Goal 1: Building Community

The first goal of the orientation is to build connections among the participants who comprise a group of teaching scholars from two- and four-year public and private academic institutions who have varied areas of scientific expertise. You will interact with participants from your home and other institutions, beginning to exchange and evaluate concepts about good teaching and learning, critically examining approaches to teaching and learning, and initiating new connections with persons in disciplines related to your own. As a community you will ensure that excellent ideas about teaching and learning are shared, adapted, and implemented at all team institutions throughout the FIRST project.

Goal 2: Challenging Your Concepts About Learning and Teaching

A second goal of the orientation is to motivate you to explore and expand your views about good learning and teaching. We will place you briefly in the role of students, asking you to begin to consider what constitutes learning, when does learning occur, and how you know when learning has occurred. Through work with persons with differing areas of expertise and backgrounds, you will begin to experience the rich variety of approaches to learning and teaching, consider their value in differing learning environments, and discover new connections among specialty areas and disciplines.

Goal 3: Developing Your Project

The third goal of the orientation is for you to initiate a plan for development of your project for reforming the science curriculum at your home institution. You will assess the curriculum needs of your home institution, develop mission statements, discuss development of action plans, and provide us with your needs and expectations of the FIRST project and the workshop that will be held in May, 1999. Feedback on your plan will be provided at the orientation and as you develop your projects at your home institution.

Goal 4: Sharing of Ideas and Resources

The fourth, and last, goal of the orientation is to provide you with resources about teaching and learning, including information on professional organizations, inquiry-based activities, discussion groups, and published literature. You will establish methods of sharing ideas and resources within and between institutional teams for development of your project and further building of community.