COURSE REQUIREMENTS:

1. Participate in discussions and special in-class activities, as well as listening to speakers. The "work" of learning something from our speakers is considered to be the most important feature of the colloquium. [See "Absence Policy."]

2. Speaker Response Papers. Submit a one-page response to each speaker we have. This will be due one week after the speaker, whether you have class then or not. You may hand in a "hard copy" (on paper) in class, drop it off in Steve's mailbox in Cumberland 1130, or e-mail it to Steve Wright (sw125@umail.umd.edu).

3. Short reading and writing assignments, and one or two reading assignments of medium length. You do not have to buy a textbook. Hand in or e-mail the writing assignments to Steve Wright (sw125@umail.umd.edu).

4. Participate in a field trip of your choice. At least three will be offered, and more likely four or five (including at least two "half" field trips).

5. You will be assigned to a small "team" of 3-4 students, which will comprise one-third of your discussion group. Your discussion group will meet three times during the semester (roughly once a month), and each time one of the "teams" will be responsible as facilitators. Each student on the team will be responsible for finding a book or academic journal article (or web site of equivalent quality) which has material closely related to the topic of one of that month's colloquium speakers (or to the overall topic of the month), which can be used as a bibliographical reference. The team members will work together to summarize this information in two ways:

   (1) The members of each team will work together to combine the information they have found into a COHERENT WHOLE. Then they will create a summary of it in the form of a one-page (one-side) handout. This summary can be in essay format, bullet points, charts, graphs, or in whatever form your team concludes would be most effective in communicating your information. The three bibliographical references should appear at the bottom of the page (after each reference, indicate the name of the student who found that reference). Please make enough copies for everyone in your discussion group as well as one extra, to be given to group's faculty discussion advisor. The handouts are to be distributed to each student in your discussion group on the day that your team is facilitating.

   (2) On the day the team facilitates the group discussion, the team will BRIEFLY explain its handout to the group as a way of initiating the discussion. Each team should also prepare 3 discussion questions (one for each speaker and one related to the handout) which can be used if needed (if the discussion seems to need more structure, if the conversation is slow to get started, stalls, or drags, etc.).

Within a week of the discussion that your team leads, EACH member of the team should e-mail the instructor affiliated with their team, Al Gardner (ag5@umail.umd.edu) or Steve Wright (sw125@umail.umd.edu) or Elizabeth Brenden (elizb@wam.umd.edu), a brief report describing what EACH member of the team did in contributing to that team's work. For example, if there are 3 students in your team, explain briefly what you did and what each of the other two students did in terms of researching, compiling findings, and facilitating. Each member of the team should feel an obligation to their team partners and to their discussion group to contribute adequately.

Click here for a table of the discussion groups and teams, or for an alphabetized list with group and team assignments.

SCHEDULE:

Sep. 1 - Explain Colloquium plan, organize topics

Sep. 8 - Continue with Colloquium organization, assignment of groups, "Two Truths and a Lie" game

Sep. 15 - Stephen Wright, Dept. of Human Development, UMCP

"Risk and Protective Factors in Adolescence" (related to 3 of the 4 four themes)

Sep. 22 - Tony Avendorph, Prince George's County Police Dept.

"Teenage Gangs in our Area" (scheduled, but cancelled).

Substitution: Video: "Children Kidnapped and Forced to Kill in Uganda," a segment from the news program "60-Minutes."

Sep. 29 - Discussions of EC&D, "Delinquency": "1" groups

Oct. 6 - Taffy Brandt, AIDS lecturer

"My Daughter Died of AIDS"

Dec. 8 - Discussions of ED&C "Education": "2" groups

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Advocates office: 1120 Cumberland Hall
Al Gardner: ag5@umail.umd.edu
Steve Wright: sw125@umail.umd.edu
Elizabeth Brenden: elizb@wam.umd.edu

1125 Cumberland Hall University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742-9331


sw125@umail.umd.edu (301) 314-5909