Week 2-Campus Walk

Week 2-Campus Walk

This week’s class involved familiarizing ourselves with the FGCU campus…intimately.  The class discussed how the site for the school was chosen and how the university’s mission of environmental sustainability was the focus of everything that goes on here.  As far as the site selection is concerned, no matter where a facility of this magnitude is built there will be some detrimental environmental impact, we as humans have that kind of effect on the planet.  The university has taken the initiative to engineer more energy efficient buildings and design a campus that is environmentally sensitive while still allowing for close access to learning environments on campus, preserve land, and nature trails.  When the discussion ended we headed out to the campus nature trail for a little hike.  This involved trekking through knee-deep swamp water, complete with cypress knees to trip over.  Getting this close to nature that you drive by every day definitely changes the way one looks at the campus environment as well as the natural areas of Florida that still exist.  It also makes you realize just how drastically humans have altered the landscape here in Southwest Florida.  The water in the swamp was surprisingly clear, until the class disturbed it, which made me think of how the majority of SWFL was covered with this slow moving clear water, until development disturbed it.  It’s a sad but similar parallel of the damage humans are capable of.

Week 1-Dewey

This week’s entry is based on selected readings from John Dewey’s 1938 book, Experience and Education.  The excerpts focused on the debate between Traditional and Progressive styles of education.  Traditional being a method based on strictly textbook and lecture learning, as opposed to Progressive, involving a more hands on approach to learning.  Hindsight being 20/20 we can see now the effects of Dewey’s theories that were implemented leading to modern techniques in education.  Classes that involve labs and field trips, or occupational learning that allows students real life experience coinciding with what they have been studying.  We discussed in class the benefits of Progressive learning and I believe most students preferred it, and I would have to agree.  Although, like Dewey emphasized in his writings, Traditional learning cannot be discarded entirely.  I believe there is a need to read, hear, and digest the material of a subject as well as experience it.  Without some foundation or knowledge the hands-on experience cannot be as meaningful or enriching.  For example, if going on a trail hike through a particular ecosystem, students with prior knowledge of the species that might be encountered would be more interactive, knowing what to look for and where to find it.  This combination of learning styles I feel has the best chance of success for the majority of students.