LO 1: Explore the Conceptualization and Definition of Integration of Learning (IOL) in Higher Education
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Making connections and applying learning across multiple contexts (AAC&U, 2002; Barber, 2020)
A practice of integrative thinkers who make decisions from connections of disparate information (AAC&U, 2002)
The integration of personal development and learning that is a hallmark of the ways students engage as learners as their full selves (Keeling, 2004)
My undergraduate learning artifact: Goodwin Exxon Award Letter
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integrative learning
interdisciplinary learning
connected learning
experiential learning
transformative learning
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Connection
Application
Synthesis
According to Barber’s (2014) model, students who engage in the process of integration do so with varying level of complexity beginning with connection (least complex) and ending with synthesis (most complex). It aligns to the model of self-authorship and is echoed in Fink’s (2013) integrated significant learning experiences as well as in multiple AAC&U value rubrics.
LO 2: Position the Integration of Learning Across Contexts
IOL in Education
Dewey’s (1958) Education and Experience reinforces the relationship between experience, prior knowledge, and learning. Barber (2020) calls these experiences inescapable for students, or opportunities from which “students can’t easily retreat” (p. 93). Similarly, Kolb & Kolb (2009), experiential learning is a spiral of experiencing, reflecting, thinking, and acting.
Reflection (Module 5)
IOL in Sociology
Socially constructed, diverse environments in which students are free to bring their whole selves support the integration of learning. Strange & Banning (2015) focus on institutional culture and how culture informs group behaviors. Brower & Inkelas (2010) highlight the high-impact practice of living-learning experiences where the divide between students’ residential community blurs with their academic one. Barber (2020) stresses the importance of diverse groups including a range of perspectives, norms, and dimensions of identity.
Reflection (Module 6)
IOL in Psychology
Transfer theories by Judd (1939) and Thorndike (1924) inform the ways people “mobilize knowledge” leading to the integration of knowledge (as cited in Barber, 2020).
Student development, leading to self-authorship, happens in tandem with and across a student’s range of experiences: “As students abilities to make judgments develop, they can evaluate their own and others arguments using evidence, take contextual factors into account, and re-evaluate the basis of a decision as evidence changes” (King & Siddiqui, 2011).
Vlog 3 (Module 3)
LO 3: Identify and Observe Learning Contexts, Practices, and Conditions that Promote IOL
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Reflecting
Mentoring Students
Writing as Praxis
Encouraging Juxtaposition
Hands-On Learning
Embracing Diversity and Identity
(Barber, 2020)
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Military and Americorps service
Residential experiences to include high school and undergraduate residential experiences, high school-to- college bridge programs, and residential leadership experiences
Immersive experiences to include living learning communities & study abroad
Student life experiences to include cocurricular activities, SGA, student trips, Greek life, and the like
Outdoor group experiences (long hikes & camping trips)
Service learning experiences that include reflective elements
Carceral education programs (such as the Bard Prison Initiative and Bard Early College programs)
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Residential high school experience (NCSSM)
Davidson College’s Bonner Scholar program
Goodwin-Exxon Award winner
Americorps Service
Writing residencies during my Northern Virginia Community College’s Presidential Sabbatical
Poetry Lives Here, a Poet Laureate Tenure Carceral Mentorship Project a Culturally-Responsive Celebration of Living Poets
LO4: Employ Practical Skills and Methods for Assessing Integrated Learning
Reynolds Poet Laureate Curriculum:
IOL Narrative and Matrix Link
“After reflecting on who the contest represented and who it did not, I used the final project in EPPL 620 to address moving resources online to attract additional part-time students, many of whom never come to campus. What resulted was a scaffolded set of exercises that moved from a hyperdiction activity to a completed “I Am” poem, which is the frame used by student poets to give voice to their past, present, and future experiences at the annual DREAM conference. Hyperdiction, as defined by McSweeney (2015) is the result of blending diction specific to an individual as a result of what they know and what they have experienced.”
A New Whole:
An Example of My Recent Integrated Learning
Transformative Learning Blurs the Dichotomy Between Learner and Teacher.
Teaching a living poets pedagogy allowed my students a culturally-responsive opportunity to engage with writers whom I had not yet read. They wrote researched book reviews, and sometimes reached out to the writers directly. They learned by teaching the class what they were reading and the ways it resonated with them.
In this Freireian system, the professor gets more unsolicited feedback because students feel empowered to speak truth to their experiences in both roles, teacher and learner.
LO 5: Both Sides Now
Learning is for Everyone.
All students are capable and worthy of learning, but not all students believe this. When students rewrite an internal script that tells them otherwise, they have found their power.
Failing is Learning.
Failure leads to growth. In supportive environments, students will feel safe to take risks, develop their metacognition, and hone other the habits of mind that will foster their individual and collective successes. To support their risk-taking, I often shared my writing rejections with students, particularly my first-year writing students.
