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Liberal arts learning has always been about connecting learning experiences, but usually within the curriculum. Connected Learning builds on this idea, and challenges students to extend curricular connections to other learning activities:
Students are encouraged to build their own interconnected web of learning activities both inside the curriculum and beyond the classroom in a comprehensive way to create a learning experience of considerable educational power, one where the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Connected Learning is a call to students to take responsibility for addressing the College's many learning opportunities. |
| BACK | Students from across the disciplines, thoughtful students, students who take responsibility for their learning. These are the types of students who become involved with Connected Learning. Staff, in addition to faculty advisers, are prepared to help students develop Connected Learning approaches in the Study Abroad Office (Dean of Students Office), the Center for Service Learning and Volunteer Coordinator's Office (Dean of the College's Office), Summer Research Program (Dean of the Faculty's Office) and the Office of Career Services. Stop by one of these offices and the staff will be pleased to discuss Connected Learning and assist you in developing a successful strategy. Come see us early in your undergraduate career. |
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"The concept of connected learning has
been an important element to both my academic and personal development
for many years." The student goes on to discuss Outward
Bound, Young Presidents Organization and similar activities prior
to Bates. He continues "the opportunity to combine a traditional
academic program with service-learning experiences was one of
the reasons I enrolled at Bates." During his Bates experience
internships and research at the U.S. Department of Commerce,
Governor King's Office, and the Jackson Laboratory "allowed
me to study public policy in science and technology at both a
state and federal level." He concludes, "I am returning
to Bates this fall with an enormous sense of purpose and energy
that I attribute to a tremendously successful summer service-learning
experience." "As a first year I became involved in
the Longley mentoring program which was, at that time, very different
from its present form. Now, as a senior, I continue to mentor
the same young student who is now in 8th grade, and I have ...
implemented a mentor program at Lewiston High School." Later,
she underscored the connection to curriculum by noting: "By
working with people who are affected by social problems, the
problems become real, and it is no longer possible to turn a
blind eye. The issues that can disappear by closing a text book
became ingrained in my mind. Learning became a way to solve the
problems that bothered me, and the problems became a learning
experience as I applied my learned knowledge to the reality."
She concludes by saying that she has discovered that "the
non profit field is the arena in which I would eventually like
to work and I have realized the importance of difference and
yet the overwhelming similarities we all share." An international research experience in agricultural
chemistry in the Netherlands funded by a Hughes Grant, supported
learning that took unexpected directions. In addition to the
research experiences it was "learning about people from
very different cultures. I lived in a large apartment with seven
Dutch, one Spaniard, and one South African." This, plus
friendships with students from Finland, France, Sweden, England
and Belgium made ".... nearly every conversation an eye-opening
experience that allowed me to learn and reflect on myself as
an American, Americans in general, and the foreign views of Americans."
The experience reinforced a secondary concentration in French.
She concludes, "My lab work increased my knowledge of agricultural
related chemistry, exposed me to an industrial research facility
as opposed to the academic one I was familiar with, and also
made me a more competitive graduate school candidate." Another student's experience inside the curriculum
and beyond it created a social justice theme that characterized
her experience throughout Bates and culminated in a senior thesis
"Education For Social Justice: A Multicultural Approach
to Fighting Inequality." Course work was connected to co
curricular engagement through work with to Children's Interaction
Summer Villages during summers. "CVIS is a volunteer organization
that encourages cross-cultural understanding, conflict resolution
and peace education by sponsoring educational programs for children
and young adults . . . . I became very critical of this organization
which I loved and cherished based on many of the concepts that
I was introduced to at Bates. This criticism was key in leading
me to create the service-learning project, 'Education For Social
Justice' the project involved in developing and piloting a curriculum
unit to address racism, gender inequality, homophobia and classism
in an elementary school. In all of this, "my junior semester
in Buenos Aires, Argentina proved essential in drawing a bridge
. . . . to the importance of learning another language. The fact
that I am presently applying to be a bilingual and bicultural
studies major at Teacher's College, Columbia makes perfect sense"
- the logical culmination of a challenging, mutually reinforcing
juxtaposition of course work, service-learning and study abroad. Involvement in a range of extracurricular
activities (track, theater, debate, choir, committees) and co-curricular
activities (community work-study, summer research, etc.) contributed
to an intellectually challenging and personally liberating total
educational experience. Working as a research assistant on the
second volume of Lift Every Voice: African-American Oratory 1901
1953, "was directly applicable to my studies as a rhetoric
major. Work as a summer intern at Advocates For Children and
as a coach of hundreds and pole vault for 6-14 year olds were
important elements of my liberal (arts) education at Bates. They
have exposed me to real situations . . . emphasizing . . . the
need for compassion and patience when in an advocate or instructor
role . . . Personal relationships and lessons in human relationships
are what allow me to best apply my academic experiences to my
present and future life." "The different projects and activities I have been involved with during my few years at Bates naturally draw students of different backgrounds and interests. The more disparate, the better in fact. There are some cross-sections in the type of students who are attracted to the individual fields, but for the most part, each of the groups have their own interests, passions, and reasons for being drawn into that particular group. The wonderful, odd Treat Gallery friendships struck up during Honors Deadline Week, for example, are vastly different from the team-loyalties on the squash court as well as the communal religious, cultural, and philosophical questionings on issues of social justice during a service-learning retreat like Rural Immersion. The friendships that result are as various and provoking as they are comforting and nourishing. It no longer becomes a matter of remaining and maintaining one's 'comfort zone' but rather, learning to discover a capacity for building and discovering new ones. One learns to learn that souls and minds can often be challenged to greater heights and depths in positions of discomfort, of not-knowing, and of being the odd one out. Such positions are immediately relevant to the academic questions and interests I've found at Bates. Instead of just reading and thinking of issues of freedom and equality across race, gender, sexuality, or class, I am learning to live it. Academic and intellectual freedom and integrity are closely interwoven with the ethics and passion of living that so often requires, but does not always include, respect and worth accorded to perspectives that are unlike our own. I have learned so much just from watching
and learning of the different ways people live their lives, both
inside and outside the classrooms; that in itself is a position
of privilege; however, those are not always pleasant or comfortable
positions to be in. In fact, sometimes I find myself wishing
I was some place far, far away from wherever I am. But I suppose
that is all part and parcel of living in 'community.'" "While walking around Bates everyday
you notice something missing: KIDS. This is strange for me since
I have two little sisters at home whom I cherish and adore; however,
Bates has allowed me to play and teach with kids. Everyone needs
to experience the carefree happiness of children. They brighten
my day and make me realize that there is more in our world than
schoolwork and stress. If anything, my experience with working
in the Lewiston Schools, as well as in Boston has pulled me through
during difficult times while being a student. I always can step
back from my academic life and realize that there are other things
that must take precedence: hunger, homelessness, or an unhappy
child. Yet, through certain cultural courses offered by the French
Department and through programs like Urban Immersion, I have
seen that social injustice exists in many different forms throughout
the world. Many of the methods that I have studied have included
working with children who are forced to live under circumstances
none of us would want for our own children so that they might
be provided with the education, resources, and " la mode
de vie" that they deserve." "All of these experiences have helped
me to understand my education not just as a process of personal
transformation, but as a process of world transformation. The
two are inseparable. Doing community work and activism in various
forms has allowed me to connect academic exploration to real
community issues and actions; this work has, in fact, brought
me to understand that the two realms must be intimately connected
-- that reflection without action and action without reflection
both risk being "All of these experiences have strengthened
my education and given me a better understanding of myself and
my particular areas of interest. The experiences in the community
and the various projects I've participated in outside of Bates
have been some of the most valuable learning and growing time
I have had here. These activities have given me a much clearer
sense of what it is I want to do with my life and they have allowed
me to meet some incredible people, to see the world differently
and to form some lasting friendships. " "I try to find a balance in my school
and co-curricular activities between doing things that are meaningful
to me but also taking the time to have fun and participate in
the recreational aspects of life. I think it is important to
try to give folks a hand if you can, but I've found it can be
draining unless I am careful about keeping my life balanced with
many kinds of physical, outdoor activity. That's one of the best
aspects of being a student at Bates, as far as I'm concerned:
the many opportunities to reach out to help others and to relax
outdoors with other Bates students -- and to learn from both
of those experiences as much as you might learn in a classroom.
I feel very fortunate to say that I enjoy hiking, kayaking, and
cycling among my outdoor pursuits because as I have seen in Afrika,
such recreation is virtually unknown among the poor for whom
it would be luxury." "These experiences at -- and beyond --
Bates have stretched my self-understanding as a member of society.
Exposing myself to different life experience and many diverse
ways of thinking while I was studying important ideas and texts
has awakened my consciousness of my responsibility to struggle
for social justice and personal responsibility. If I had only
stayed on the Bates campus during my years at this college, I
would never have met the people who, with the faculty here, have
been my some of my best teachers. I hope to carry the important
lessons I have learned through all these experiences into the
world when I graduate." Theater has been my passion ever since I stepped
foot into Scheaffer Theater for my first rehearsal for "Cloud
9" during my First Year. In high school, I had always been
a very narrow-minded and often intolerant person; and here I
was, performing in a play that was challenging society's latent
racial, religious, ethnic and sexual orientation prejudices!
The world-view that I possessed in high school turned out not
to be one that I truly believed, so the opportunity to be in
this play helped me to be who I really wanted to be on stage.
It took more time to incorporate these perspectives into my daily
life, but I continued my search for my true self by doing more
and more shows. I also decided to participate in programs like
Urban Immersion and Rural Immersion through the Chaplaincy, which
reinforced the perspectives I was gaining through the theater
and through much of what I was learning in classes. Throughout
my years at Bates, my participation in the College's theater
program has most consistently brought me into contact with other
people struggling with the same issues I have been, and we all
bonded as we continued our search for our own identities, not
the identities that society dictates to us. I know for a fact
that these friendships will be everlasting." |
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Office of Career Services, 31 Frye Street, 207-786-6232, open all year, 8:00 am - 4:30 pm Center for Service Learning, 163 Wood Street, 207-786-8272 Student Employment Office, 215 College Street, 207-786-6303 Community Volunteer Office, 161 Wood Street, 207-786-6468 Dean of the Faculty's Office, 3rd Floor, Lane Hall, 207-786-6065 Study Abroad (Dean of Student's Office), 1st Floor, Lane Hall, 207-786-6223 Office of the Chaplain, 161 Wood Street, 207-786-8272 Student Employment Office, 215 College Street, 207-786-6303
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