Quarterly Newsletter from LACOL
Volume 4, Issue 1
Winter 2019
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Founded in 2014, LACOL is a partnership of Amherst College, Bryn Mawr College, Carleton College, Davidson College, Hamilton College, Haverford College, Swarthmore College, Vassar College, Washington & Lee University, and Williams College. Read about our mission.
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In this Issue:
▣ Round up of LACOL Spring/Summer 2019 Events
● March: Language Instruction Jam at Bryn Mawr College
● April: Inclusive Pedagogies at Amherst College
● June: Data Science in the Liberal Arts at Washington & Lee University
▣ Shared Course Exploration: Call for Proposals
▣ New Working Group: Digital Competencies (New members welcome!)
▣ On the blog: Digital Asia, Blended Learning
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LACOL Face-to-Face 2019
Events Roundup - Spring/Summer
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This spring and summer, the face-to-face events described below will reflect and drive collaborations across LACOL working groups and project teams. Faculty and staff at all LACOL member institutions are invited to explore these opportunities!
Spring/Summer Events Flyer 2019
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Language Instruction Jam
March 23-24 @ Bryn Mawr College
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 Language educators and technologists will gather for a two-day meet up at Bryn Mawr College this spring to share, learn, and create. A main focus will be CHIANTI, the shared teaching resource for college-level language learning designed and built collaboratively by the LACOL Language Instruction working group. Meeting participants will also brainstorm on an emerging language skills assessment and dashboard prototype - initially developed in French with potential to adapt for use in other languages. While together at Bryn Mawr, there will be ample opportunity to share pedagogies and digital teaching tips that are especially effective for language learning in the liberal arts.
Details and Registration: https://lacol.net/language-jam-2019
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Cultivating Student Leadership
in a More Inclusive Liberal Arts Classroom
April 5 @ Amherst College
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 Picking up on themes explored at last year's Inclusive Pedagogy Dialogues, the Amherst College Center for Teaching & Learning is hosting a one-day LACOL mini-conference to further examine questions of student leadership toward a more inclusive classroom such as:
● Are there models of leadership that we want to cultivate in our students that are consistent with the egalitarian ideals of liberal arts education?
● If such leadership is possible, then what are the pedagogical and classroom management strategies that foster this kind of leadership?
● What are the institutional structures that support faculty and departments investing in implementing these strategies?
The conversation will be most beneficial for those individuals and teams who are directly responsible for shaping and implementing policy, departments, and/or programs that impact student development, with special emphasis on student development in the classroom. The day's program consists of cross-institutional discussions, presentations from two Amherst College “students-as-partners” programs, a presentation from the LACOL Sensemaker team, and a workshop by Dr. Bryan Dewsbury.
Full Agenda & Registration: https://lacol.net/inclusive-classroom
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Student-led study
Sensemaker Data Review
April 4 @ Amherst College
 Regular readers of this newsletter will know that the Sensemaker Team has kicked off a student-led, multi-campus study using micro-narrative to explore the complex, lived experiences of our students on campus and in the classroom. You're invited to join the Sensemaker team in person as they share an overview of the project and dig into their initial finding from the Spring '19 pilot. This half-day meeting runs back-to-back with the full-day mini-conference on student leadership at Amherst College - see above.
Details & Registration: https://lacol.net/sensemaker-data
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Data Science in the Liberal Arts
June 6-7 @ Washington & Lee University
 Sparked by conversations at last summer's LACOL workshop at Carleton College, the Data Science+ working group is an active forum for exploring the frontiers of data science education at liberal arts colleges – especially ways collaboration can help advance shared goals. Recently, DS+ held a series of lively webinars. Plans for a shared “Introduction to Critical Data Science” course offering are developing.
To advance the work of DS+, Washington & Lee University will host a two-day working meeting with interlocking goals:
- Establishing a Think Tank on Data Science in the Liberal Arts: how do we imagine, design, and implement data science curriculums at small colleges; how do we more deeply connect data science to the liberal arts ethos.
- Taking hands on approaches to curating, developing, and sharing liberal arts pedagogies and teaching materials for data science that broadly engage and support our students across the disciplines.
Multi-disciplinary teams including faculty in STEM, Social Sciences and the Arts & Humanities, technologists, and data-oriented librarians are encouraged to join this important gathering.
Details & Registration: https://lacol.net/ds-liberal-arts
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LACOL  Project Spotlight:
Shared Course Exploration
Call for Proposals
Funding and Support AY 19 - 21
As part of LACOL's shared course exploration, two shared offerings are in flight this year. Faculty and academic teams across LACOL are encouraged to bring forward new ideas for collaborative teaching and learning experiments. Inquiries and proposals are invited on a rolling basis; contact your local LACOL rep for guidelines. Read more ...
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Digital Competencies
Working Group kick off
A new LACOL working group on Digital Competencies kicks off in January 2019. Digital Competencies (with related fluencies, skills, and literacies) are vital to the 21st century learner and whole person. This multi-campus, multi-disciplinary group of faculty, librarians, technologists and designers will be digging deeper into concepts and plans laid at the first Digital Competencies Think Tank at Davidson College and since.
Goals & Roadmap:
- Examine ways to adapt digital competencies frameworks to fit individual and collective needs of our schools.
- Develop a shared survey of recent graduates on their acquisition, use, and needs for digital competencies.
- Engage with liberal arts research around competencies that are critical to the future of work.
LACOL faculty and staff interested in getting hands-on in this arena are invited to join the new working group; reach out to your local LACOL rep for details.
More Information: https://lacol.net/digital-competencies
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The ASIANetwork Exchange recently published a special issue Digital Asia which expands upon the pedagogical research presented at the 25th Annual ASIANetwork Conference, “Digital and Beyond: Ways of Knowing Asia.” Co-edited by Prof. Erin Schoneveld (Haverford College), several articles in this volume explore the productive relationship between digital technology and Universal Design for Learning (UDL.) Read more ... |
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