Education Commons^™

Backwards By Design Assessment Project, Linda Keeler

Backward by Design Mini-Studies

Currently, KIN 321 Sociology of Sport is the only sociocultural class in the kinesiology program and perhaps, one of the only sociology courses that kinesiology students will ever take. It is quite common that a sport sociology course is the first (and unfortunately only) upper class course that forces the students to critically analyze the underpinnings and values of the sport institution in which many are working so hard to promote. Since the class is approached from a conflict theorist approach (i.e., what I like to call the nitpick theory) and often challenges long held beliefs, a key threshold concept …

Using Service-Learning To Teach Threshold Concepts, Helen Morgan Parmett

Backward by Design Mini-Studies

The course I chose to focus on for the Backwards by Design retreat and for this particular study is Communication 244: Advocacy through Media. This course enjoins students to critically consider how media can be used as a tool to advocate for social and political change, and, especially for social justice. Students engage with scholarly and activist literature on theories of media, social change, and advocacy as well as case studies of media makers who intervene in the process of social change. Students’ critical acumen is sharpened through participating in a service-learning project, where students learn how to apply theories …

Backwards By Design Project Assessment Write-Up, Michelle Saint

Backward by Design Mini-Studies

In Fall 2012, I taught Phil 355: Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. I used this course as an opportunity to test a new pedagogical technique. I will call this pedagogical technique the Incremental Exercises Model (IEM). Below, I will quickly summarize the course and its learning goals. Second, I will explain my previous method of meeting these learning goals. Third, I will explain IEM and how I implemented it in this particular class. Finally, I will provide some concluding observations about the successes and failures of this technique.

Backwards By Design Implementation Report, Kristina Luce

Backward by Design Mini-Studies

As part of my participation in the Backwards by Design Retreat during summer of 2012, I chose to design the first course of the three-part series of courses on writing required for the Art History Major. A/HI 271: Introduction to Writing and Critical Thinking is also a GUR.

My goal overarching goal was to implement the idea of a threshold concept within the course, and during the retreat I identified that concept as:

In academic writing, well-grounded claims are understood to emerge out of evidence, but in art historical writing, as in any interpretive writing, it is essential to understand …

A Process For Engagement With Threshold Concepts In Spanish Composition, Sean Dwyer

Backward by Design Mini-Studies

Numerous practices and assignments discussed at the 2012 Backwards by Design Curriculum Workshop appeal to me as sources of creativity in the classroom. Some will suit courses I teach in the future. For this year, I faced an issue: I am working with students whose classroom vocabulary is equivalent to that of a three-year-old, because I am teaching first-year Spanish.

The most applicable idea, one that energized me greatly, was the identification of threshold concepts. Working backward from that identification, I sought ways to implement practices that would, I hoped, bring those concepts permanently into my students’ approach to writing …

/Ɡizəskɪfi/ (Give Me A Clue) - Linguistic Features Of Scottish Accents And Dialects, Sarah Knudsen

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

Powerpoint presentation describing the author's research, conducted in Scotland, regarding Scottish dialectal features and the sociolinguistic connotations associated with the dialects. Outside research is also incorporated.