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Part 2 - LINK |
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LINK: Teaching Skills Within a Content CourseThe third LC we undertook was the LINK community, which actually represents the instructional level between our STARS and CLOUT programs. LINK had its own unique purpose. For some time, we had been aware of inherent weaknesses in our course offerings which LC seemed ideally suited to address. Skills courses such as developmental reading and writing were less than effective because they lacked a real-life context in which students could practice the skills they were learning. On the other hand, our introductory content courses seemed to be failing some students because they lacked the reading and writing skills to master the learning required. By combining skills classes with a content class in an LC, we hoped that these complementary problems could simultaneously be ameliorated. As our first effort in this direction, we considered two developmental courses (ENG 071 and RDG 091) typically taken by students (who test into them) the semester before they enroll in 100 level content courses. These would also be the next courses taken by students completing our STARS program. In LINK, ENG 071 and RDG 091 were combined with one of the most popular freshman courses--Psychology 101. Because students entering the LINK program scored into both the ENG 071 and the RDG 091 level on the college assessment test, they had a lower average skill level than those typically found in an introductory psychology course, but as anticipated, the added support provided in LINK compensated for this potential problem. The planning tools which emerged to guide LINK reflect its purpose. Figure 7 shows how the strengths of the skills courses address the weaknesses of the psychology course and vise versa. As the students learn psychology, they are simultaneously developing their reading and writing skills. Because they learn these skills in a more motivating and meaningful context, there is a greater chance of skill transfer to other college coursework. The psychology content, in turn, is more effectively mastered because it is learned through extensive guided reading and writing. The intent is to provide the support and basic skills instruction needed by the developmental student while preparing the student to assume the personal responsibility needed at the college level. Figure 8 shows the conceptual model which emerged for LINK. Its triangular shape is different from the rectangular model for STARS or the Venn model for CLOUT. It reflects a more thoroughly integrated approach. The two skills courses at the bottom of the triangle are both related to the single content course, psychology, at the top. In addition, relationships are drawn between the skills courses across the bottom, although this coordination was not the primary focus of LINK. Care was taken to ensure that by the end of the semester all competencies from all three courses were covered. Reading skills were practiced in the psychology text, and students wrote paragraphs and essays to answer psychology-related questions using specific rhetorical modes from their English course such as comparison-contrast or description. The only area covered independently from psychology was the grammar component. Even this, however, was reinforced in relationship to psychology as students revised their psychology-related paragraphs and essays. One of the most successful learning activities in LINK involved short stories dealing with themes under discussion in psychology. Students discussed and wrote reflection essays on the relationship of the story to psychology. The stories and corresponding psychology units are shown in Table 8. LINK was the most intricately integrated of the three LC communities we have developed both because it was the last to be developed and because its purpose lent itself to more thorough integration. Even so, the instructors did not anticipate all the points of integration which emerged as the semester progressed. Table 9 shows one of the planning tools they used to track areas of accomplishment and potential integration. Students performed best on those skills which were most practiced across the three courses, in particular, interpretation, analysis and synthesis of information. Because this framework emerged during the course of the first experience teaching LINK, the teachers can use this framework in future sections to build on more integration of assignments.
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