Geocommons education is primarily experiential. Involvement in every aspect of our community’s day-to-day functioning, educational activities, group dynamics, and ability to work together creating a living learning community is part of the expectation for successful participation in GEO’s academic program. We want each person in the community to see himself or herself as an active part of a greater whole and act accordingly. By helping each other, working collaboratively, sharing excitement about ideas and events, actively seeking experiences, and participating in them we all contribute to each individual’s education. Your effort and engagement with each course and with the overall evolution of our semester is a large part of your final assessment and grade.
Students are expected to practice facilitation and leadership in the group decision-making processes, and in preparation for and integration of learning experiences. This specifically involves facilitating a number of specific events:
The preparation for and evaluation of these exercises will happen in consultation with a faculty advisor and peers. And finally, you are expected to be actively involved on a day to day level in a way that supports the learning community.
The Academic Journal is a vehicle to both deepen your learning and aid in assessment. It serves to integrate and demonstrate your learning in a creative, accessible and attractive manner and provide a tool for others to engage with you around your academics. The challenge is to reflect deeply about your experiences and include the breadth of your coursework by translating the experiences that you have into specific learnings. Done well, it will provide a window into your experience for years to come. Also include a broad spectrum of resources in addition to your own work: articles, maps, photos, brochures, poetry, artwork, quotes, letters, lists of books or words you like and anything else that you have found valuable in your learning process and your academic reading log.
Writing is a powerful form of self-expression. The Geocommons writing program encourages you to develop your written communication skills as well as evaluative feedback skills in an open, non-competitive environment. There will be three topic papers, one in each of your courses in addition to an Internship Project Paper. One of the topic papers will need to be significantly revised in a way that demonstrates your engaged process with the feedback received. In addition to these formal papers and your Academic Journal, there will be a number of assigned writings throughout the semester to encourage creativity and synthesis of course content including thank you notes and free-writes.
Books and readings will be chosen with guidance from faculty and should reflect a breadth of the course as well as depth, integrating challenging new material. Faculty and peers may be assigning readings throughout the semester. Students are expected to integrate information and theory from their readings into other aspects of the program (i.e. discussions, writing, and seminars). The degree to which you assimilate information and ideas from the reading will be considered in your assessment and grade for each respective course. See specific course syllabi for reading requirements. Remember to keep a reading log as part of your Academic Journal.
There will be two formal assessment periods during the semester: one midway through and the other at the end of the semester. These will include assessment of ourselves academically and how we are functioning as a learning community. However, assessment is an ongoing process. As an active learner it is partially your responsibility to continually seek feedback from faculty and peers. Giving critical feedback is an essential skill and is key to the development of a strong learning community.