Today’s guest is an associate professor of biological sciences at BGSU. She's been faculty at BGSU since 1985 and the director of the BGSU Herpetarium since 1997. Her research interests include developmental genetics, reptile and amphibian husbandry, egg incubation, as well as student engagement and attitudes. She is a good friend and mentor. Please welcome Dr. Eileen Underwood.

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Table of Contents:

00:00 - Introduction

05:41 - Interview with Dr. Eileen Underwood

24:34 - Video Outage

26:25 - Video Back

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       MATT

              Testing… Testing… 123 Testing…

 

         INNER DIALOGUE MATT

              Hi Matt! Did you remember to push the record button? Last time

              you forgot and you had to rerecord the entire introduction.

 

         MATT

              Who said that?

 

         INNER DIALOGUE MATT

              Me. I'm your inner dialogue. You can call me at IDM.

              Short for INNER DIALOGUE MATT.

 

         MATT

              OK. Hi IDM. If you’ll excuse me I’m recording an

              introduction to a podcast.

 

         INNER DIALOGUE MATT

              I know. Do you realize that you are terrible at podcasting?

              You're obviously reading a script and you look like a

              deer caught in headlights. Maybe you should try mixing

              it up a little bit.

 

         MATT

              OK. Like how?

 

         INNER DIALOGUE MATT

              You'll think of something. Before you record, why don't

              you tell me about your topic.

 

         MATT

              I am talking about Learning Communities. I'm also

              talking about the Marine Lab and the Herpetarium.

 

         INNER DIALOGUE MATT

              Sounds kind of interesting. What is a Learning

              Community?

 

         MATT

              Nobody can say for sure.

 

         INNER DIALOGUE MATT

              What?! So, you don’t actually know what a Learning Community

              is?

 

         MATT

              There really isn't a good clean definition that everyone

              can agree on, but basically, it’s a group of people who

              have common academic goals and attitudes. They have

              become very popular in colleges and universities in the

              United States. There are residential learning

              communities and non-residential learning communities.

 

       INNER DIALOGUE MATT

              Don’t tell me. Tell the camera.

 

(MATT NOW TALKS TO THE CAMERA)

 

       MATT

              In residential learning communities, students live together

              and share common extra-curricular activities. Today we’ll

              be talking about the non-residential learning

              communities. According to a 1999 paper by George Washington

              University professor Karen Kellogg, there are five types of

              non-residential learning communities commonly found throughout

              the literature. The first type, are linked courses, where

              groups of students take the same two courses together. Usually

              one is content-based and the other is application based. We do

              this at BGSU.

              For example, many of our freshman biology majors will

              take a biology course and a psychology or philosophy

              course together, so they see the same people in both

              classes and hopefully get to know each other better. The

              second type is called learning clusters, where groups of

              students take three or four courses linked together. The

              third type is called freshman interest groups, which are

              similar to linked courses but also includes a peer

              advising component. An upperclassman serves as a peer

              advisor and meets with the freshman weekly. The fourth

              type it's called federated learning communities, where

              students take linked courses and a professor from a

              different discipline called a master learner takes the

              courses with the students. The master learner meets with

              the students regularly to discuss the courses. The fifth

              type is called coordinated studies, where a group of

              students and faculty work together on a full-time block

              of courses which may last an entire year.

 

         INNER DIALOGUE MATT

              There are just 5 types of non-residential

              learning-communities?

 

         MATT

              No. There’s actually many more types of non-residential

              learning communities. We have two live animal labs here

              in the biology department at BGSU and that I would like to

              talk about today. They don’t fit into any of the 5 common

              categories I just listed, but they are definitely learning

              communities, bringing faculty and students together on a

              regular basis to peruse the same academic goals.

              In the Marine Lab students take care of aquariums

              and work on aquatic research projects. In the

              herpetarium or reptile lab students take care of

              reptiles and do reptile research projects. There are

              also Professional Learning Communities, Where

              like-minded professionals get together and talk about

              topics related to their profession. I’ve facilitated a

              bunch of professional learning communities for faculty

              where we got together and talked about all aspects of

              Teaching and Learning.

 

         INNER DIALOGUE MATT

              Sounds interesting, but are there any benefits to

              learning communities? It sounds like a complicated

              scheduling nightmare.

 

         MATT

              Scheduling can be difficult, but there is a huge body of

              literature around this

              indicating a huge number of benefits. According to Karen

              Kellog (1999), benefits for students include “increases

              in academic achievement, retention, motivation,

              intellectual development, learning, and involvement in

              community.” Faculty can be re-energized, empowered, feel

              valued, become more creative, and more committed to the

              college or university. Distinguished Syracuse University

              sociology professor Vincent Tinto (1994) studied student

              retention and learning communities. In a 1994 paper, he

              explains that

              learning communities provide a strong sense of belonging

              for students and a strong sense of belonging is key to

              student retention in a college or university.

 

         INNER DIALOGUE MATT

              Nice job! It looks like you found a fairly interesting

              topic and you have done your homework. Now quit wasting

              everybody's time and introduce your guest.

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References

Golde, C. M., & Pribbenow, D. A. (n.d.). Understanding Faculty Involvement in Residential Learning Communities, Journal of College Student Development. Retrieved November 12, 2019, from http://chris.golde.org/filecabinet/facultyinvolvement.html.

 

Kellog, K. (1999) Learning Communities. ERIC Digest. Washington, D.C.: ERIC Clearinghouse on Higher Education.

 

Tinto, V. (2003). Learning Better Together: The Impact of Learning Communities on Student Success. In Promoting Student Success in College, Higher Education Monograph Series (pp. 1-8). Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University.

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