What SCI 101 Is and Is Not
John W. Farley
Director, UNLV Center for Mathematics and Science Education
April 3, 2007
SCI 101 at UNLV is an example of a First Year Experience (FYE) course. FYE courses are offered at a large number of colleges and universities. The exact course contents vary from one institution to another, but may include some of the following:
orientation
extended orientation
freshman seminars
linked courses
"learning communities" (cohorts)
The First Year Seminars and Experiences have been endorsed by high-level official reports. For example, consider the report College Learning for the New Global Century, a 1995 report from the National Leadership Council for Liberal Education and America’s Promise, published by the Association of American Colleges and Universities. The members are eminent personalities in higher education, including Derek Bok (Interim President, Harvard University), Mary Sue Coleman (President, University of Michigan), Judith Eaton (President, Council for Higher Education Accreditation), Carol Geary Schneider (President, Association of American Colleges and Universities), and many others. The full report (70 pp +) can be found here. On page 63., Appendix A, lists “A Guide to Effective Educational Practices”. It includes the following.
First-Year Seminars and Experiences
Many schools now build into their curriculum first-year seminars or other programs that bring small groups of students together with faculty or staff on a regular basis. Typically, first-year experiences place a strong emphasis on critical inquiry, frequent writing, information literacy, collaborative learning, and other skills that develop students’ intellectual and practical competencies. First-year seminars can involve students with cutting-edge questions in scholarship and with faculty members’ own research.
Note that the authors listed First Year Experience programs under “effective” educational practices, and not under “ineffective” educational practices. Other data supporting the effectiveness of FYE programs could be readily produced.
A large number of colleges and universities offer a first-year experience (sometimes under some other name), including many top colleges and universities. For example, Dartmouth College has a first-year program (click for details), Harvard College has established a Freshman Dean's Office (click for details), and MIT also has a first year program (click for details). Two universities that are consistently ranked at or near the top of public universities are the University of Virginia and the University of California, Berkeley. Berkeley has an FYE program, and Virginia brags about their program.
In 2003, University of Virginia boasted “Last year, U.S. News introduced a category called Outstanding First-Year Experience, and for the second time U.Va. was among the schools cited as among the best in the country.”
RPI boasts that
Rensselaer’s First-Year Experience Program Recognized Among the Best in the Country
Starting classes, meeting peers, and exploring a new geographical area all at once can seem intimidating for many new college students. But it doesn’t have to be that way — at least that’s what staffers in Rensselaer’s Office of the First-Year Experience (FYE) believe. For their annual series of welcoming events, team-building adventures, and festivities — called Navigating Rensselaer and Beyond (NRB) — FYE has been awarded the 2006 NASPA Excellence Gold Award.
FYE received the award in the category of “Enrollment Management, Orientation, Parents, First-Year, Other-Year and related.” The criteria for judging included: positive impact on student learning, transitions, retention and/or success; demonstration of success in addressing student needs and/or critical campus issues; collaboration with academic affairs; originality and creativity; and effective use of technology, among others.
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What SCI 101 is NOT
SCI 101 is not a remedial course. You need one level of skill to graduate from high school, a higher level to get admitted to college, and an even higher level to succeed in college. Remedial education aims to teach skills that were taught (but not learned) in high school: it aims at fixing problems at this lower level. A first year experience (FYE) course aims at helping students who were admitted to college to succeed in college. It deals with higher level skills than remedial education.
We just cited RPI and the University of Virginia as boasting of the excellence of their FYE programs. (And of course these are just two examples: Other examples could be readily found.) RPI and the University of Virginia would not be boasting about their FYE programs if it were really remedial education. No college or university brags about remedial education.
Current version of SCI 101
The syllabus of the current version of the SCI 101 course can be found here [ Syllabus of SCI 101 (Word format)]. Highlights include:
Course Objectives:
1. To provide an orientation to the nature, the functions, and the resources of the University most relevant to science majors.
2. To help students develop and use specific study methods, practice time management, acquire deeper critical thinking skills, and produce clear reports and presentations following the norms of the scientific research community.
3. To help students develop and use their abilities to find, evaluate and use information effectively and ethically.
4. To identify and discuss individual learning styles, motivations and competencies as they relate to academic and professional goals.
5. To engage the imagination and the intellect of students with the excitement and rewards of scientific discovery.
Outcomes: At the end of this course, students will be able to:
● apply specific study strategies to obtain, organize, and record important information from textbooks and lectures.
● use various techniques to prepare for and take the common forms of tests.
● use technologies necessary for scientific research and communication such as: e-mail, databases, presentation software, etc.
● use critical thinking skills to define an information need and to be able to locate, evaluate, and select appropriate information in various formats in the library or on the World Wide Web.
● use campus resources to answer questions about academic policies, procedures, the core curriculum, and other academic concerns.
● make connections between scientific theories and real life.
The current version of SCI 101 is mostly a skills course, as opposed to a science content course. That could change. There have been conversations with the School of Life Sciences and with Geosciences about linking SCI 101 to science content courses. In the past Geosciences was able to link a Geo course (Natural Disasters) with an English course.
If we develop two linked courses, we will have a “learning community” (sorry, that’s the buzzword). Students take two (or more) linked courses together. The students are able to make the connection between what is taught in one course and what is taught in another course. Many students don’t make the connection between courses. My friends in the College of Education call this “the transfer problem”. An example: one of our astronomy professors was asked, “In your lecture, you mentioned atomic emission lines from distant galaxies. Are those the same atoms they tells us about in Chemistry classes?” Yes, they’re the same atoms, just a lot farther away. That’s a student who is starting to make the connections.
The “transfer problem” arises because students have been trained since kindergarten to remember the content in one course, and repeat it on the final exam of that course, but have not had to remember much from one course in another course. The transfer problem can be overcome by requiring students to bring together ideas from different courses.
SCI 101: the bottom line
SCI 101 was developed in order to address issues that arise on many colleges and universities, including many top colleges and universities. Instead of merely complaining about the quality of UNLV students and their abilities, this is an opportunity to do something about it.