Experiential Learning

This course provides a survey of key concepts, theories and models in the field of Animal Behavior, integrating behavioral analyses into an explicitly evolutionary framework. Students discuss behaviors important to reproduction, such as selecting mates, and those important to survival, such as finding food and avoiding predators. For each of these contexts, students ask both 'proximate' and 'ultimate' questions. Proximate questions concern the mechanistic causes of behavior, including the genetic, hormonal, neural and environmental influences on the development and expression of behavior. Ultimate questions of behavior concern how behavior is shaped and constrained by ecology and evolutionary history. Students actively discuss modern theory, engage in observational and experimental study, and develop an innovative research proposal.

Arts organizations and artists face many challenges that could benefit from an entrepreneurial mindset. Entrepreneurial thinking requires focusing primarily on finding the right questions rather than finding the right answers. In this course, students develop an entrepreneurial mindset by focusing on an issue in a local arts organization, identifying the concepts that help them understand the issue, de-constructing and re-constructing their knowledge, and creating a feasibility study that tests their potential solution against reality. Students work to develop solutions that local organizations and artists are truly interested in implementing: The classroom learning directly benefits the arts. Topics covered in this course include entrepreneurship, the entrepreneurial mindset, questioning, interviewing and analysis, research, feasibility studies, and presenting findings. These topics are covered through readings, interaction with community arts organizations and artists, class activities and discussion, and students' hard work.

This course focuses on how organizations can achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. Strategic management involves a foundation of research and analysis of an organization's internal and external environments, followed by the identification of strategic choices, and the development and implementation of strategic plans. A resource-based view of the firm provides the theoretical underpinning for case analysis and the strategic consulting projects. Students work in small consulting teams with local organizations to develop successful strategies in these projects. Satisfies the Senior Research Seminar requirement for the business majors.

This course uses the archival documents in the Washington State Archives to understand and document the histories of the incarceration of women, girls, trans and gender-non-binary people in WA state. Students work collaboratively with students in the FEPPS program in the prison to co-create an online history of incarceration for women and girls on StoryMapJS. Students gain an interdisciplinary and participatory approach to archival research, scholarly editing, and the praxis of recovery and public memory. The course exposes students to practical research methodologies and theoretical debates about archives; the history of incarceration; and how the archives connect to contemporary policy and issues for women in prison such as shackling, parenting, solitary confinement, education and other issues. Students think through the archival material with those most impacted by these issues by meeting with FEPPS students in the prison and alum of the program. The class will pay close attention to intersectionality, examining the fact that women of color and poor women are disproportionately likely to be incarcerated. Women's imprisonment exacerbates women's economic marginality, and women in prison struggle to receive meaningful job training and education. The course usually includes at least one visit to the archives to see the documents in person.

Participating in intercollegiate forensics. May be repeated for credit.

Schools, and other social institutions strongly influence, impact and police the construction of identity. This course examines the nature of schooling and the socializing power of schools, using gender as its primary lens for analysis and considering how gender interacts with other facets of identity including race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status. Through readings, writing, discussion, and time spent in schools, students examine the hidden and official curriculum schools use to teach about gender identity and norms. Successful completion of this course requires a commitment to spend 10 hours outside of class volunteering in a school or a youth-serving community organization.

Teaching students to read is a fundamental task of teachers in every class and grade level. This course examines the nature of reading and provides an introduction to well balanced reading instruction in grades K-12. Through readings, writing, discussion, and time spent in schools, students are introduced to the nature of reading, how young people learn to read, and instruction that fosters lasting literacy. Successful completion of this course requires a commitment to spend regular time in schools, participating in the teaching of reading or writing.

This course is designed to allow individuals interested in schools to develop a greater understanding of economic inequality and to examine what teachers can do to provide the best possible education for students impacted by economic inequality. The course considers how social and educational policies have resulted in schools that are not equally resourced. This course examines and confronts the American stories of rugged individualism and of the United States as a place where class and race are irrelevant, while maintaining a focus on what teachers can do for the children with whom they work. Successful completion of this course requires a commitment to spend 10 hours outside of class volunteering in a school or community organization that supports children and families impacted by economic inequality.

The history of legislated and de facto everyday white supremacy in public schooling and social life has created a highly segregated teaching force. Most U.S. teachers are white, middle-class, monolingual females who grew up in predominantly white communities. Teachers of color are dramatically under-represented in the teaching force, and children of color have very limited representations of their racial identity throughout their schooling experience. The central work of this course is to center race as a lens for understanding miseducation in American schooling. Through shared discussion, reading, and engagement in public school communities, students will confront the assumptions of whiteness in U.S. schooling and seek to unlearn socialized assumptions about race. Students will reflect on classroom and community learning, as well as personal experiences, to develop and apply strategies and action steps that promote equity in learning contexts.

Teaching reading has never been politically neutral because reading instruction, when it is done well, requires that we read something. Underlying this course is an assumption that the selection of what students read should consider the promotion of American ideals of liberty and justice for everyone. Together students think about the messages children's and young adult books send and how to select books that promote social justice. Students read children's and young adult books that include people from different racial groups, and books that open up ideas of gender and sexuality. Successful completion of this course requires a commitment to spend regular time working with youth.

Few issues press on the minds, hearts, and lives of upcoming generations as much as climate change. Driven by swiftly accelerating transformations in our global environment and unmistakable scientific projections, young people face forms of uncertainty and anxiety around our global future -- sometimes infused by anger, denial or despair. The rise of youth involvement in issues of climate justice signals the importance of educational spaces as locations of action, awareness and dialogue. The purpose of this course is to engage undergraduate students and potential educators in considerations of, and practices for, supporting children and youth in learning about and responding to climate change realities in developmentally appropriate ways, particularly from a stance of social justice. Through readings, conversation, writing, interaction with teaching materials, and in engaging beyond the classroom, students will develop a critical understanding of climate justice, explore ways to engage children and youth in climate awareness and justice-centered projects, and work with local educators to observe and reflect upon real world climate justice education in action. Successful completion of the course requires a 10 hour commitment to community-based activities related to themes of the course.

Teaching about the past tells us where we came from and provides a narrative that communicates who "we" are. Using primary sources with K-12 students is often touted as one of the best ways to shape inclusive narratives while developing reading, writing, and critical thinking. And yet, primary sources are rarely used at the pre-college level. This class is designed to introduce students to using primary documents to help K-12 students understand alternative perspectives of the past. While many perspectives are marginalized in K-12 classrooms, few experience the silence that surrounds LGBTQ people. By using the Archive of Sexuality and Gender, students learn about LGBTQ history, discover valuable primary sources for use with K-12 students, and create a plan for using these sources with K-12 students. Successful completion of this course requires a commitment to spend regular time working with youth in a volunteer setting.

This is the capstone course and culminating experience for the Education Studies minor. Participants should have completed most or all of their Education Studies coursework before enrolling. During the course, students work with a mentor teacher to examine instructional practice and student learning in a classroom setting. Students learn about action research, and develop a study in their school-based classroom, identifying relevant questions, collecting and analyzing data, and developing practical implications.

An experiential seminar in which each student develops a passion project that translates ideas and critical skills learned in humanities classrooms into a public-facing demonstration of the humanities' potential beyond the university. This seminar supports students in translating their knowledge, experience, and skills to the professional or the public sphere, and in communicating the significance of their work. The seminar has two components: fieldwork and classwork. Students work collaboratively with peers and the professor in the classroom to conceive of and hone their projects, and with the campus, local community, or wider world to realize components of it.

This is the required introductory course for the Environmental Policy and Decision Making minor/major, an interdisciplinary program designed to help students integrate their major area of study with an understanding of how individual and collective decisions interact with the environment. The course uses approaches from the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities to introduce the ways in which human social, political, economic, and cultural systems interact with systems in the non-human environment. The concept of "sustainability" is explored by considering the tension between the limiting principles in our world and competing human values over the question of what should be sustained for the future.

This course provides a basic introduction to environmental policymaking in the U.S. system of government, which includes the processes by which laws, rules and regulations, agency guidelines, court decisions, and international agreements are established. The course explores several major areas of environmental concern. For each area, the class considers the human environmental impacts of concern, the political and policy history causing and addressing the concern, the way in which the current policies in this area work at various levels of government, and the way in which new legal interpretations and other forms of policy change might develop. Special attention is given to the way in which policy affects local and regional environmental issues here in the Pacific Northwest. Field trips and guest speakers are often incorporated into this class.

This course familiarizes students with the variety of ways citizens engage in public decision making on environmental issues central to the health of Puget Sound. The course combines nearly 24 hours of class and field experience over the course of a single weekend (Friday evening to Sunday evening) with additional meeting hours during three weeknight meetings. Students study a single regional watershed from source to mouth, gaining an understanding of the role citizens play in shaping the environmental policy of a particular place. The class employs written case materials developed to highlight particularly successful examples of citizen engagement in environmental policy in the watershed, mini-lectures by academic experts on the relevant political and environmental contexts of the cases, discussion panels with key stakeholders and decision makers on these issues, and field experiences designed to reveal the applied context of the issues under consideration. A select number of local community members may participate in the class on a non-credit basis.

This course is designed to familiarize students with environmental laws and land use designations governing selected environmental issues central to the health of Puget Sound. The course combines nearly 24 hours of class and field experience over the course of a single weekend with additional meeting hours during three weeknight meetings. Students study a single regional watershed from source to mouth to gain a place-based appreciation for the effects of laws and land use designations on the environment. The class employs written case materials developed to highlight particular environmental issues in the watershed, mini-lectures by academic experts on the relevant legal and environmental contexts, discussion panels with key stakeholders and decision makers on these issues, and field experiences designed to reveal the applied context of the issues under consideration. A select number of local community members may participate in the class on a non-credit basis.

This course is designed to familiarize students with the variety of ways individuals and communities can make choices and take actions that lead to environmental and social improvements in our surroundings. The course includes five 2-hour discussion sessions on sustainability topics, one weekend field trip and one major written project. These sessions include shared readings, facilitated discussion, mini-lectures by guest speakers, and even hands-on applications. Puget Sound students in this class will be joined by a select number of local community members who will participate in the class on a non-credit basis.

This course facilitates student teams competing in the Environmental Challenge (EC) program, a student competition to prepare and present an optimal solution to a complex "true to life" environmental problem. The EC is part of the conference hosted by the Pacific Northwest International Section (PNWIS) of the Air and Waste Management Association (AWMA), a professional organization of environmental professionals. The course requires teams of 3-5 students to submit a written proposal addressing the EC question, participation in the PNWIS three-day conference, and oral presentation and defense of the proposal at the conference. The proposals are evaluated by environmental professionals from industrial, regulatory, consulting, and academic fields. The EC problem is of current value, representative of the location of the conference, and requires a multidisciplinary approach for success. To be successful in the EC teams must seek technical and scientific analyses as well as solutions with appropriate regulatory compliance and resolution with political and community stakeholders. To be successful at the competition, student teams must research the problem background, as well as the technical, social, economic, and political aspects of the situation while staying apprised of ongoing current events related to the problem. A diversity of student backgrounds and majors are encouraged to enroll and often produce the most successful teams.

The Pacific Northwest is at the forefront of the fastest energy transition in human history with its move away from fossil fuels and development of wind, solar, hydro, nuclear and energy storage technologies. The lab requirement for this class is met with field experiences along the Columbia Plateau during the first part of spring break that engages students with the innerworkings of energy facilities, environmental professionals and other groups and individuals navigating the alternative energy transition. This class examines the life cycle impacts of conventional and alternative energy technologies along with the historic political, economic, scientific and social precursors to the current state of energy supply and use in the U.S. Students will learn how the current supply and demand of U.S. energy relates to climate change and analyze how policies at the local, state and national level are likely to affect climate impacts. Students develop leadership and interpersonal skills in a fun and challenging experiential setting by integrating academic goals and community interactions with camping and outdoor activities.

This course offers an intentional learning structure and cohort model for students who are engaging in community-based learning. This course integrates meaningful, community engagement with reflection and reciprocal learning. Students who are a part of the CBL Experience will have the opportunity to explore their strengths and values through the context of engagement in the local community and will explore topics related to citizenship, service, and philanthropy. Additionally, students will learn about the historical context of Tacoma and the importance of understanding place while engaging in a community. Students who take EXLN 295 will complete written reflections to articulate the narrative of their learning experience and will be asked to present at a symposium event, or comparable presentation.

This course provides students with an academic-oriented learning structure that informs, supports, and complements their internship. Students in this course will engage in learning in an off-campus work-related organizational setting, extend knowledge acquired elsewhere in the curriculum, learn how to create observational field notes that lead to an academic analysis of an organizational experience, and reflect upon their experience within an academic cohort-based learning context. Students will meet throughout the term to reflect on their experience and will have access to individualized coaching and guidance through the Experiential Learning Program Manager for Student and Community Engagement.

This course offers an intentional learning structure and cohort model for students who are studying abroad or off campus on a Puget Sound approved program. The purpose of this course is to encourage reflection among students studying abroad/off-campus and to create a shared sense of community based on a common set of reflective questions and practices. By focusing on connections between their academic work and study abroad/off-campus experiences, students develop the skills required to communicate a narrative about their experience to others, including graduate schools and potential employers. Students in this course develop a tangible product (e.g., video, podcast, ePortfolio, slideshow, paper) articulating the narrative and value of their learning experience.

This course offers an intentional learning structure and cohort model for students who are engaging in independent summer research. Students who take this course meet regularly throughout the term to share about and reflect on their experience. Students are supported individually by a faculty mentor, in a small cohort with a similar disciplinary focus or project structure, and by engaging with the larger, interdisciplinary community. Students in this course develop a tangible product (e.g., video, podcast, ePortfolio, slideshow, paper) articulating the narrative and value of their learning experience that will be shared within their cohort meetings. Students also develop a conference-style poster to capture the process and outcomes of their research, scholarship or creative work. These posters are presented at an on-campus symposium.

Students who have completed an approved experiential learning activity may enroll in the Experiential Learning Seminar. In this course, students engage in a series of reflective conversations aimed to create space where they can articulate and refine their narratives surrounding an experiential learning activity, while learning from each other. This course offers continued career preparation, professional development advice, and support for students who are applying for their next internship, job, volunteer, or leadership experience. This course culminates with the creation and presentation of a showcase ePortfolio. At the end of this course, students are able to move confidently toward or away from a chosen career path and have the ability to confidently articulate what they have learned through their experience and how it has informed their goals moving forward.

This course centers on an intensive two-week sojourn in the Eternal City, Rome. Students use the urban topography, ancient ruins, modern reconstructions, and museums to immerse themselves in the lived experience of the city of Rome. Students learn architectural building techniques and systems of dating, problems in identifying surviving buildings, the iconography of Roman political sculpture, and issues of Roman copying and reuse of original Greek art. Students also engage with the incorporation of Roman monuments into subsequent architecture, including Mussolini's political (re)use of archaeology, as well as problems of conservation in the context of the modern city. Visits to the excavated cities of Pompeii and Ostia form part of the program and make visible the daily lives and activities of those individuals lost in the literary record, including women and slaves.

This course introduces students to the theoretical and practical aspects of public history, using the city of Tacoma as its subject. The course begins by examining the underpinnings and guiding practices that define public history. We examine (and sometimes visit) museums, community archives, historical societies and other groups to gain an understanding of the breadth of public history work. The second section of the course looks at the history of Tacoma with special attention paid to the ethnic and racial groups that have defined much of its modern history. In this section, we also consider the presences and silences of this history in present-day Tacoma. The last third of the course centers on the creation of an original, collaborative public history project relating to Tacoma history.

Everyone eats, and therefore everyone has a relationship to global agriculture. But because less than one percent of the US population earns a living from farming, most Americans rarely think about where our food comes from. This course explores the origins of our current global food system, the political-economic relations that structure it, and emerging alternatives to industrial food. The course begins with an overview of the global food system, including the actors and ideas that have shaped its historical development. Second, students examine the dominant paradigm of industrial agriculture and the politics of its organization primarily in the US context. Finally, students discuss some of the most prescient debates over the future of our food system with a focus on the local context. Note: this course includes a required weekly three-hour experiential session in addition to regular class sessions. This experiential session provides students the opportunity for hands-on learning through field trips, volunteering, and community-based projects. Students use class materials to bring an analytical lens to these experiences, and the course culminates in a major research project and presentation that engages local community gardeners.

This course is an introductory look at processes of music learning and music education models in American public schools. Students study the beginnings of American music education and study core concepts related to music education. Students participate in school-based placements that allow for direct experience with children developing their music skills and knowledge.

An introduction to the pedagogy of string teaching (violin, viola, `cello, and double bass) as it applies to individual and small group instruction (i.e.: the private studio.)

An introduction to foundations of music education with emphasis on junior high and high school band, choir, orchestra, and jazz programs. This course explores theories of learning as applied to music and of teaching as a career. Topics include development of skills in curriculum building, lesson planning, comprehensive musicianship, reflective teaching and inquiry in music education. Practicum teaching and observing within school music programs is included throughout the semester.

A study and practice of general music curriculum and instruction in elementary and middle schools. Students develop teaching goals, strategies, and lessons for singing, playing instruments, listening, composing, improvising, music reading, analyzing, and creative movement. Practicum teaching and observing within elementary school music programs is included throughout the semester.

This course invites students to go beyond the traditional classroom, and bring the ideas and practices of academic philosophy to a public audience. For example, Students may coorganize an undergraduate conference, in which they peer review submission from students across the country, construct a conference program, and provide commentaries on presentations. Or, students may coach ethics bowl, which is a competition aimed at solving ethical dilemmas, to local high school students on a weekly basis. The process of bringing the ideas and practices of academic philosophy to a public audience demands students to utilize flexible and sophisticated problem-solving skills to address unscripted problems. To build on these direct experiences, students must reflect on how the experiences have shaped the students' academic growth and understanding of self, others, or the world.

This course provides students with a unique opportunity to practice applying ethical theories to controversial ethical problems. An Ethics Bowl is a collaborative yet competitive event in which teams analyze a series of wide-ranging ethical dilemmas. Throughout the semester, students research and discuss case studies dealing with complex ethical issues in a number of practical contexts and possibly compete in an Ethics Bowl. Cases concern ethical problems on wide ranging topics, such as personal relationships (e.g. dating, friendship), professional ethics (e.g. cases in engineering, law, medicine), social and political ethics (e.g. free speech, gun control, health care, discrimination), technology (e.g. autonomous cars, carebots), and global issues (e.g. the impact of globalization, global warming, biodiversity).

Students work with a faculty instructor in the Psychology Department in conjunction with a site experience related to clinical, counseling, and other applied careers in the discipline. The course includes 8-10 hours per week of on-site work and 3 hours of class time where practicum experiences and course-relevant readings are discussed. Students also complete written assignments focused on their fieldwork experience. Open to juniors and seniors with at least a 2.5 GPA. This course is specifically aimed for advanced psychology students and counts as an upper division psychology elective. Students who desire a year-long experience may continue in a subsequent semester through the University's Internship Program and may make those arrangements through the Career and Employment Services Office.

Interested students must complete an application to be submitted early in the Fall term of their senior year.

BA majors can receive either upper-level elective credit for PSYC 497 or use PSYC 497 to fulfill the departmental experiential requirement, but not both.

What is the relationship between the university and the prison? How does college in prison raise questions of authority, power and privilege? This is an experiential learning class that combines involvement in a college program at the Washington Corrections Center for Women (WCCW) and academic classes and readings. Students read texts on the history of prisons, theories of punishment, higher education in prison, and how the intersection of race, gender and sexuality impact the experience of incarceration and education in prison. Students also participate as research partners and study hall co-learners with students at the prison in collaboration with the Freedom Education Project Puget Sound (FEPPS), a signature initiative of the University of Puget Sound. Through collaboration with FEPPS students, students in this class will gain knowledge about the challenges and benefits of the liberal arts in prison.

More than half of all humans on earth now dwell in cities, and urban life is almost certainly an integral aspect of our collective future. This course introduces students to the sociological and anthropological study of the city through an examination of the theories, concepts, and frameworks social scientists have deployed in seeking to understand cities. This examination includes a focus on urbanization, or the underlying processes by which cities emerge, and on urbanism, or the character of life in an urban built environment. The geographical focus of the class ranges from global cities in other parts of the world to the American cities with which students are familiar. This course includes a field-based experiential component that requires students to explore the themes they encounter over the semester in the urban context of Tacoma.

Ethnography is the study of human cultures. Ethnographic methods are the constellation of research tools that anthropologists (and nowadays, many others) use in exploring, understanding, and writing about human cultures. This course introduces students to the methodological craft of ethnographic inquiry, and includes an examination of the historical development of this methodological toolkit, the theoretical implications of this approach to research, the ethical considerations paramount to ethnographic research, and the practical concerns involved in "doing" ethnography. Students will have the opportunity to practice and deploy these research methods in fieldwork settings in the greater Tacoma area. The course is structured around the design and implementation of an independent research project that utilizes these methods for anthropological inquiry.

This course explores the relationship between documentary film and social movements in Latin America and Spain. Students analyze a series of 20th and 21st century social documentaries in their respective historical and political contexts, paying special attention to the techniques utilized by filmmakers and audiences to intervene in the public sphere. In the process, they become familiar with the conventions of different schools of documentary filmmaking in Spain and Latin America as well as the rationale behind the use of specific film techniques. This course fosters community-engaged learning and it satisfies the experiential learning graduation requirement. It combines film theory with hands-on experience in documentary filmmaking. Students expand on the concepts discussed in class by learning how to produce short documentary films that explore a social issue that affects Tacoma. As such this course requires significant out-of-class engagement with our local communities.

This course serves as an introduction to the process of theatrical direction through in-depth course work and an intensive practicum. Students build a foundation in visual composition, script analysis, scene work, and collaboration, using the classroom as a laboratory to practice communicating vision and working and working with actors. Students then apply their directorial approaches in rehearsal while developing administrative skills as they produce a culminating festival of student-directed one act plays and scenes for the public.