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This is an archive of the website for the Cluster Pedagogy Learning Community, a grant-funded faculty development project at PSU from 2019-2022. While all of the content has been preserved here, some features may no longer work and some links may be broken.
Cluster Pedagogy
Learning Community
Combination of inclusion and interdisciplinarity
- Group Members: Filiz Ruhm, Metasebia Woldermariam, John Lappie, Beth Fornauf, and Lindsay Page
- Value: Inclusion and interdisciplinarity
How does this practice/idea reflect Cluster Learning?
Why did your group choose this idea to feature/explore?
- It reflects cluster learning and our groups interests, values, and concerns–understanding/bridging barriers. (And breaking some of the walls that need to be broken!)
How could you generalize this idea into a practice that is applicable to as many different kinds of participants in the CPLC as possible?
- We are starting at a personal level–which allows the flexibility for various discipline/expertise levels.
Identify anything that the University or the CoLab could do to help advance or support this practice.
- Lightning talks or lecture based series on these topics.
Supporting Materials
- One exercise I have my students do, that emphasizes interdisciplinarity, is a group discussion early in the semester. In this discussion, the students each share their own major with each other (I try and make sure these groups only have one person per major if possible; to be clear these are not the project teams, which haven’t even formed by this time). Undeclared students can simply mention a major they’re thinking about. They then try and figure out (a) how their own majors relate to Political Science (my discipline), and (b) How their majors relate to each other. For example, a meteorology major could note how meteorology relies on government funding for space launches and weather satellites, and how they are often asked to comment on climate change, an issue where many people (for political reasons) deny it even exists. The goal of this activity is to help students realize that their own majors, and my area for that matter, are not really isolated silos, but actually are quite related to one another.
Connect with Us
Hours & Location
Spring 2024 Hours
Monday – Thursday: 8:30-4:30, in-person or virtual
Wednesday: Additional in-person hours from 4:30-6:00
Friday: 8:30-4:30, virtual