Course Approval Form Simple Storage Service
For approval of new courses and deletions or modifications to an existing course.
Course Approval Form
registrar.gmu.edu/facultystaff/curriculum
Action Requested:
Course Level:
x Create new course Delete existing course Modify existing course (check all that apply) Title Prereq/coreq Other:
College/School: Submitted by: Subject Code:
Credits Schedule Type
x
Repeat Status Restrictions
Grade Type
College of Humanities and Social Science Heather Anderson
Department: Ext: 3.1108
HNRS
Number:
430
Effective Term:
Honors College Email: x
(Do not list multiple codes or numbers. Each course proposal must have a separate form.)
Title:
Current Banner (30 characters max including spaces) New Multidisciplinary Challenges
Credits: (check one)
x
Grade Mode: (check one)
Fixed Variable
x
0
to
Prerequisite(s): HNRS 109, 110, 210, 302
Year
Not Repeatable (NR) Repeatable within degree (RD) Repeatable within term (RT)
x
(check one)
Regular (A, B, C, etc.) Satisfactory/No Credit Special (A, B C, etc. +IP)
Fall Spring Summer
[email protected]
2016
in Professional Environments
Repeat Status:
3
Undergraduate Graduate
Lecture (LEC) Lab (LAB) Recitation (RCT) Internship (INT)
Schedule Type Code(s): (check all that apply)
Corequisite(s):
x
Maximum credits allowed:
6
Independent Study (IND) Seminar (SEM) Studio (STU)
Instructional Mode: x 100% face-to-face Hybrid: ≤ 50% electronically delivered 100% electronically delivered
Special Instructions: (list restrictions for major, college, or degree;hard-coding; etc.) Restricted to Honors College students (Attribute code of HP, STEM, or HSOM)
Are there equivalent course(s)? Yes x No If yes, please list
Catalog Copy for NEW Courses Only (Consult University Catalog for models) Description (No more than 60 words, use verb phrases and present tense)
Notes (List additional information for the course)
Students work to solve a problem or challenge currently faced by an Honors College community partner, which are identified in consultation with the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority. Provides students with opportunities to synthesize knowledge and practices developed in prior courses and co-curricular experiences; develops the skills and strategies necessary for working effectively in multidisciplinary teams. Indicate number of contact hours: When Offered: (check all that apply)
Hours of Lecture or Seminar per week: Fall Summer x Spring
Hours of Lab or Studio:
Approval Signatures Department Approval
Date
College/School Approval
Date
If this course includes subject matter currently dealt with by any other units, the originating department must circulate this proposal for review by those units and obtain the necessary signatures prior to submission. Failure to do so will delay action on this proposal.
Unit Name
Unit Approval Name
Unit Approver’s Signature
Date
For Graduate Courses Only Graduate Council Member
Provost Office
Graduate Council Approval Date
For Registrar Office’s Use Only: Banner_____________________________Catalog________________________________
revised 2/2/10
Memo Honors College Course Proposals 2015-2016 HNRS 430: Multidisciplinary Challenges in Professional Environments The Honors College has approved the following request for HNRS 430 for the fall of 2016 Objectives & Need This course concludes the Honors College experience and provides students with opportunities to synthesize the knowledge and practices they have developed over the course of the undergraduate experience; to develop the skills and strategies necessary for working effectively in multidisciplinary teams; and to apply all of this as they work to solve a problem or challenge currently faced by one of our community partners – all in the professional setting facilitated by one of our community partners. Likely community partners will be identified in consultation with the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority. Audience Upper division Honors College students seeking to satisfy Requirement 3 of the Honors College curriculum. Staffing The course will be staffed by a Mason faculty member, likely an Honors College administrative faculty member. The instructor will work directly with 1-2 staff members from each community partner. Rotation Students will be able to take this spring semesters. Requirements & Relationship to Other Courses Students will be able to use HNRS 430 to fulfill a requirement in the Advanced Topics (Requirement Three) requirement of the Honors College curriculum.
Honors 430: Multidisciplinary Challenges in Professional Environments (Or, Honors College Practicum) Course proposal/draft syllabus Student Learning Outcomes This course concludes the Honors College experience and provides students with opportunities to synthesize the knowledge and practices they have developed over the course of their undergraduate experience; to develop the skills and strategies necessary for working effectively in multidisciplinary teams; and to apply all of this as they work to solve a problem or challenge currently faced by one of our community partners – all in the professional setting facilitated by one of our community partners. Outcomes adapted from AAC&U’s VALUE rubric for Integrative Learning, all at Capstone level Outcome Students will… Connecting and Meaningfully synthesize connections among experiences outside of the formal applying experience classroom (including life experiences and academic experiences such as internships and academic and travel abroad) to deepen understanding of fields of study and to broaden knowledge own points of view. (AAC&U VALUE rubric, capstone level) Thinking and In collaboration with a multidisciplinary team, create wholes out of multiple parts working across (i.e., synthesize) and/or draw conclusions by combining examples, facts, disciplines, theories, and/or methods from more than one field of study or perspective. perspectives Integrated Effectively present multiple products by choosing a format, language, or graph (or communication other visual representation) in ways that enhance meaning, making clear the interdependence of language and meaning, thought, and expression. Reflection & SelfEnvisions a future self (and possibly makes plans that build on past experiences) assessment that have occurred across multiple and diverse contexts. Additional outcomes (adapted from OSCAR’s RS course rubric and from program outcomes identified by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology) Outcome Students will... Application of In collaboration with their team, apply multiple methodologies to effectively multiple research identify, gather, and analyze data necessary to understand a problem and to methods to propose a solution. understand a problem Designing and Drawing upon data gathered and analyzed using multiple methods, design a plan executing a plan for a potential solution, successfully implement the plan, and evaluate and adapt research or design strategies as the project progresses in an iterative process, in consultation with faculty/mentors. Multidisciplinary Identify specific benefits and obstacles related to collaboration across Collaboration disciplines; identify and effectively apply strategies for working in multidisciplinary teams. Understanding Identify and meet appropriate professional expectations, including meeting professional client needs. Identify ethics specific to a profession as well as the particular expectations and ethical contexts of the problem or challenge confronted. ethics
Course structure Students in this course will work in multidisciplinary teams to design and potentially implement a solution to a challenge or problem that currently faces or has recently faced one of Mason’s community partners. They will be supported in this project by a faculty instructor and a mentor (or mentors) from the participating community partner. In addition to meeting weekly in a campus classroom, students will work on-site with the community partner and collect information in the field as needed (at least 30 total hours and no more than 75 hours over the semester). Work on the project will culminate with the public presentation of the team’s proposed solution, as well as a final report to be delivered to the participating community partner. The faculty instructor and mentor will collaborate on assessment and evaluation of student work.
Each year, potential community partners will be identified by the Honors College in consultation with the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority. Honors College faculty and staff will approve these opportunities on the basis of three criteria: 1. The degree to which the submitted challenge provides opportunities for students to fulfill all learning outcomes. 2. The appropriateness of the work environment to student learning. 3. The quality of support and mentoring offered by the partner to participating students. The Design Thinking Approach In addition to the specifics of the problem, each student team will face the challenge of working in a multidisciplinary team for perhaps the first time. To best facilitate this multidisciplinary problem-solving, the initial two weeks of the course will introduce students and engage them in Design Thinking— “an analytic and creative process that engages a person in opportunities to experiment, create and prototype models, gather feedback, and redesign.”1 The teams are not required to employ Design Thinking methods, but they are encouraged to do so. Reading Requirements • IDEO.org, The Field Guide to Human-Centered Design. http://www.designkit.org/resources/1 Evaluation and major assignments Students will be evaluated on the basis of (a) the collaborative success of their team’s potential solution for the assigned problem, (b) their individual contributions to the team efforts, as determined by the instructors and their peers, and (c) their individual responses to assignments that require them to reflect on the processes they used to complete the tasks of the course and to locate that work in the broader context of their undergraduate experience. Project deliverables – collaborative (600 points) Project proposal (50 points) 30% report and brief presentation (100 points) 75% report and brief presentation (150 points) 100% (final) report and public presentation (300 points) Peer evaluations (accompanying each deliverable) (200 points) Evaluation of peers (150 points) Evaluation by peers (150 points) Project journal (150 points – 6 at 25 each) Bimonthly writing assignments that encourage participants to reflect on: • The various disciplinary and methodological approaches brought employed by the team. • The obstacles faced by the team and the strategies used to overcome them. • The ways in which previous curricular and co-curricular experiences inform the student’s approach to the challenge. See addendum for possible journal topics. Final portfolio (150 points) 1 Rim Razzouk and Valerie Shute, “What Is Design Thinking and Why Is It Important?” Review of
Educational Research 82, No. 3 (2012): 330.
Student will place the final project and the work that led to it in the broader context of the undergraduate experience and their development at Mason. It should contain: • The various deliverables and any other relevant materials directly pertaining to the course. • Five to six documents/artifacts representing curricular and co-curricular experiences that informed the student’s approach to this project. Examples could include: relevant assignments submitted for previous courses; the products of undergraduate research experiences; materials developed as part of relevant service, leadership, or internship/work experiences. • A brief (500-1000 words) reflective cover essay that explains how each document and the experience it represents informed the student’s approach to this course. • An updated resume or CV. Honor Code/Plagiarism Plagiarism of any kind constitutes a violation of the GMU Honor Code (for more information go to http://honorcode.gmu.edu/). Plagiarism means using the exact words, opinions, or factual information from another source without giving that source credit. Writers give credit through the use of accepted documentation styles, such as parenthetical citation, footnotes, or endnotes; a simple listing of books, articles, and websites is not sufficient. Plagiarism is the equivalent of intellectual robbery and cannot be tolerated in an academic setting. Student writers are often confused about what should be cited. Some think that only direct quotations need to be credited. While direct quotations do need citations, so do paraphrases and summaries of opinions or factual information formerly unknown to the writers or which the writers did not discover themselves. Exceptions to this include factual information that can be obtained from a variety of sources, the writers' own insights or findings from their own field research, and what has been called common knowledge. What constitutes common knowledge can sometimes be precarious; what is common knowledge for one audience may not be so for another. In such situations, it is helpful to keep the reader in mind and to think of citations as being "reader friendly." In other words, writers provide a citation for any piece of information that they think their readers might want to investigate further. Not only is this attitude considerate of readers, it will almost certainly ensure that writers will not be guilty of plagiarism. Other Accommodations: George Mason University supports students through the Office of Disability Services (ODS). If you have a disability and need academic accommodations, please contact ODS at http://www.gmu.edu/student/drc/ or 703-993-2474. All academic accommodations must be arranged through ODS.
Appendix 1: Proposed schedule Week 1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Topic Introduction; Meeting partners Defining the Challenge; identifying and listening to stakeholders Intro to Design thinking; redefining the challenge Adapting to the workplace 1; Working across disciplines Research in the public sphere; Identifying obstacles Iteration & prototyping 1; stakeholder input Presentation workshop Researching & collaborating across disciplines Iteration & prototyping 2 Adapting to the workplace 2; Iteration & prototyping 3 TBA Peer preview TBA Final day
To be submitted Journal 1
Journal 2 30% report + peer evals Journal 3
Journal 4
75% report + peer evals Journal 5 Journal 6 Report & Public Presentation Final Portfolio + peer evals
Appendix 2: Examples of Project Journal Topics 1. One previous project or experience that proved relevant in your approach to recent work on this project. Explain its relevance and how you applied it to this circumstance. Please also explain how you adapted or further developed those strategies for this recent circumstance. 2. Select one team member whose approach to the challenge differs significantly from your own; this difference may be methodological, ideological, interpersonal, or rooted in something else entirely. Observe your colleague for a week, and develop a list of five questions about their approach to the work and the choices they made during this period. Interview them, and consider their contributions in the context of these answers. Then, explain (a) how and why their approach differs from your own and (b) how your differing approaches complement, supplement, challenge, or contradict either other. 3. Collaborating across disciplines can be challenging. Please identify and explain one particular moment in which such collaboration proved particularly difficult. If your group found a way to work around this, please explain. If not, take a moment to reflect upon the experience, and then propose a potential strategy for enhancing the effectiveness of this collaboration.
Appendix 3: Community Partner Agreement GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY HONORS COLLEGE HONORS 430 PARTNER AGREEMENT THIS AGREEMENT (“Agreement”), dated this _____ day of __________, 20__ (the “Effective Date”), is made by and among (“Student”), (“Site”), and George Mason University (“University”) (together, the “Parties”). The purpose of this Agreement is to place a team or teams of Students (no fewer than three students and more than six students per team) in an assignment with the Site, as part of an experiential course of study, offered by the University and the Honors College for academic credit. Description of Academic Experience: Site: Address:
Site Supervisor: Title: E-mail: Telephone:
Faculty Supervisor: TERM: Start Date and End Date: Description of Student Responsibilities for the course: TBA Learning Objectives: • To synthesize the knowledge and practices that students have developed over the course of their undergraduate experience. • To develop the skills and strategies necessary for working effectively in multidisciplinary teams. • To apply these skills and knowledge in an effort to solve a problem or challenge currently faced by an Honors College community partner.
The Student, the Site, and the University agree with the above terms, and with the terms and conditions on Attachments A and B. Student:
Date:
Site:
Date:
University:
Date:
Course Approval Form
registrar.gmu.edu/facultystaff/curriculum
Action Requested:
Course Level:
x Create new course Delete existing course Modify existing course (check all that apply) Title Prereq/coreq Other:
College/School: Submitted by: Subject Code:
Credits Schedule Type
x
Repeat Status Restrictions
Grade Type
College of Humanities and Social Science Heather Anderson
Department: Ext: 3.1108
HNRS
Number:
430
Effective Term:
Honors College Email: x
(Do not list multiple codes or numbers. Each course proposal must have a separate form.)
Title:
Current Banner (30 characters max including spaces) New Multidisciplinary Challenges
Credits: (check one)
x
Grade Mode: (check one)
Fixed Variable
x
0
to
Prerequisite(s): HNRS 109, 110, 210, 302
Year
Not Repeatable (NR) Repeatable within degree (RD) Repeatable within term (RT)
x
(check one)
Regular (A, B, C, etc.) Satisfactory/No Credit Special (A, B C, etc. +IP)
Fall Spring Summer
[email protected]
2016
in Professional Environments
Repeat Status:
3
Undergraduate Graduate
Lecture (LEC) Lab (LAB) Recitation (RCT) Internship (INT)
Schedule Type Code(s): (check all that apply)
Corequisite(s):
x
Maximum credits allowed:
6
Independent Study (IND) Seminar (SEM) Studio (STU)
Instructional Mode: x 100% face-to-face Hybrid: ≤ 50% electronically delivered 100% electronically delivered
Special Instructions: (list restrictions for major, college, or degree;hard-coding; etc.) Restricted to Honors College students (Attribute code of HP, STEM, or HSOM)
Are there equivalent course(s)? Yes x No If yes, please list
Catalog Copy for NEW Courses Only (Consult University Catalog for models) Description (No more than 60 words, use verb phrases and present tense)
Notes (List additional information for the course)
Students work to solve a problem or challenge currently faced by an Honors College community partner, which are identified in consultation with the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority. Provides students with opportunities to synthesize knowledge and practices developed in prior courses and co-curricular experiences; develops the skills and strategies necessary for working effectively in multidisciplinary teams. Indicate number of contact hours: When Offered: (check all that apply)
Hours of Lecture or Seminar per week: Fall Summer x Spring
Hours of Lab or Studio:
Approval Signatures Department Approval
Date
College/School Approval
Date
If this course includes subject matter currently dealt with by any other units, the originating department must circulate this proposal for review by those units and obtain the necessary signatures prior to submission. Failure to do so will delay action on this proposal.
Unit Name
Unit Approval Name
Unit Approver’s Signature
Date
For Graduate Courses Only Graduate Council Member
Provost Office
Graduate Council Approval Date
For Registrar Office’s Use Only: Banner_____________________________Catalog________________________________
revised 2/2/10
Memo Honors College Course Proposals 2015-2016 HNRS 430: Multidisciplinary Challenges in Professional Environments The Honors College has approved the following request for HNRS 430 for the fall of 2016 Objectives & Need This course concludes the Honors College experience and provides students with opportunities to synthesize the knowledge and practices they have developed over the course of the undergraduate experience; to develop the skills and strategies necessary for working effectively in multidisciplinary teams; and to apply all of this as they work to solve a problem or challenge currently faced by one of our community partners – all in the professional setting facilitated by one of our community partners. Likely community partners will be identified in consultation with the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority. Audience Upper division Honors College students seeking to satisfy Requirement 3 of the Honors College curriculum. Staffing The course will be staffed by a Mason faculty member, likely an Honors College administrative faculty member. The instructor will work directly with 1-2 staff members from each community partner. Rotation Students will be able to take this spring semesters. Requirements & Relationship to Other Courses Students will be able to use HNRS 430 to fulfill a requirement in the Advanced Topics (Requirement Three) requirement of the Honors College curriculum.
Honors 430: Multidisciplinary Challenges in Professional Environments (Or, Honors College Practicum) Course proposal/draft syllabus Student Learning Outcomes This course concludes the Honors College experience and provides students with opportunities to synthesize the knowledge and practices they have developed over the course of their undergraduate experience; to develop the skills and strategies necessary for working effectively in multidisciplinary teams; and to apply all of this as they work to solve a problem or challenge currently faced by one of our community partners – all in the professional setting facilitated by one of our community partners. Outcomes adapted from AAC&U’s VALUE rubric for Integrative Learning, all at Capstone level Outcome Students will… Connecting and Meaningfully synthesize connections among experiences outside of the formal applying experience classroom (including life experiences and academic experiences such as internships and academic and travel abroad) to deepen understanding of fields of study and to broaden knowledge own points of view. (AAC&U VALUE rubric, capstone level) Thinking and In collaboration with a multidisciplinary team, create wholes out of multiple parts working across (i.e., synthesize) and/or draw conclusions by combining examples, facts, disciplines, theories, and/or methods from more than one field of study or perspective. perspectives Integrated Effectively present multiple products by choosing a format, language, or graph (or communication other visual representation) in ways that enhance meaning, making clear the interdependence of language and meaning, thought, and expression. Reflection & SelfEnvisions a future self (and possibly makes plans that build on past experiences) assessment that have occurred across multiple and diverse contexts. Additional outcomes (adapted from OSCAR’s RS course rubric and from program outcomes identified by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology) Outcome Students will... Application of In collaboration with their team, apply multiple methodologies to effectively multiple research identify, gather, and analyze data necessary to understand a problem and to methods to propose a solution. understand a problem Designing and Drawing upon data gathered and analyzed using multiple methods, design a plan executing a plan for a potential solution, successfully implement the plan, and evaluate and adapt research or design strategies as the project progresses in an iterative process, in consultation with faculty/mentors. Multidisciplinary Identify specific benefits and obstacles related to collaboration across Collaboration disciplines; identify and effectively apply strategies for working in multidisciplinary teams. Understanding Identify and meet appropriate professional expectations, including meeting professional client needs. Identify ethics specific to a profession as well as the particular expectations and ethical contexts of the problem or challenge confronted. ethics
Course structure Students in this course will work in multidisciplinary teams to design and potentially implement a solution to a challenge or problem that currently faces or has recently faced one of Mason’s community partners. They will be supported in this project by a faculty instructor and a mentor (or mentors) from the participating community partner. In addition to meeting weekly in a campus classroom, students will work on-site with the community partner and collect information in the field as needed (at least 30 total hours and no more than 75 hours over the semester). Work on the project will culminate with the public presentation of the team’s proposed solution, as well as a final report to be delivered to the participating community partner. The faculty instructor and mentor will collaborate on assessment and evaluation of student work.
Each year, potential community partners will be identified by the Honors College in consultation with the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority. Honors College faculty and staff will approve these opportunities on the basis of three criteria: 1. The degree to which the submitted challenge provides opportunities for students to fulfill all learning outcomes. 2. The appropriateness of the work environment to student learning. 3. The quality of support and mentoring offered by the partner to participating students. The Design Thinking Approach In addition to the specifics of the problem, each student team will face the challenge of working in a multidisciplinary team for perhaps the first time. To best facilitate this multidisciplinary problem-solving, the initial two weeks of the course will introduce students and engage them in Design Thinking— “an analytic and creative process that engages a person in opportunities to experiment, create and prototype models, gather feedback, and redesign.”1 The teams are not required to employ Design Thinking methods, but they are encouraged to do so. Reading Requirements • IDEO.org, The Field Guide to Human-Centered Design. http://www.designkit.org/resources/1 Evaluation and major assignments Students will be evaluated on the basis of (a) the collaborative success of their team’s potential solution for the assigned problem, (b) their individual contributions to the team efforts, as determined by the instructors and their peers, and (c) their individual responses to assignments that require them to reflect on the processes they used to complete the tasks of the course and to locate that work in the broader context of their undergraduate experience. Project deliverables – collaborative (600 points) Project proposal (50 points) 30% report and brief presentation (100 points) 75% report and brief presentation (150 points) 100% (final) report and public presentation (300 points) Peer evaluations (accompanying each deliverable) (200 points) Evaluation of peers (150 points) Evaluation by peers (150 points) Project journal (150 points – 6 at 25 each) Bimonthly writing assignments that encourage participants to reflect on: • The various disciplinary and methodological approaches brought employed by the team. • The obstacles faced by the team and the strategies used to overcome them. • The ways in which previous curricular and co-curricular experiences inform the student’s approach to the challenge. See addendum for possible journal topics. Final portfolio (150 points) 1 Rim Razzouk and Valerie Shute, “What Is Design Thinking and Why Is It Important?” Review of
Educational Research 82, No. 3 (2012): 330.
Student will place the final project and the work that led to it in the broader context of the undergraduate experience and their development at Mason. It should contain: • The various deliverables and any other relevant materials directly pertaining to the course. • Five to six documents/artifacts representing curricular and co-curricular experiences that informed the student’s approach to this project. Examples could include: relevant assignments submitted for previous courses; the products of undergraduate research experiences; materials developed as part of relevant service, leadership, or internship/work experiences. • A brief (500-1000 words) reflective cover essay that explains how each document and the experience it represents informed the student’s approach to this course. • An updated resume or CV. Honor Code/Plagiarism Plagiarism of any kind constitutes a violation of the GMU Honor Code (for more information go to http://honorcode.gmu.edu/). Plagiarism means using the exact words, opinions, or factual information from another source without giving that source credit. Writers give credit through the use of accepted documentation styles, such as parenthetical citation, footnotes, or endnotes; a simple listing of books, articles, and websites is not sufficient. Plagiarism is the equivalent of intellectual robbery and cannot be tolerated in an academic setting. Student writers are often confused about what should be cited. Some think that only direct quotations need to be credited. While direct quotations do need citations, so do paraphrases and summaries of opinions or factual information formerly unknown to the writers or which the writers did not discover themselves. Exceptions to this include factual information that can be obtained from a variety of sources, the writers' own insights or findings from their own field research, and what has been called common knowledge. What constitutes common knowledge can sometimes be precarious; what is common knowledge for one audience may not be so for another. In such situations, it is helpful to keep the reader in mind and to think of citations as being "reader friendly." In other words, writers provide a citation for any piece of information that they think their readers might want to investigate further. Not only is this attitude considerate of readers, it will almost certainly ensure that writers will not be guilty of plagiarism. Other Accommodations: George Mason University supports students through the Office of Disability Services (ODS). If you have a disability and need academic accommodations, please contact ODS at http://www.gmu.edu/student/drc/ or 703-993-2474. All academic accommodations must be arranged through ODS.
Appendix 1: Proposed schedule Week 1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Topic Introduction; Meeting partners Defining the Challenge; identifying and listening to stakeholders Intro to Design thinking; redefining the challenge Adapting to the workplace 1; Working across disciplines Research in the public sphere; Identifying obstacles Iteration & prototyping 1; stakeholder input Presentation workshop Researching & collaborating across disciplines Iteration & prototyping 2 Adapting to the workplace 2; Iteration & prototyping 3 TBA Peer preview TBA Final day
To be submitted Journal 1
Journal 2 30% report + peer evals Journal 3
Journal 4
75% report + peer evals Journal 5 Journal 6 Report & Public Presentation Final Portfolio + peer evals
Appendix 2: Examples of Project Journal Topics 1. One previous project or experience that proved relevant in your approach to recent work on this project. Explain its relevance and how you applied it to this circumstance. Please also explain how you adapted or further developed those strategies for this recent circumstance. 2. Select one team member whose approach to the challenge differs significantly from your own; this difference may be methodological, ideological, interpersonal, or rooted in something else entirely. Observe your colleague for a week, and develop a list of five questions about their approach to the work and the choices they made during this period. Interview them, and consider their contributions in the context of these answers. Then, explain (a) how and why their approach differs from your own and (b) how your differing approaches complement, supplement, challenge, or contradict either other. 3. Collaborating across disciplines can be challenging. Please identify and explain one particular moment in which such collaboration proved particularly difficult. If your group found a way to work around this, please explain. If not, take a moment to reflect upon the experience, and then propose a potential strategy for enhancing the effectiveness of this collaboration.
Appendix 3: Community Partner Agreement GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY HONORS COLLEGE HONORS 430 PARTNER AGREEMENT THIS AGREEMENT (“Agreement”), dated this _____ day of __________, 20__ (the “Effective Date”), is made by and among (“Student”), (“Site”), and George Mason University (“University”) (together, the “Parties”). The purpose of this Agreement is to place a team or teams of Students (no fewer than three students and more than six students per team) in an assignment with the Site, as part of an experiential course of study, offered by the University and the Honors College for academic credit. Description of Academic Experience: Site: Address:
Site Supervisor: Title: E-mail: Telephone:
Faculty Supervisor: TERM: Start Date and End Date: Description of Student Responsibilities for the course: TBA Learning Objectives: • To synthesize the knowledge and practices that students have developed over the course of their undergraduate experience. • To develop the skills and strategies necessary for working effectively in multidisciplinary teams. • To apply these skills and knowledge in an effort to solve a problem or challenge currently faced by an Honors College community partner.
The Student, the Site, and the University agree with the above terms, and with the terms and conditions on Attachments A and B. Student:
Date:
Site:
Date:
University:
Date:
