Learning Communities Research and Practice
Volume 7 | Issue 1
Article 5
6-6-2019
Indexing: Narrating Interdisciplinary Connections
in the Classroom
Jack J. Mino
Holyoke Community College, jmino@hcc.edu
Elizabeth Trobaugh
Holyoke Community College, etrobaugh@hcc.edu
Steven Winters
Holyoke Community College, swinters@hcc.edu
James Dutcher
Holyoke Community College, jdutcher@hcc.edu
Recommended Citation
Mino, J. J. , Trobaugh, E. , Winters, S. , Dutcher, J. (). Indexing: Narrating Interdisciplinary Connections in the Classroom. Learning
Communities Research and Practice, 7(1), Article 5.
Available at: https://washingtoncenter.evergreen.edu/lcrpjournal/vol7/iss1/5
Authors retain copyright of their material under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution 3.0 License.
Indexing: Narrating Interdisciplinary Connections in the Classroom
Abstract
An integrative tool that we have piloted in two LCs, the interdisciplinary index, is an integrative template that
students use to make connections between disciplines. In the learning community, “Cli-Fi: Stories and
Science of the Coming Climate Apocalypse,” faculty developed the Climate-Change Stress Index (CCSI) that
students used to identify evidence of climate-change impacts in the fictional setting of each novel they read. In
another learning community, “All things Connect: Living with Nature in Mind,” students again used an index
consisting Ecopsychology principles to describe, explain, and/or evaluate how these principles informed
excerpts from environmental literature. We present a variety of student samples using Barber’s (2012) model
of integrative learning and conclude with a review of the functions of interdisciplinary indexing.
Keywords
interdisciplinary indexing, integrative learning, Ecopsychology, Cli-Fi or climate change fiction
Cover Page Footnote
We would like to acknowledge and thank our wonderful learning community students – “Cli-Fis” and
“Connectors” - for their remarkable engagement and integrative brilliance.
Article is available in Learning Communities Research and Practice: https://washingtoncenter.evergreen.edu/lcrpjournal/vol7/iss1/5
Mino et al.: Interdisciplinary Indexing
Integrative learning doesn’t just happen. Students need to be taught how to
integrate, and this effort requires work from everyone involved (Huber,
Hutchings, & Gale, 2005; Klein, 2005). If we are going to teach students how to
integrate their learning, Bass and Eynon (2009) argue, we need to value the
intermediate learning processes that lead to summative student work, not just
outcomes. So what do these so-called “intermediate learning processes” look like?
Barber (2012) provides us with a useful framework for categorizing how
students integrate their learning over time, i.e., how they “bring together
experience, knowledge, and skills across contexts” (p. 9). He identifies three
distinct developmental stages of integration that emerged from his interviews with
undergraduate students from liberal arts colleges: (1) connection, the discovery of
a similarity between ideas that themselves remain distinctive; (2) application, the
use of knowledge from one context in another; and (3) synthesis, the creation of
new knowledge by combining insights. Based on Barber’s framework, we used
interdisciplinary indexing as a scaffolding strategy to integrate science and
literature in our Learning Community (LC) classrooms at Holyoke Community
College (HCC) and in the process uncovered how students developed integrative
habits of mind over the course of a semester.
Indexing can serve as a powerful teaching and learning tool that gives
students an easy way to begin integrating ideas. Through indexing, students work
individually and in small groups to create a public archive of interdisciplinary
connections that can be used for future integrative assignments, such as
seminaring, synthesis papers, and research presentations. Making the "how" as
well as the "what" of integrative learning visible, indexing reveals students’
formative understanding of the connections between disciplines, moving “beyond
conversational activity [by] creating occasions for students to harvest learning
from the visibility of their own thinking” (Bass & Eynon, 2009, p. 15).
Demonstrating the flexibility and wide applicability of this teaching tool, indexing
has become a common practice among LC faculty at HCC.
While teaching an interdisciplinary course on climate change fiction (an
offshoot of science fiction), two of us, Steven Winters and Elizabeth Trobaugh,
invented the indexing tool that we now use in a variety of LC settings. The idea is
loosely based on the notion of “index fossils,” common in paleontology: “While
every fossil tells us something about the age of the rock it's found in, index fossils
. . . are those that are used to define periods of geologic time” [emphasis added]
(Alden, 2018).
In the spring of 2015, Winters developed geoscience computer labs called
the “Geography of the Anthropocene,” which used Google Earth to locate real
geographical sites referenced in our climate change fiction (Cli-Fi). We were
motivated, in part, by our textbook, Environmental Transformations by Mark
Whitehead (2014). Whitehead’s book is not a text on the geoscience of climate
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change as such but a text on the geography of climate change; his point is that, as
a geographer, the where of climate change (or the Anthropocene) matters as much
as the what of climate change/the Anthropocene.
In the early version of the index assignment, students used Google Earth for
three separate “laboratory exercises.” In one, they located the actual places
referred to in the stories and novels we studied. To help students understand how
texts (such as fiction, science, and history) are connected to mappable locations
and concepts, we asked them to fill out a chart we titled “Literary Field Trip.” As
part of this assignment, students kept Cli-Fi charts to record their observations
and, most importantly, reflect upon and connect their observations to the fiction.
For the second exercise, students used Google Earth to explore one of five Cli-Fi
science/literature themes and reported back to the class. For the third, they wrote
jourmal entries about a location/place in the world that could serve as a rich
setting for a Cli-Fi story. For example, they could select a location with natural
resources that might be subject to scarcity or abundance or a location that could
be impacted by rising sea levels, ocean acidification, increased temperature, etc.
To accomplish this task, students were expected to use what they had learned thus
far in the course.
While the laboratory exercises were valuable, we wanted to extend the
experience of connecting themes beyond the lab activity and into the classroom
(without Google Earth). Because we also wanted to retain the
presentation/collaboration dimension of the exercise, we developed a template
with a fixed list of themes that students would look for in the assigned stories or
novel and then share with the class by posting their textual observations to a
common document in Google Drive. For convenience, and to help students better
focus on important environmental/social aspects of climate change problems, we
renamed our list of topics or themes to a simple easily remembered phrase: the
Climate Change Stress Index or CCSI. As with index fossils, every climate
change observation or index tells us something about the extent of the global
problem.
What follows are case examples from two Holyoke LCs that used indexing
to promote integration between literature and science. In the first case study,
CliFi: Stories and Science of the Coming Climate Apocalypse (English literature
and earth science), students used the Climate Change Stress Index (CCSI) to
identify the evidence of climate-change impacts in the fictional setting of each
work of literature (e.g. novel or short story) they read (see Appendix 1). In the
second case, All Things Connect: Living with Nature in Mind (environmental
literature and ecopsychology), students used a revised version of the CCSI, an
Ecopsychology Index, which consisted of eight principles that they applied to
environmental literature, including novels and poetry (see Appendix 2). For each
case study below we present samples of student indexing and use the integration
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framework from Barber (2012) to classify them. We conclude with a discussion
of the functions of indexing, including its uses as a narrative and a classroom
exercise, an archive, and a form of priming higher order integrations.
Case Example 1: Cli-Fi: Stories and Science of the Coming Climate
Apocalypse
Cli-fi is where art meets science, where data meets emotions, and where
science meets art, too.
–Daniel Bloom, “How and Why Sci-Fi Gave Birth to Cli-Fi,” 2014
Responding to the challenges of teaching geoscience in the liberal arts
setting, we have developed an interdisciplinary course that fulfills both lab
science and English graduation requirements. At HCC, we team teach a course
called Cli-Fi: Stories and Science of the Coming Climate Apocalypse. “Cli-Fi”
refers to climate change fiction, a now popular subgenre of science fiction. Our
course combines introductory literature and composition with first-year physical
geology (including laboratory and field exercises). With interdisciplinary/thematic
content and a seminar-style learning environment, our course attracts a variety of
students—science majors, English majors, environmentalists, and science fiction
fans. In multidisciplinary learning communities (LCs), students might
understandably wonder (we all might wonder!) how earth science and English can
be connected or how a novel could help to open up some complicated research in
ecopsychology. Using the index gets students started in integrated thinking by
giving them an easy checklist to follow: here are nine impacts, or eight principles,
to look for while reading.
In this course, we read Paolo Bacigalupi’s Cli-Fi novel The Windup Girl and
shorter works from recently published anthologies. Standard college-level
geology texts and excerpts from science magazines and journals complement our
literary readings. To help students focus on climate change impacts and themes in
each story, we ask students to locate, record, and describe several features of the
climate-changed world, such as adaptation/mitigation, breakdown in
civilization/social order, climate imbalance/disorder, extinction, illness/disease,
and resource scarcity.
This stress-index technique helps us use Cli-Fi’s settings, plots, and
characters not just as jumping off points for general discussion but as windows
through which students get an integrated view of science and fiction in one lesson.
For example, when reading The Windup Girl, students notice that resource
scarcity, specifically the scarcity of fossil fuels, not only propels the plot but also
leads to technological regression: in the world Bacigalupi has created, machines
run on animal and human power rather than on electricity or fossil fuel. This
adaptation has the benefit of reducing carbon emissions in a runaway greenhouse
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atmosphere, but it also places a premium on calories in a climate-changed world
of extinctions and agricultural plagues. Identifying real climate science in a
literary text motivates students to take the projected outcomes of climate change
fiction seriously and to engage critical thinking and research skills to assess a
story’s verisimilitude. The CCSI marks the beginning of the students’ critical
analysis of the climate fiction and acts as a window through which students can
develop an integrated and in-depth view of fiction and science in one lesson. The
CCSI lists nine climate-change impacts on society and on the natural world:
1. adaptation/mitigation,
2. breakdown in infrastructure,
3. breakdown in civilization/social order,
4. climate imbalance/disorder,
5. ecosystem imbalance—flora and fauna,
6. illness/disease,
7. positive/negative feedbacks,
8. regression (psychosocial, biological, technological, etc.), and
9. resource scarcity.
With the CCSI serving as both a reading guide and a weekly credit-bearing
assignment, students approach the text with a mission: to search for evidence of
climate change impacts. Below, in the first of two examples from Clif-Fi, we see
one student apply the CCSI to The Windup Girl by selecting a passage that
illustrates technological regression (impact #8 on the index) due to environmental
degradation and resource scarcity (impact #9). The student identifies textual
evidence, practices quotation integration skills by using the MLA documentation
format, and provides an analysis of the passage using both a literary and a climate
change lens. In this analysis, we see the student’s recognition of the author’s
literary goal—using a bicycle and draft animals to show the impact of fuel
scarcity—as well as the ability to integrate the course’s two disciplines—literature
and science—through recognizing in a work of fiction how pollution and resource
scarcity may force society into technological regression.
Student-selected Quotation: “He stands on his pedals and accelerates again,
forcing the bike through the clotted traffic calling out warning and curses at
obstructing pedestrians and draft animals” (123).
Student Response: I see this as a regression in technology because we are so
used to cars as a society. We don’t bat an eye when we get in the car leaving
behind all the pollution that cars create. It helps create an understanding of
the story and how it really is affected by the climate, and how they must
regress in terms of technology to help combat negative climate change.
Encouraged to make use of the CCSI in developing their essays, students
benefit from their classmates’ contributions and insights. The sample below, from
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another student’s essay about The Windup Girl, illustrates how the communal
archive of evidence and integrated analysis can support students as they move
from reading and evidence gathering to synthesis and essay writing.
Student-selected Quotation: “The genehacked animals comprise the living
heart of the factory’s drive system, providing energy for conveyor lines and
venting fans and manufacturing machinery” (9).
Student Response: In Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl we encounter
numerous examples of regression and adaptation that take place in the
climate-changed setting of Bangkok. The main conflict is the decrease in
resources these people have, including the decline of fuel. In order for
people to remain progressive, they had to adapt to the new ways of life that
excludes any reliability on fuel. Instead of burning it up to power factories,
they created a creature that would do the manual labor for them. These
creatures are called Megodonts who were manufactured for hard labor to
make human lives a little easier.
These elephant-resembling creatures are a pure form of regression because
they are made to withstand a great deal of labor, putting forth enough energy
the people need to continue to work. Another adaptable regression in “The
Windup Girl” is the means of transportation for the people living in
Bangkok. No more fuel means no more cars, planes, or ships. People have
resorted to bikes that can also help people get from one place to another,
aiding in the drivers income. Bikes are also so common that they form their
own traffic. Bacigalupi writes, “The old man stands on his pedals and they
merge into traffic. Around them, bicycle bells ring like cibiscosis chimes,
irritated at their obstruction. Lao Gu ignores them and weaves deeper into
the traffic flow” (5). The streets of Bangkok are bustling with bicycles and
their passengers quickly trying to get to their next destination, so they can
escape the harsh sun. These two examples of regression are only the
beginning of adaptation we see in Bacigalupi’s story because the people of
Bangkok are resilient in their ways.
This excerpt demonstrates the student’s familiarity with the text, possibly
enhanced by access to the CCSI archive, the ability to connect the two disciplines,
and a higher-level understanding of the connection between resource scarcity and
technological regression.
Our curriculum combines the techniques of critical thinking and textual
analysis from the sciences and the humanities. The fictional settings and scenarios
of Cli-Fi expand the imagination and show geoscience principles in a fictional
context, inviting students to confront the role of humanity in a climate-changed
world and perhaps inspiring students to learn more about how humanity might
cultivate a more cooperative relationship with the Earth.
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Case Example 2: All Things Connect: Living with Nature in Mind
The deep and enduring psychological questions–-who we are, how we grow,
why we suffer, how we heal–-are inseparable from our relationships with
the physical world. Similarly, the overriding environmental questions–-the
sources of, consequences of, and solutions to environmental problems–-are
deeply rooted in the psyche, our images of self and nature, and our
behaviors.
–John Davis, “A Definition of Ecopsychology,” 2013
All Things Connect: Living with Nature in Mind integrates environmental
literature with ecopsychology. In his classic essay, “The Land Ethic,” Aldo
Leopold (1949) argues that to effect meaningful change in the world, we need to
focus not just on people’s behavior but on their “intellectual emphasis, loyalties,
affections and convictions.” How do we do that? One way is through good
scientific research, theorizing, and argumentation, activities that form the core of
ecopsychology. Another way is through meaningful accounts of people’s
experience in nature—sometimes beautiful, sometimes frightening, but always
offering us insight into our deep connection with a living earth. Drawing from
Roszak (1992), Mino and Dutcher adapted the indexing exercise by creating an
“ecopsychology index” with the eight principles listed below. Students were
asked to look for sections of the assigned readings that illustrated or exemplified
these principles.
1. The core of the mind is the ecological unconscious.
2. The contents of the ecological unconscious represent the living record
of evolution.
3. The goal of ecopsychology is to awaken the inherent sense of
environmental reciprocity that lies within the ecological unconscious.
4. The crucial stage of development is the life of the child.
5. The ecological ego matures toward a sense of ethical responsibility
with the planet.
6. Ecopsychology needs to re-evaluate certain “masculine” character
traits that lead us to [try to] dominate nature.
7. Whatever contributes to small-scale social forms and personal
empowerment nourishes the ecological ego.
8. There is a synergistic interplay between planetary and personal well
being.
Having read Not Wanted on the Voyage (Findley, 1984/2006), students,
working in groups of three, selected a quotation that highlighted the conflict felt
by one of the novel’s main characters, posted it in MLA format, and then
responded to it. By analyzing that quotation in terms of one of the principles from
ecopsychology—“The contents of the ecological unconscious represent the living
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record of evolution”—one student makes what Barber (2012) calls the first
integrative move, connecting the idea of symbolic representation in literature with
the idea of the ecological unconscious from ecopsychology.
Student-selected Quotation: “I was born, the trees were always in the sun . .
. . I left that place because it was intolerant of rain. Now we are here . . .
where there are no trees and there is only rain . . . . I intend to leave this
place . . . there must be somewhere where darkness and light are reconciled”
(Findley 272).
Student Response: Lucy is the living record of evolution. She lived in two
separate worlds; her prior world where there was only light and in this
current where there is only darkness. She is the “unconscious” because she
is an angel. She isn’t a real person like the Noyes family. She is the symbol
that connects the evolution of all of the past world, the current world she is
in and the future world she wishes to live in.
An indexing sample from another group of students illustrates their ability
to move beyond connecting to applying. Students selected from the Tao Te Ching
(Lao Tzu, 1989) to respond to the ecopsychology principle, “Whatever
contributes to small scale social forms and personal empowerment nourishes the
ecological ego”:
Student-selected Quotation: “It [water] goes right to the low loathsome
places, and so finds the way” (11).
Student Response: Lao Tzu mirrors an alchemist axiom, ‘in sterquilinus
invenitur,’ when he writes, “It [water] goes right to the low loathsome
places, and so finds the way” (11). Water offers no resistance to gravity’s
pull to the undesirable low places. The axiom is generally interpreted as
personal growth will be found where you don’t want to look. The abuse of
the environment stems from people’s quest to elevate their place in life and
avoid those places that they don’t want to look. If people look to their
personal empowerment without fear, like the water, the need to consume the
environment is largely alleviated.
Here the students’ application of the Latin phrase in sterquilinus invenitur, which
translates as “in filth it shall be found,” uses knowledge from one context in
helping to understand another, thus attaining Barber’s (2012) second stage of
integration. In fact, the application in this indexing sample is very sophisticated in
that it combines knowledge from three different contexts, the Tao Te Ching,
alchemy, and ecopsychology.
The third and final indexing sample from All Things Connect is a lengthy
excerpt from a student’s final synthesis essay based on Solar Storms (Hogan,
1995). In this sample, the student’s work demonstrates the third stage of
integration or synthesis according to Barber (2012). Combining ideas and insights
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from literature (the quotation “opening light of life”), ecofeminism (e.g., female
identification with nature), and ecopsychology (e.g., the ecological unconscious),
she creates new knowledge by means of phenomenology or embodied experience.
Student-selected Quotation: Wednesday was the last day we called by name,
and truly, we no longer needed time. We were lost from it, and lost in this
way, I came alive . . . Cell by cell, all of us were taken in by water and by
land, swallowed a little at a time . . . Field, forest, swamp. I knew how they
breathed at night, and that they were linked to us in that breath. It was the
oldest bond of survival . . . Somewhere in my past I had lost the knowing of
this opening light of life, the taking up of minerals from dark ground, the
magnitude of thickets and brush. Now I found it once again (Hogan 170-
171).
Student’s First Response: The characters of the book [Solar Storms] and
their histories are riddled with scars from the exploitative and divisive,
decidedly masculine, way of living by which they are surrounded. And yet,
in a transformative canoe trip north through Canada, the women free
themselves of the weight of those scars. They experience the natural world
so deeply that they are able to connect to their native roots and the world
around them in an entirely holistic way.
Student’s Second Response: Getting lost on their canoe trip, the women
rediscovered their intimate connection to the life-giving forces of the earth,
the “opening light of life,” that they themselves were a part of (Hogan 171).
It is through experience that this bond is discovered and nourished. What
this book describes is a conversation between the earth and self, a
reawakening through experience of the unique feminine bond with the earth
as givers and protectors of life. The human artifice falls away and with it the
socially constructed separation between self and nature; what emerges is an
acute sense of reciprocity with the natural world and a distinctly feminine
identity forged through embodied experience.
Students in the All Things Connect LC read five novels, a play, and a
selection of poems, all addressing environmental themes. They then used the
Ecopsychology Index as an integrative lens to describe, analyze, and explain how
the literature connected to eight principles of ecopsychology. As the student
samples above indicate, with repeated practice, students began making more
advanced integrative moves. And as the semester came to an end and the final
research paper came due, we observed more and more students creating new
knowledge via synthesis.
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Discussion: Functions of interdisciplinary Indexing
It’s clear from these samples of student work that indexing facilitates
interdisciplinary integration on multiple levels from connection to application and
synthesis. Notice that, in the examples from both LCs, the students have to match
passages from their reading to an index, and they also have to explain the match
in their own words. This exercise in synthesis happens both individually, as
students do their homework, and collaboratively in class when they work together
in groups of two or three to find passages in the day’s reading that exemplify one
or more items on the index. In those situations, the index is a working document
at the front of the class; as students make a match, we can all watch as they type,
in real time, a passage from the text and their explanation of how it illustrates the
index principle. This, in turn, is the beginning of their own synthesizing of
disciplines. We have found that, in this collaboration, the better or more prepared
readers help their partners, which encourages the less-prepared students to
participate more actively the next time.
In addition, the results of the small groups’ work is not only projected in the
classroom, it is saved to Moodle or Google docs, which serves as an archive of
pairings available for further integration. A student who might be working on a
“synthesis” essay and might want to explore the connection between various
novels and plays with the ecopsychology principle of reciprocity between humans
and their natural environment can find an index on Moodle that is already filled
with examples from Not Wanted on the Voyage, Solar Storms, or the Tao Te
Ching. Each student participated in making these documents, and each is also
benefiting from the work of the other students, in collaboration.
Beyond helping students connect, indexing provides students with an easy
guide toward integration, e.g., there are a number of geoscience /ecopsychology
principles, and the students have to find those principles in the literature. Because
it asks students to connect only two dots at a time, this task is specific and
accessible, with the added benefit of turning a textual evidence exercise into a
treasure hunt. We see from the case examples that, by connecting different kinds
of knowledge, students frequently unearth and develop powerful observations—
especially when they have to explain the connection between the principle and the
passage. This step is crucial in the development of integrative skills.
The indexing assignment also promotes the habits of close reading and
making connections. Using indexing as a semester-long foundation for inquiry
and discussion gives students the opportunity to practice and master the skill of
making connections, with the added challenge of applying the principles of one
discipline (science, social science) to another (literature). While the work of
literature (or text) changes from exercise to exercise, the indexing process remains
the same, so students get to practice the skills of close reading, connecting, and
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synthesizing repeatedly throughout the semester. As an exercise that targets
connection building, indexing supports and even deepens the practices of active
reading and note taking.
In addition, having a written and shared record of connections helps students
move from connecting just two dots, for instance, ecopsychology principle #1 to
the canoe trip in Solar Storms, to connecting multiple dots because they have
connected ecopsychology principle #1 not just to Solar Storms but also to Not
Wanted on the Voyage as well as to other readings in the course like Siddhartha
(Hesse & Rosner, 1951) and Ishmael (Quinn, 1992). So the integrative moves
from no dots to two dots to multiple dots happen in plain sight in real time. This
process shows Barber’s claim that “[t]here is a developmental process at work in
relation to integration of learning, meaning that it evolves over time” (2012, p.
601). The “indexing archive,” then, can be read as a collective narrative of the
evolution of integrative learning over the course of the semester.
When we look at indexing as an integrative process, we recognize several
distinct insights about integrative learning. There’s one story to tell about how
individual students learn to integrate between disciplines (i.e., a focus on
individual students). Like Barber (2012), we have found that first-year and
second-year college students varied greatly in their abilities to integrate academic
material between disciplines, and student characteristics (e.g., age, gender, race,
ethnicity, SES) indicated important differences in how students integrated their
learning. There’s another story to tell about how the class as a whole performs
over time across a semester (i.e., a focus on group differences). Tracking overall
class performance suggested trends in the development of students’ levels of
integrative learning, where most students made connections early in the semester,
moving to application by mid-semester, and achieving synthesis most frequently
by the end of the semester. There’s yet another story to tell about how different
LC classes compare across the curriculum (i.e., a focus on between-group
differences). When we compared the first-year Cli-Fi LC to the second-year All
Things Connect LC, we found that the more experienced students (from the
second-year LC) started out with higher levels of integration, advanced at a faster
rate over the course of the semester, and engaged in synthesis more frequently,
transferring their learning to more complex integrative assignments.
What these stories reveal about how students’ integrated their learning over
time is predicted by Barber’s (2012) theory and supported by his findings—
students became stronger and more confident with regular practice. In effect,
interdisciplinary indexing provides the routine and foundation for a continuous
iterative scaffolding process that promotes integrative learning and transfer (p.
611).
We believe indexing is a highly accessible and adaptable instructional
practice that supports learning in any classroom but especially in the LC
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classroom where a primary objective is to uncover and forge connections between
disciplines and forms of inquiry. Thus, indexing can serve a variety of important
pedagogical functions, including:
• Narrating: By selecting relevant passages from the literary text
and explaining how a particular scientific principle applies,
students create a collective public narrative of the class’s
understanding of how science and literature connect.
• Exercising: Indexing can be used as a formative exercise in the
classroom where students practice their emerging integrative skills
aided by immediate feedback and coaching from faculty as well as
their classmates.
• Archiving: Using Google Docs, students create a digital archive to
publicly record their responses in real time and store them for
future referencing.
• Priming: Indexing also serves to “prime” students to make explicit
connections as they read and write in preparation for class
discussions and to draw on for other higher-stakes assignments,
such as writing essays.
Conclusion
Over the years, a variety of valuable pedagogical tools have emerged from
LC practice and research. The “Heuristic for Teaching, Assessment, and
Curriculum Design” by Malnarich and Lardner (2003) is a classic in LC course
design. And “A Workbook for Designing, Building, and Sustaining Learning
Communities” is an essential LC professional development resource that “walks
instructors through the collaborative process of creating and sustaining successful
links and focuses on what we believe is the heart of learning community work—
transparency, relationship building, integration, assessment, and reflection”
(Graziano, Schlesinger, Kahn, & Singer, 2016, p. 1). Similarly, a number of
useful instruments that focus on assessment emerged initially from practices. The
“Collaborative Assessment Protocol” outlines a process for the collective
examination of interdisciplinary student work, while the “Peer to Peer Reflection
Protocol” assesses collaborative learning and was designed to be used as a
companion tool with the Online LC Student Survey (Malnarich, Pettitt, & Mino,
2014, p. 20). Documentation as a process of gathering evidence and artifacts of
what happens in the LC classroom can fulfill multiple functions, including that of
an instructional practice, assessment strategy, and research method (Mino, 2014).
Interdisciplinary indexing is another development in this tradition. Indexing
gives students a specific map, or checklist, to use to begin integrative thinking.
With an index in front of them, students can read one discipline or another and
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begin to pair passages and examples from their reading to one or more items on
the index. It is worth noting that Winters and Trobaugh developed and refined the
indexing exercise through teaching together for several years in a row, and they
shared their indexing tool with the LC teaching community at an LC retreat, an
example of collaboration, cross-pollination, and dissemination that occurred
within the context of institutional financial and philosophical support and
commitment. The result of this effort is a teaching strategy for faculty and a
hands-on learning strategy for students to integrate knowledge across disciplines
and over time. While we have used it for scaffolding student learning, we see as
well that it is a multi-purpose tool that could be used for assessing, and
researching how students integrate their learning. LC pedagogy includes course
templates, assignment heuristics, assessment protocols, documentation, and now
indexing—yet another useful integrative resource to add to our LC tool kit.
References
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Barber, J, (2012, June). Integration of learning: A grounded theory analysis of
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Bass, R. & Eynon, B. (2009). Capturing the visible evidence of invisible learning.
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Appendix 1
Climate Change Stress Index
Stress factor/impact
Breakdown in
infrastructure
Breakdown in
government
Breakdown in
civilization/social order
Climate and weather
imbalance/disorder
Ecosystem imbalance-
flora and fauna
Resource scarcity
Regression (social,
technological, etc.)
Illness/disease
Adaptation
Mitigation
Example from the text -- record a brief
quote, with page #, and bullet point
observation(s).
Contributor (put
your name here)
https://washingtoncenter.evergreen.edu/lcrpjournal/vol7/iss1/5
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Appendix 2
Ecopsychology Index Applied to Environmental Literature
For each of the book titles below, select a quotation from the text and explain how
one or more of the eight Ecopsychology principles listed applies to that text.
Not Wanted on the Voyage
Timothy Findley
Ecopsychology Principle
Quotation (page number)
The core of the mind is the
ecological unconscious.
The contents of the ecological
unconscious represent the living
record of evolution.
The goal of ecopsychology is to
awaken the inherent sense of
environmental reciprocity that lies
within the ecological unconscious.
The crucial stage of development is
the life of the child.
The ecological ego matures toward a
sense of ethical responsibility with
the planet.
Ecopsychology needs to re-evaluate
certain “masculine” character traits
that lead us to dominate nature.
Whatever contributes to small scale
social forms and personal
empowerment nourish the ecological
ego.
There is a synergistic interplay
between planetary and personal well-
being.
Initials
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