will feature seminar discussion in a collaborative and supportive environment, conducted through Zoom.
Each workshop will focus on a grouping of transformative texts from The Great Questions Foundation’s Transformative Text List. Workshops pair an ancient/classic text(s) with a modern or contemporary text, emphasizing the persistent human questions raised by each text across spans of time, place and culture. These workshops are less about engaging with these texts as experts and scholars and more about learning how they can help us productively raise persistent human questions with our students in the courses we teach. Each workshop will include four meetings over Zoom lasting two hours each, running for four consecutive weeks. Some texts will be read in excerpt. Upon completion of the workshop, faculty participants will each have incorporated the discussion-based study of one or more of the texts we will read into the curriculum of a general education course they teach.
at 28 different institutions have completed courses impacted by our summer curriculum redesign workshops.
respondents agreed or strongly agreed that their participation in a TGQF Summer Workshop helped them incorporate more discussion-based learning in the classes they teach.
The workshops played an important role in enhancing the confidence of the faculty in facilitating student-centered, discussion-based courses.
These courses stand out at the institutions where they are offered in providing students with an opportunity to engage in discussion-based learning. 98% of student respondents reported that their TGQF supported redesigned courses, which included many opportunities for participation in class discussion when compared with other courses they have taken at their institution. In these discussion-based courses, students felt free to engage with a diversity of viewpoints and ideas. 89% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that they felt free to explore opinions and/or points of view that are unpopular and/or not widely held in these redesigned courses.
Workshops will feature seminar discussion in a collaborative and supportive environment, conducted through Zoom.
This opportunity is available to current community college faculty members who teach general education/core curriculum courses at accredited US institutions.
The application deadline is Monday, February 10, 2025
Notifications will be sent to selected participants on February 12
Participants will receive a $600 stipend stipend from The Great Questions Foundation upon successful completion of the workshop
Four consecutive Thursdays, from 2 pm-4 pm Eastern via Zoom for 4 sessions:
February 27
March 13
April 3
April 17
Led by:
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How do Individuals Know What They Know? Are there limitations to the human ability to think, perceive, and understand?
Descartes
Dickinson
Patrick Kenny, Ph.D., is a Professor of Philosophy at Onondaga Community College in Syracuse, NY, where he has taught for over fifteen years. He is a graduate of the University of Galway in Ireland (B.A. Philosophy and English; M.A. Ethical and Cultural Studies) and the University of Rochester (Ph.D. Philosophy). He has taught a wide variety of philosophy courses at Onondaga and has written an accessible textbook for introductory Logic that is specifically aimed at community college students (Does it Follow? A First Course in Logic. Kendall Hunt, 2019). Recently, he was co-PI for the implementation of a Teagle/NEH Cornerstone grant, and has been heavily involved in the development and teaching of a content-rich first-year seminar course that encourages students to learn more about the liberal arts, and themselves, through an emphasis on enduring questions and enduring texts.
Candice Mayhill is Candice Mayhill is a Professor of English and the co-convener of the Center for Liberal Arts Work at Anne Arundel Community College in Maryland. Her scholarly interests lie in the poetry and letters of Emily Dickinson, lyric poetry, cultural thanatology, and marginalized voices and genres in American Literature.
Workshops will feature seminar discussion in a collaborative and supportive environment, conducted through Zoom.
The Great Questions Foundation seeks to promote liberal education and core-text and discussion-based learning at the community college through supporting faculty development and course redesign and helping to establish and support core-text programs and courses.
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