Trash program description

•      fall schedule
•      winter schedule
•       spring syllabus & schedule

Waste & Want website

• Fall syllabus & schedule
• Winter syllabus & schedule

How People Learn website

• spring syllabus
• spring schedule

Articulate and assume responsibility for your own work.

A successful Evergreen graduate will know how to work well with others, not only in the workplace or social contexts, but as an active participant in the struggle for a more just world. You will assume responsibility for your actions as an individual and exercise power responsibly and effectively

• Challenge course
• Group work on several projects.
• Retreat – student roles in driving, buying food, cooking, clean up, etc.
• Creation of covenant
• Human subjects review discussion in regards to sorting through other people’s trash.

•   Group work on several projects. (e.g. jigsaw teaching of texts which had potential to set students up to be interdependent)
•   Retreat – student roles in driving, buying food, cooking, clean up, etc.
•   Creation of covenant
•   Leadership and Communication workshops led by CK using text Core Communication

•   Development of covenant (TT Williams)
•   Student facilitation of  seminar discussions
•   Metacognitive learning groups – students work in groups to learn something. Students learned & taught each other how to develop photographs, how to play guitar, how to knit, etc.    Work  in several groups was interdependent and relied on different prior knowledge students brought to task. (ie. Some students were teachers, some students)

Participate collaboratively and responsibly in our diverse society.

A successful Evergreen graduate will understand that by giving of yourself you make the success of others possible. A thriving community is crucial to your own well-being. The study of diverse worldviews and experiences will help you to develop the skills to act effectively as a local citizen within a complex global framework.

Texts/films

•   Stuff (Durning)
•   Rubbish (Rathje)
•   Mean Spirit (Hogan)
•   Sidewalk (Duneier)
•   Symposium on A Civil Action

Several of these books point out the interaction between consumer practices and issues surrounding social justice. 

Workshops
 Values analysis – considering how historical, social and political context influence nature of value system. 

Texts/films
All books which point out the interaction between consumer practices, business practices and environmental/social justice impacts:

•   Stuff (Durning)
•   Rubbish (Rathje)
•   The Coffee book; The Sneaker book
•   Stolen Harvest (Shiva)
•   Fast Food Nation (Schlosser)

Several critiques and analyses of consumer society that address gender, class, race and the practice of commodification for example:

• Consumer Society Reader (Schor & Holt eds), for example:
• “The Coolhunt” (Marx)
• “The sexual sell” (friedan)
• “Eating the other” on cultural appropriation (hooks)
• Yellow Apparel (film) & workshop Unpacking cultural appropriation (versus cultural appreciation)
• What the media teaches about diversity (Cortes)
• Alan Johnson chapter from Power, Privilege and Difference plus video of his lecture. 
• The Corporation.

Potential examination of democracy. What I realize now (in 2007) that the ultimate question asked in this set of workshops is what’s involved in balancing individual rights with responsibility.  A theme that I am becoming increasingly preoccupied with.  Obviously this preoccupation is coming through in latent form through these workshops.

•  “the open space of democracy”Terry Tempest Williams used to develop the covenant.
• Exploration of the tragedy of the commons.  Project in which students study a “commons” and examine what the principles are that govern the public’s behavior in these spaces

Community service

Texts/films
These books address  the social cultural factors that are implicated in learning, teaching and schooling:

• The light in their eyes (Nieto)
• In over our heads (Kegan)
• Learning outside the lines (Mooney & Cole)
• Apprenticeship in thinking (Rogoff)

Communicate creatively and effectively.

A successful Evergreen graduate will know how to listen objectively to others so as to understand and accept a wide variety of viewpoints. By developing a genuine interest in the experiences of others, you will learn to ask thoughtful questions, to communicate persuasively, and express yourself creatively.

• Writing seminar papers
• How to do peer review
• Feedback to sem.papers on
  web-ct
•   Peer review of Talking-trash projects
• Writing self-evals workshop
• Poster presentations of campus trash research project.
• Writing workshops. 
• Regular appointments with writing tutors

•   Writer’s workshop
•   Group presentation of research

• Writers’ workshop
• Student developed rubric for writing.
• Group presentation of learning a skill that integrates theories of learning.
• Visual map  seminar papers – strategy for “actively listening” to author, locating his/her main argument and support.   Conducted workshop to teach/remind students about the nature of different kinds of arguments, and identified arguments together.

Demonstrate integrative, independent, critical thinking.

A successful Evergreen graduate will have the ability to appreciate and critically evaluate a range of topics, across academic disciplines. As you explore these disciplines, you will develop a greater curiosity toward the world around you, and its interconnections, that will enhance your skills as an independent, critical thinker.

Talking trash project involved three parts:

• An integrative essay in which students (i) analyzed their personal trash; (ii)  compared it with county, state and national statistics on waste; and (iii) analyzed what their trash communicated about their lives and values.
• Campus waste audit in which groups of students analyzed waste of different parts of campus, again relative to local and national statistics on waste.  They then produced posters which informed the campus about the kinds of waste generated at the college.

Related quantitative workshops:

• Unit conversions workshop
• Using Excel to categorize and graph data.
• Mean and standard deviation.
• Using mean/sd to examine state and nation’s trash statistics.

• Waste audit of local organization

  • History of organization & role in community
  • Examination of organizations values through waste sort
  • Examination of specific question org has about it’s waste.
  • Analysis of waste stream and research impact of resource choice on social/physical environment.
  • Present info to organization and make recommendations to address their question.

• Stuff research assignment group project – library and internet research assignment on the environmental, economic, social contributions/costs of producing a consumer item  students use (e.g. ipod, bic lighters, coffee, etc)
  
• Four thesis based seminar papers analytical critiques of central ideas in text that draw connections among range of program texts.
  
• 2 quarter long project research prospectus and paper on a library research question that interests you:
  
  • Conduct library research on the questio
  • make sure there is information on the question,
  • provide a rationale for why it’s an important question to examine.   (examples of topic: a student chose:  nature of plastics and it’s impact on estrogens in environment)
  • write a research paper. 

•   Metacognitive Learning Observatory: Students observe and analyze how they go about learning their proposed skill (see above) using theories learned in class. 

•   Four seminar papers in which students analyze what learning about their learning process by integrating and applying the program material.

Apply qualitative, quantitative and creative modes of inquiry appropriately to practical and theoretical problems across disciplines.

A successful Evergreen graduate will understand the importance of the relationship between analysis and synthesis. Through being exposed to the arts, sciences and humanities, and coming to your own critical understanding of their interconnectedness, you will learn to apply appropriate skills and creative ways of thinking to the major questions that confront you in your life.

•  Texts that address different theories of learning including biological, cognitive and social:
•  The art of changing the brain (Zull)
• Piaget primer
• The light in their eyes (Nieto)
• Apprenticeship in thinking (Rogoff)
• Child care center observation – way to observe and think about Piaget’s theories of cognitive development.
  
• Analysis of program activities to explore learning preferences and Kolb’s learning cycle.
  
•   Identify characteristics of a good assignments.  Linked assignment with Emily Lardner’s program Academic Writing as Inquiry in which students learned about the writing process..  Used  Carol Dweck’s and Zull’s work on entity/incremental theorists to inform their thinking.
  
• Analysis of how theories of learning enter the classroom.  Compare and contrast different theorists beliefs about learner, nature of learning process, students’ role, metaphor for the teachers’ role 

As a culmination of your education, demonstrate depth, breadth and synthesis of learning and the ability to reflect on the personal and social significance of that learning.

A successful Evergreen graduate will be able to apply the personal frame of reference you develop as a result of this unique education in order to make sense of the world. This understanding will allow you to act in a way that is both easily understood by and compassionate toward other individuals across personal differences

  Self evaluation workshop

  Program portfolio in which students (i)identify artifacts that reflect most significant learning; (ii) review work in light of goals they set for themselves at beginning of quarter; (iii) identify goals for next quarter.

  Self-evaluation

  Program portfolio in which students (i)identify artifacts that reflect most significant learning; (ii) review work in light of goals they set for themselves at beginning of quarter; (iii) identify goals for next quarter.