Faculty-Led Projects
grouping students by common interest
At Hendrix College, the Murphy Scholars in Literature and Language complete research or writing projects under direction of a faculty member, either individually or in groups. In order to maximize faculty resources, it may be possible to group students together by interest area to work with faculty.
For instance, a poetry professor may gather students interested in publishing works written in an earlier class in order to study literary journals and collaborate on submitting work. A language professor may lead students in exploring some aspect of cultural study that also provides conversational practice in the target language, beyond the resources and interests of an existing credited class.
what will you accomplish?
To ensure that the group can be productive, we suggest that at its outset, the faculty leader and students members work out exactly what the group’s deliverables will be. The proposals created by Murphy Scholars for their projects are similar in nature to “individualized learning agreements” favored in some co-curricular arrangements. In this case, the group would make its proposal together. The project could carry experiential learning credit, independent study credit, or extra credit for a regular academic class.
The University of Michigan’s Center for Learning and Teaching suggests Guidelines for Using Groups Effectively. While written from the perspective of designing group activities for classroom teaching, points about the faculty leader’s role in setting guidelines, monitoring activity, and providing feedback are also applicable to co-curricular work.
See Resources for a sample proposal form and reflection prompt.