So What is a Foundation Seminar?

Welcome to your first semester at Bucknell and to this Foundation Seminar, Supermarket Biology! Since this course is probably going to be somewhat different from courses you have previously experienced, a few introductory words of explanation might be helpful. It, hopefully, goes without saying that your instructor's expectation is that each of you will learn a whole lot about the biology that occurs within (or related to) a supermarket. I will, for now, just leave that as a given. However, in a Foundation Seminar we also have another large collection of pedagogical (instructional) goals. If we keep this second set of goals in mind as we progress through the course, the methods of instruction that you will be experiencing should make more sense. Anyway, carefully read the list of pedagogical goals listed below. By the way, these goals are common throughout all of the Foundation Seminars, i.e. these goals have been defined by the University for this portion of our Common Learning Agenda.

Pedagogical Goals for Foundation Seminars:

1. Encourage students to reflect on the nature and character of the undergraduate years in relation to lifelong learning.

2. Promote active learning and responsibility; encourage students to become accountable for their own learning.

3. Stress responsibility for one's behavior, in general and in an academic context.

4. Emphasize collaborative learning.

5. Incorporate creative problem-solving (i.e., posing problems/questions and assisting students in working toward solutions).

6. Foster intellectual development through reading, speaking, listening, and writing.

7. Improve students' ability to analyze and interpret materials they encounter, to synthesize and communicate the results of their studies, and to create works of their own.

8. Develop information skills through library instruction and assignments addressing computer literacy (e.g., word processing, simulations, use of a database, or analysis of data).

9. Encourage students to see the limitations of a single viewpoint by exposing them to multiple perspectives.

10. Develop the capacity to evaluate arguments by understanding the nature and uses of evidence.

11. Emphasize the interconnectedness of knowledge.