Linked General Undergraduate Courses - Library and Art History

This link was an experiment joining a small seminar-style class (LIBR201) with a large lecture class (A/HI271). Ten students registered for both courses. During a Writing Instruction Support retreat that both faculty attended in August 2013, they developed the linked aspect of the course by working through the overarching pedagogical theory driving this particular retreat, the idea of the “threshold concept,” which Dr. Carmen Werder has described as a “discipline-based concept that provides a transformational understanding and entrance to that discipline.” The instructors developed a threshold concept that helped to bind their courses together: “Data are not only textual but also visual and oral; there are data beyond texts.” This concept became the organizing principle for how the Link would function.