Challenge Accepted: a Critical
Approach to Course Participation
2015 Pedagogy in Practice and Philosophy Conference
Mikayla Beaudrie
Jamie Lee Marks
check in:
How do you assess and foster
 critical thinking
 meaningful participation
What are Course Challenges?
10 –week long, student generated,
curated, and coordinated mini-projects
that
1. connect course goals to students’ lived
experiences
2. allow for multiple modalities of learning
3. allow students to decide how to participate
and engage outside of the classroom
4. [at best] foster creative and critical thinking
skills that are important to argumentative
writing and projects across the disciplines
5. carve out official time/space for fun student
projects thatcould serve as gateways to
research and practical projects
JLM
What are Course Challenges?
students are
1. given a list of options that
are open-ended to varying
degrees
1. encouraged to modify and
design their own course
challenge in conversation
with the course leader (and
readings in pedagogy
MB
ex. 1
Ethnographic Short (ENC1101: Writing about Hip-Hop Culture)
Research The Hip-Hop Collective, a UF organization centered
on hip-hop. Then, attend one of their sponsored events or
conduct an interview with a chair member. Your response will
be a short ethnography about The Hip-Hop Collective. Like
any other ethnography, your response should express the
organization's roles regarding UF, Gainesville, Florida, the US,
hip-hop, the world, etc. For a further understanding of this
genre, read Brian A. Hoey's definition.
MB
ex. 2
Joint Itineraries (ENC2305 and Anthropology of Sustainability)
Locate yourself as a UF student in a community that exists outside of the
university. Select an RTS route that runs at least partially off campus. Get
online and determine where the route begins and ends. Hop on the bus
at a stop of your choosing (this is free to you as a UF student) and take it
to the end of its route and back. Plan for adequate time, as bus routes
can often take one or more hours to complete. Take notes about who
gets on and off and any interactions that that transpire. Take notes
about parts of Gainesville you encounter. Have you been there before?
What did you feel/experience? Then, compose a 2-3 double-spaced
page report that 1) details what you saw, heard, felt, thought,
imagined, and/or daydreamed about when you were there and 2)
connects with course concepts about alterity and community or
transport policy. Are there any challenges to transportation accessibility
you noticed? Draw on the excerpt by Augé’s for inspiration as needed.
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Addressing Difficulties in the First-Year
Classroom
 Instructors are tasked with "fostering
critical thinking skills”
MB
Addressing Difficulties in the First-Year
Classroom
 Instructors are tasked with "fostering
critical thinking skills”
 Approaching student resistance in a
class that tends to value
experienced knowledge
MB
Addressing Difficulties in the First-Year
Classroom
 Instructors are tasked with
"fostering critical thinking skills”
 Approaching student resistance
in a class that tends to value
experienced knowledge
 Experienced knowledge provides
access to skills necessary to think
critically
MB
Addressing Difficulties in the First-Year
Classroom
 Instructors are tasked with "fostering
critical thinking skills”
 Approaching student resistance in a
class that tends to value
experienced knowledge
 Experienced knowledge provides
access to skills necessary to think
critically
 Creating approachable course
content for STEM students
MB
Promoting Civic and Critical
Engagement
Carla Golden’s “Seven Point Plan”
“I want my students
1. …to experience learning and thinking as exciting
and challenging and to know that reading and
discussing issues and ideas can enrich their lives
2. …to learn that to write will is both necessary and
important
3. … to feel comfortable when speaking
4. …to learn that thinking for themselves is crucial
5. …to learn that discipline is important
6. …to examine their own lives
7. …to be socially responsible and concerned [at
least partially] as a result of taking my classes”
Golden, Carla. "The Radicalization of a Teacher." The Feminist
Teacher Anthology. Ed. Gail E. Cohee, Elisabeth Daümer,
Theresa D. Kemp, Paula M. Krebs, Sue A. Lafky, Sandra Runzo.
New York: Teachers College Press, 1998. 13-23.
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design + implementation
1. designing Challenges (include an open ended
option)
2. assigning a points value (over half a letter grade)
3. timelines (start date, check ins)
4. the final write up (2-3 double spaced pages)
assessment + assessment challenges
examples
fyc student examples
1. Enhancing digital literacy
a. Websites
https://sites.google.com/site/firstyearengineersuf/
https://enc3246firstyearengineering.wordpress.com
b. Professional writing
2. Translating and remixing language
3. Creating musical productions
4. Performing literary analyses
5. Self-assessment of communication practices
MB
[ENC2305, ENC1102, Anthropology]
1. Getting Involved in Local Movements/Issues
2. Pop culture analysis. Ads, Film (Lego, Hunger Games),
novels (Queen of the South, , short stories) Analysis
3. Connecting Critical Theory to Popular Culture (Lego
Movie, Grand Theft Auto, Queen of the South, The
Hunger Games, The Purge)
4. mixtapes (Sustainability and Bad Guys examples)
a. Honey and Sorrow Mixtape.
https://soundcloud.com/cobbsnobb/sets/ant2402
b. http://open.spotify.com/user/1237832879/playlist/0T
OurStHn8OlM7pC11Q5xD
5. Space/Place Challenges (journaling/Instagram) /
habitus challenges
6. Design your own: play through and/or create video
games (procedural rhetoric); art projects (mask)
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Honey and Sorrow Mixtape
Intro
“My mixtape challenge, dubbed Honey and Sorrow , is a progressive collection of
electronic, deep house, and trance music with infusions of tribal, soul, instrumentals and
R&B. The collection is meant to take the listener on a journey, beginning with our first class
discussion on “What is Nature?” which disturbed what I had assumed about man and
nature as separate, to cascading through the challenges faced by third world activists,
and ending on a positive note that together, change is possible. I hope that my audience
enjoys the message as well as the unique acoustics that only instrumentally infused
electronic music can bring.”
JL
M
final comments
Opportunities for student engagement
multimodality
civic engagement/social justice
digital citizenship
Cross-discipline pedagogical practice
Community involvement and Self-discovery
acknowledgements
Dr. Creed Greer
Dr. Alison Reynolds
and a special thank you to…
Dr. Jennifer Coenen
Justin Grant
cat + pictures
students who agreed to share
their work
questions/contact info
Jamie Lee Marks
Jamie.Marks@gmail.com
Mikayla Beaudrie
Mikayla528@ufl.edu