{"id":101695,"date":"2016-06-09T12:38:07","date_gmt":"2016-06-09T16:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=101695"},"modified":"2025-02-06T09:21:04","modified_gmt":"2025-02-06T14:21:04","slug":"short-term-showcase-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2016\/06\/09\/short-term-showcase-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Five stories from Short Term’s innovative practitioner-taught courses and course redesigns"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the third year running, students and faculty in two distinctive types of Short Term courses showed their stuff at an end-of-term showcase.<\/p>\n

Held in Perry Atrium, the event brought together Short Term’s five practitioner-taught courses and four redesign courses.<\/p>\n

The former, often taught by accomplished Bates alumni, expose students to practical and applied areas of study typically not available within the curriculum. The latter courses give faculty time and resources (in the form of student partners) either to create a new academic course or rework an existing one.<\/p>\n

Here’s a look at a few instances from this year’s showcase, held May 25.<\/p>\n

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Short Term Practicum: “Music Production, Recording, and Mixing”<\/h3>\n
\"Listening<\/a>

Listening to mixes by students in a music recording and production course taught by Jonathan Wyman ’97. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n

A list of learning objectives that starts with “signal flow analysis” might stop some people, but 16 Bates students nevertheless gravitated straight to “Music Production, Recording, and Mixing.”<\/p>\n

A practitioner-taught course\u00a0in its second year at Bates, the course was again led by Jonathan Wyman ’97, one of Maine’s most highly regarded producers and engineers.<\/p>\n

The class this year attracted students with widely varying experience that included, in one case, some time in a Nashville studio.<\/p>\n

The more experienced students, Wyman noted, helped keep discussions engaging: “When a question came up, I’d be able to volley it back to the class rather than talk at the students.”<\/p>\n

“I threw them in the deep end” mixing-wise, Wyman said. “I had one big standing rule: You can omit anything, you can mute anything, but not add anything \u2014 not your own back-up vocals, not tambourine or drum loops.”<\/p>\n

And students who wanted to do otherwise got a valuable insight into creative dynamics between recording engineers and musicians.<\/p>\n

At the showcase, Wyman and his students set out a battery of laptops and headphones with which visitors could hear, within the course of a single song, the students’ different approaches to the complex art of mixing a sound recording.
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<\/p>\n

A mix sampler<\/p>\n

In this excerpt from the song \u201cEvery October,\u201d written by Chris Ross and recorded for the course by Ross and his band the North, you can hear the mixes change at approximately 10, 30, and 50 seconds \u2014 the changes are most apparent in the drum sounds.<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2016\/06\/Every_October_Excerpt.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

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Short Term Practicum: \u201cConsulting for Strategy Development\u201d<\/h3>\n

Yutong Li \u201918 of Shanghai, China, signed up for the Short Term practicum \u201cConsulting for Strategy Development\u201d figuring it would be a five-week foray into conceptual thinking.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it was a whole different experience,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\"Students<\/a>

Students in Fisher Qua’s strategy course learned about concepts that stifle organizational change, such as the “rigidity trap,” where “results aren’t being produced but there’s no change happening,” says Yutong Li \u201918 of Shanghai, China. (Jay Burns\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n

Taught by Fisher Qua \u201906,<\/a> the class worked with Student Affairs on a hands-on exercise about student health.<\/p>\n

They used a set of methods, called Liberating Structures<\/a>, looking to “build a foundation for a peer-to-peer health and wellness model for diverse populations,” says Erin Foster-Zsiga, associate dean of students for residence life and health education.<\/span><\/p>\n

“You have to ask questions and listen. You can\u2019t assume anything.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From that experience, Li learned that working with groups and organizations to create strategies demands very basic, yet finely tuned, human skills.<\/p>\n

\"Yutong<\/a>

Yutong Li \u201918 (right) of Shanghai, China, listens during “Consulting for Strategy Development,” taught by Fisher Qua ’06, standing, second from left. At left is class guest Henri Lipmanowicz, former president of Merck Intercontinental. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cYou have to talk to people. You have to ask questions and listen. You can\u2019t assume anything,\u201d Li said about the groundwork that her class did. \u201cYou bring as many people as you can into the discussion because the strategy will affect everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

When an organization works on strategy, breaking down hierarchy is key to achieving buy-in. “It’s something we often state as a value but rarely have the tools to do so effectively,” says Qua.<\/p>\n

Li says that a big takeaway from the class was learning various. practical ways to achieve this goal of “bringing equal weight to everyone\u2019s voice.”<\/p>\n

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Short Term Course Redesign: “Atomic and Molecular Structure”
\n<\/strong><\/h3>\n

A trio of chemistry majors teamed up with Associate Professor of Chemistry Matt C\u00f4t\u00e9 to shake up the gateway intro course, Chemistry 107, \u201cAtomic and Molecular Structure.\u201d<\/p>\n

The challenge: “Students come to any college with conceptions and misconceptions about chemistry,” says Sarah Tobin \u201917 of Medfield, Mass., a member of the redesign team.<\/p>\n

Once a student develops a misconception, the brain won’t let go, she says. \u201cYou can give students accurate information\u201d to try to banish the misconception, \u201cbut then if you ask a higher-level question, or allow time to go by, they will revert to the wrong concept.\u201d<\/p>\n

The answer, says C\u00f4t\u00e9, isn’t more “sage on the stage” teaching.<\/p>\n

While lectures can work, C\u00f4t\u00e9 explains, \u201crecent research makes it clear that engaging students more actively in the classroom is often much more effective.” In fact, so-called active learning helps “level the playing field for students who may lack strong preparation for a science course.”<\/p>\n

For example, C\u00f4t\u00e9 and his team, which also featured Kacey Wood \u201918 of Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y., and Amelia Wilhelm \u201918 of Charlotte, N.C., know from experience that atomic orbitals (stable patterns of electron density around a nucleus) are confusing, as is the fact that electrons display wave-like behavior.<\/p>\n

So they created a variety of demonstrations, including ones that show various wave properties.<\/p>\n

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C\u00f4t\u00e9 and his team created videos, like this one, that demonstrate wave properties and terms like \u201cnode\u201d and \u201cantinode.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n