UBC MIX offers a casual learning environment
By Samantha Jung
news@ubyssey.ca
Monday, September 7th, 2009
Combining History and Biology seems like an odd pairing for a class assignment, but Geoff Costeloe doesn’t think so. It’s the basis for the first UBC Mix pairing, a new interdisciplinary venture at UBC.
Costeloe is a blogger for UBC’s Terry website, which promotes interdisciplinary studies and learning. He gave a presentation at last November’s Terry Talks, Terry’s first speaker series exclusively featuring students talking about current and relevant issues. Students at Terry Talks chose one person as that year’s “Wish” speaker, and they received funding to make their “wish” come true.
Costeloe told students that “students, society and academics have a one dimensional way of viewing issues” and proposed an Integrated Forum (IF) as a way to bridge that gap between faculties. Students chose Costeloe as the “wish” speaker, IF was changed to UBC Mix, and he went to work.
The idea behind UBC Mix is to create a more casual environment for students across faculties to interact with one another. Costeloe said that there are quite a few interdisciplinary courses at UBC, but they are structured and don’t offer flexibility. “Professors are busy and they don’t have a lot of time to make up courses and do that kind of stuff,” he said.
UBC Mix’s first pairing is History 104 with sessional lecturer Carla Paterson, and Science One Biology with professor Celeste Leander and is scheduled to take place during the fall semester. Proposed ideas for interactions between students include joint classes, a pen-pal project and a joint project on the biological and cultural significance of coniferous trees.
A few problems Costeloe has run into include large class sizes, scheduling issues and the fact that he is pressed for time because he started the project late in the year. He said that he is working on a few more partnerships for January.
He also said that faculty should be driving this project. “Our role is really going to be helping make sure it works out,” he said. “We also have the money; we’re willing to hire TAs to mark assignments, to help students out.”
Costeloe has gotten positive feedback from his colleagues. “It’s great,” said Paterson, “and what I think is really brilliant about it is the emphasis is on informal partnership…and so this bypasses all this bureaucracy.”
Political Science professor and co-founder of the Terry project Allen Sens is excited. “I think it’s potentially a very big step, because much of what the Terry project has done are very focused projects,” he said. “What UBC MIX promises is using its own course structures rather than adding big, new elements.”
“The benefits potentially are quite large.”
Original article from the Ubyssey – source
Photo Credit: dsevilla