Freshman Seminar Research Articles

The Mushroom Curriculum: Using Natural History to Teach Psychology

As part of a freshman seminar program, I taught a course on The Psychology of Mushrooms using a natural history approach. The seminar provided an opportunity to proceed from concrete experience to general principles of perception, learning, social, and abnormal psychology. Aspects of the course most valued by students were the field trip and the informality of sessions held in my home.

THE EVOLUTION OF A FRESHMAN SEMINAR

With a required one-credit freshman seminar in place since 1977, California Lutheran University has a relatively long history of involvement with this kind of course. Using classification schemes from the literature on freshman seminars as a context, this article examines how California Lutheran's seminar has changed over the years as it has been integrated more directly into the University's retention program. The authors also discuss some of the persistent issues involved in maintaining such a course.

The Stage as a Classroom

Orange—In a play that recalled one of the darker moments in U.S. history, an Army Colonel walked across a dimly lighted stage Monday, handed a pistol to a lieutenant and ordered the man to put the gun to his head and pull the trigger.“You can't be serious,” stammered the horrified lieutenant as his superior officer loudly repeated the order.Upset and confused, the lieutenant let an awkward moment of silence pass, then he quietly told the colonel, a prosecutor: “I can't do it.”So went the chilling climax of a morality play at Chapman College's Waltmar Theater on Monday as students from the freshmen seminar program moved the study of war and peace out of the classroom onto the stage….This is how a local paper reported a play my class wrote and performed about the court martial of Lt. William Calley. As you may recall, William Calley was the Army Lieutenant who, during the height of the Vietnam war, led his platoon into MyLai 4, a small village in South Vietnam. Expecting to find heavily fortified North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers, Calley and his men instead encountered several hundred South Vietnamese civilians, most of them old men, women, children, and babies. The civilians were herded into groups. They were then shot. Calley was later court martialled in one of the most controversial trials in our nation's history.

Organizing the institution for parent affairs

New Directions for Student ServicesVolume 1985, Issue 32 p. 93-104 Article Organizing the institution for parent affairs Robert D. Cohen, Robert D. Cohen Robert D. Cohen, associate dean of students at Lehigh University, serves as chair of the American College Personnel Association Commission I Task Force on Parent Involvement. Dr. Cohen received his Ed.D. from Teachers College, Columbia University, and is the author of Freshman Seminar: A New Orientation (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1978).Search for more papers by this authorMary Margaret Halsey, Mary Margaret Halsey Mary Margaret Halsey, associate director of the Princeton University Alumni Council, is coordinator of the Princeton Parents' Project. Previously director of the Office of Career Counseling at Williams College, she received her M.S. and M.Ed, degrees from the University of Massachusetts, in Amherst.Search for more papers by this author Robert D. Cohen, Robert D. Cohen Robert D. Cohen, associate dean of students at Lehigh University, serves as chair of the American College Personnel Association Commission I Task Force on Parent Involvement. Dr. Cohen received his Ed.D. from Teachers College, Columbia University, and is the author of Freshman Seminar: A New Orientation (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1978).Search for more papers by this authorMary Margaret Halsey, Mary Margaret Halsey Mary Margaret Halsey, associate director of the Princeton University Alumni Council, is coordinator of the Princeton Parents' Project. Previously director of the Office of Career Counseling at Williams College, she received her M.S. and M.Ed, degrees from the University of Massachusetts, in Amherst.Search for more papers by this author First published: December 1985 https://doi.org/10.1002/ss.37119853210 AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume1985, Issue32December 1985Pages 93-104 RelatedInformation

Science as a human endeavor: A freshman seminar

A selection of readings and topics of discussion is described which served as the basis of a seminar to help first-term freshmen, particularly those with little prior exposure to science, develop a more accurate and sympathetic perspective of the nature of science. Emphasis is placed on science as a human activity rather than as a methodological abstraction. Reading material is drawn largely from the personal experiences and expository writings of contemporary scientists who are also gifted interpreters of science.

Higher Education as a Range of Educational Activities for Student Teachers

Summary Taking German experience as her point of departure, the author pleads for a practice‐based reform of secondary teacher education in universities by counter‐balancing the traditional overaccentuation of theory and abstract cognitive learning. A broader concept of practice and the suggestion of a ’partial isomorphism’ of universities and schools lead to the definition of higher education courses as practice and as fields of educational activities. In training seminars, student teachers have particular opportunities of profession‐oriented experiences and insights. If they learn, from the very beginning of their studies, to interpret the seminar sessions as learning situations and to organise them deliberately in cooperation with the seminar leaders, they can build the first elements of professional competence. The article reports how this conception of teacher education as field of, and preparation for, practice has been realised in an introductory seminar for freshmen at the Ruhruniversitat Bochum.

The Freshman Seminar Program

The Freshman Seminar program at the Pennsylvania State University attempts to improve the quality of liberal education by giving Freshman students a detailed introduction to a particular liberal arts discipline, improved advising, and an orientation to college life. The program was introduced on a trial basis and its effects investigated using a randomized experimental design. The outcomes measured were rate of retention in the College of Liberal Arts, grade point average, credit hours completed, ratings by instructors, and various attitudes, including those toward Penn State, advising, and the value of the liberal arts. Results suggest that the program led to more favorable attitudes but not to perceptible differences in performance or retention.

Freshman Seminar: A New Orientation

The competition for students is growing among colleges and universities, leading administrators and student personnel professionals to ask what they can do to recruit and retain their students without lowering academic standards. The Freshman Seminar is one answer: it is a full-semester course designed to train would-be students in the skills they will need to survive in a student's world. Remedial courses alone are not sufficient; there are a host of meta-academic activities to be mastered, among them note taking, test taking, class participation, interacting with instructors, and developing realistic attitudes towards learning. The authors, initiators and experienced teachers in Hunter College's Freshman Seminar Program, describe the rationale for such a course, as well as its value. Their step-by-step approach to establishing and teaching a freshman seminar details the fundamentals of curriculum design and teaching methods and describes specific instructional material for classroom use—lesson plans, games, attitude inventories, and role playing. This is a comprehensive and practical guidebook for the college administrator who wants to reduce student attrition and for the student personnel professional who will implement such a program.

“Listening”: Auditory perception for college freshmen

In Freshman Seminars at Cornell, instruction in writing (“composition”) is combined with content of courses ranging from Art History to Psychology. Last semester a new course in this program, called “Listening,” taught freshmen about the psychology of hearing, using weekly topic units based on readings, lecture/demonstration/discussion periods, and weekly writing assignments. The course was an experimental attempt to reach a broader audience than auditory perception typically receives. Topics such as selective listening, echolocation, deafness, speech perception, and DAF were presented via selected readings, class discussion and lectures, and demonstration experiments in which students participated. Students evaluated some readings as still too technical for an introductory course; on the other hand, most of the demonstration experiments were judged informative and helpful. Of special interest: the units on deafness, noise, environmental sounds, and echolocation were well-received, but the two-week psychophysics unit on pitch, loudness, localization, and theories of hearing (traditional subject matter for an auditory perception course) impressed the students as difficult to understand and lacking in interest and relevance. Some implications for teaching auditory perception will be considered.

Experiences with Solder Glass and Students

Over the past few years experience has accumulated with student use of solder-glass techniques for the construction of simple vacuum tubes for doing experiments with electrons, ions, and atoms. The details of a freshman seminar are discussed, and examples of the work of the students, including sample laboratory reports and data are given. The success of the seminar indicates that the technique can be extended to handle large groups of students.