UMaine to Host Curriculum Development Institute June 2-3
Contact: Dara McIntire, Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center, 581-4133
ORONO — The Maine Campus Compact, a coalition of 18 post-secondary education campuses in Maine, will hold a Curriculum Development Institute on problem-based service-learning June 2-3 at the University of Maine to assist teachers, instructors and professors in engaging students in service-learning projects.
Service-learning combines classroom lessons with real-world problem-solving. Well-designed community projects integrated into a course allow students to gain deeper understanding of academic content while applying their learning to real world problems. Additionally, students learn to collaborate and make connections between theory and larger social issues, enriching both personal and civic development.
The Curriculum Development Institute will address problem-based service learning as a teaching method that organizes teaching and learning around a community problem or a research question developed in conjunction with the community, according to the Lewiston-based Maine Campus Compact.
Members of the Maine Campus Compact are united in the purpose of reinvigorating the civic mission of higher education.
The service-learning institute is scheduled at the Foster Student Innovation Center on the Orono campus on June 2 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., with dinner to follow, and June 3, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Additional information can be obtained or registrations submitted by contacting Maryli Tiemann by email (mtiemann@bates.edu) or calling (207) 786-8217. Registration is still open, and the institute is free for University of Maine faculty and staff.
Facilitators for the institute are Tom Redden, associate professor of history and politics at Southern Vermont College in Bennington, and Kelly Young, assistant dean of interdisciplinary studies at Woodbury College in Montpelier, Vt.
Redden has been using service-learning in his courses for more than 10 years. He is especially experienced in consulting on program start up and a broad range of service learning issues. Young has experience designing and teaching PBSL courses, developing long and short-term community partnerships, and connecting community partnerships to the curriculum.