Skip to main content.
OSUN Menu
Education sub-menu
Education
OSUN Courses
Faculty
Graduate Programs
Certificate Programs
Mobility
Teaching
Birkbeck Summer School
Center for Liberal Arts and Sciences Pedagogy (CLASP)
Developing Teaching Professionals
Experiential Learning Institute
Global History Lab
Global Teaching Fellowship Program
GLOBALED
Curricula
CORUSUS
Economic Democracy Initiative
Experimental Humanities Collaborative Network
Global Studies
Hannah Arendt Humanities Network
Human Rights Program
Liberal Arts and Sciences Collaborative
Policy Labs
Professional Development Program for University Administrators
Strengthening the Core
Transnational Feminism, Solidarity, and Social Justice
Research sub-menu
Research
Research Projects
Community Engaged Research
The Democracy Institute
Economic Democracy Initiative
GEOHUB
Global Institute of Advanced Study
OSUN Forum on Democracy and Development
Research Creation Initiative
Senior Projects
Fellowships
Chatham House Academy Fellowships
Global Scholars Academy
Past Projects
Global Observatory on Academic Freedom
Open Society Research Platform
Access sub-menu
Access
Teacher Education
Enhanced Network Teacher Education Capacity
Hubs for Connected Learning Initiatives
Education Pathways
Collaborative for Liberal Education for Adolescents
Consortium for the Liberal Arts in Prison
Hubs for Connected Learning Initiatives
Microcollege for Just Community Leadership
Civic sub-menu
Civic Engagement
Student Engagement
Get Engaged Conference
Global Commons
Global Engagement Fellows
Engaged Learning
Certificate in Civic Engagement
Community Engaged Liberal Arts and Sciences
Community Engaged Research
Engaged Senior Projects
Experiential Learning Institute
OSUN Science Shop
Solve Climate by 2030
Academic Freedom sub-menu
Academic Freedom
Initiatives
AltLiberalArts
Invisible University for Ukraine
Smolny Beyond Borders
Threatened Scholars Integration Initiative
Institutional Partners
American University of Afghanistan
Parami University
News sub-menu
News + Opportunities
Newsroom
Current News
News Archive
Events
Current Events
Events Archive
Opportunities
For Students
For Faculty
Archive
Student Fellows and Ambassadors
Resources sub-menu
Resources
OSUN Resources
Academic Technology Guides
Blended Learning Toolkit
Digital Collection
Digital Case Studies
Digital Course Collection
Student-Produced Videos
About sub-menu
About
About OSUN
Our Vision
Who We Are
What We Do
Member Institutions
Themes
Annual Report
Branding
Search
Search
News & Events Menu
News & Events Menu
Newsroom
Current News
News Archive
Events
Current Events
Events Archive
Opportunities
Current Opportunities
Opportunities Archive
OSUN News
View all news
"A Very Fertile Field": CLASP Fellow Teacher Trainings Cultivate Student-Centered, Writing-Rich Innovations
Romina de Jong, Dean of Academic Affairs at Parami University (left) and Juan Carlos Duran Uribe, Adjunct Professor of Contract Law at Universidad de los Andes (right).
OSUN’s Center for Liberal Arts and Sciences Pedagogy (CLASP) marked the first year of its
Fellows Program
by gathering all 20 members of the current cohort for a series of in-person workshops this summer at Bard College.
The fellowship is a 2-year professional development opportunity for early to mid-career faculty who demonstrate pedagogical leadership. The current group of fellows hails from 15 partner institutions across the network, actively collaborating across disciplines as well as campuses. Fellows immerse themselves in training that helps them to apply student-centered, writing-rich teaching methods crucial to liberal arts and sciences education. The strategies they learn about can then be implemented in their classes and shared with peers, helping to grow a global community of faculty deeply committed to student-centered pedagogical innovation.
While attending the workshops,
Romina de Jong
, Dean of Academic Affairs at Parami University, an online institution offering Bachelor of Arts degree programs to underserved students from Myanmar, said the first year of the fellowship involved in-depth study of writing-based pedagogies that were helpful in formulating strategies she can use in her own pilot project.
De Jong’s project focuses on designing fully writing-based courses at Parami University. This means helping students develop a socially inquisitive mindset that can inform their studies. “I really want them to get a feel of how writing and thinking are connected and how to use this during their research,” she says.
She notes that studying liberal arts and sciences is relatively new to Myanmar and countries throughout Southeast Asia, where business or management degrees are usually viewed as more viable paths to career success. Conversely, studying liberal arts majors, such as philosophy, politics and economics, or statistics and data science, can help students develop skills that are applicable in a variety of occupations, she says. “We have no idea whether the jobs we have nowadays will still exist ten years from now, so it’s smarter to develop skill sets that can be used across disciplines and are desirable in different professional fields,” she adds.
De Jong says she is grateful she joined the fellowship at this time because it gives her tools she can use as the recently licensed Parami University launches its new undergraduate program. She and fellow faculty members can now implement writing-based pedagogies in a coordinated fashion.
The robust international infrastructure that OSUN provides has allowed De Jong to engage in several innovative cross-campus collaborations. She has co-taught an OSUN course with a colleague from BRAC University, bringing together students from Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar. “Bangladeshi and Burmese people normally do not get in touch with Rohingya, so this was exciting to do. It wouldn’t have happened without OSUN,” she says.
CLASP fellow
Juan Carlos Duran Uribe
, Adjunct Professor of Contract Law and coordinator of the Judicial Training Program at Universidad de los Andes in Colombia, says the first year of training in student-centered, intensive writing teaching has been helpful for both his teaching and faculty work, especially now that the School of Law is undergoing a curricular reform.
“We want our students to transfer what they learn into other contexts and to be critical and responsible citizens,” says Duran, who has been applying CLASP’s critical and socially engaged strategies to his contract law course.
Duran says one of the most striking things he has learned during the fellowship is that “writing is a way of slowing down your thoughts…Through writing, you are able to organize your thoughts so they are more coherent and reflective of what you are trying to say.” This goes a long way in helping students to “build reflection skills that will help them to live better as citizens.”
Meeting fellows from across the globe, Duran has also benefited from observing on a personal level that “your thoughts, struggles, and worries as a professor are shared by many others all around the world.” He also feels certain that the connections he has made with other fellows will lead to networks of like-minded educators who wish to do the same type of teaching. “It’s a very fertile field to create collaborative work in the future,” he concludes.
As the second year of the fellowship progresses, OSUN and the CLASP leadership look forward to observing the exciting innovations fellows will bring to their teacher research capstone projects, as well as the mentorships they will conduct with the incoming cohort.
Post Date:
10-10-2022