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Place-Based Courses

Place-based Discovery Seminars -- Many studies have found that intensive first-year seminars have a positive effect on student performance, satisfaction, and retention. UK offers new students the opportunity to enroll in a first-year Discovery Seminar. This highly praised program provides incoming first-year students with a small seminar, taught by a highly skilled and motivated faculty member, on a subject of deep personal interest to that faculty member, such as poverty and homelessness in Appalachia, the physics of time travel, and the science and politics of mercury. UK tracks students who take a Discovery Seminar: they return for their second year at a much higher rate than their peers who do not take one, and earn significantly higher overall grade point averages.

All incoming AMSTEMM students are strongly advised to enroll in a Discovery Seminar. In each year of the AMSTEMM program, one or more STEM-discipline, place-based Discovery Seminars will be developed or refined and offered to incoming AMSTEMM students. Since Fall 2005, forty-five place-based STEM discipline discovery seminars have been offered.

UK has particular expertise in place-based education. The UK Appalachian Center, has sponsored a workshop for cultivating and promoting place-based education and published a report on the subject. The past President of the Appalachian Studies Association, Dr. Billings, and the director of the Discovery Seminar Program, Dr. Badagliacco, both Appalachian scholars, serve as consultants to AMSTEMM to assist faculty members to develop new place-based, STEM-discipline Discovery Seminars for incoming AMSTEMM students.

Place-based Discovery Seminars (Fall 2008 and Spring 2009) recommended for AMSTEMM students:

Title Instructor Day Time Course Number
FALL 2009
Social Sciences

Shakertown and the World of Tomorrow: Local-Global Vistas on the 21st Century

Ernie Yanarella MWF 10:00 AM- 10:50 AM DSP 110-002

Citizen Kentucky: Journalism and Democracy

Buck Ryan MWF 11:00am-
11:50am
DSP 110-004

Building Communities and Making a Difference

Beth Mills TTh

T 3:30PM- 5:20 PM Th 3:30PM- 4:20 PM

DSP 110-008

Let Your Life Speak: Exploring Social Inequality and Social Justice, and Service

Joanna Badagliacco TTh 9:30 AM – 10:45 AM DSP 110-010
Humanities

Cuisines of the World: An Economic and Historic Perspective

Sadia Zoubir-Shaw TTh 3:30pm-
4:45pm
DSP 120-007

My Kingdom Is A Horse! Thoroughbred Racing in Kentucky: A Social and Cultural Perspective

Alan Hersh TTh 2:00pm-3:15pm DSP 120-008

The African American Experience in Kentucky

Gerald L. Smith Th 3:00pm-5:30 pm DSP 120-002
Natural Science

Energy and Our Global Environment

David Atwood W 2:00pm -4:30pm DSP 130-002

SPRING 2010

Social Science
"I Know My Rights:" Civil Liberties in the United States Robert Tannenbaum TBD TBD DSP 110-001
Natural Science

American Green: Literary Roots & Modern Branches of Ecocentrism

Morris Grubbs TBD TBD DSP 120-002

The Present is the Key to the Past: The KY-Bahamas Connection

Frank Ettensohn TBD TBD DSP 130-001

The seminars that are "placed-based" may be of particular importance to students who are interested in the AMSTEMM program at UK. The AMSTEMM program recruits, retains, and graduates Appalachian and minority students enrolled in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics majors, by providing a community environment, a network of support services, and numerous academic enhancement opportunities while on the UK campus.

Web Design by Vaughan A. Fielder
©2008 AMSTEMM, The University of Kentucky
The University of Kentucky is an Equal Opportunity Employer
Last Site Update: July 16, 2009

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Funded by grant # NSF-0431552 from the National Science Foundation