Ever wonder what the deal was with that one-unit class on Disney films being taught by the guy down the hall last spring? Were those fliers a joke or could students actually get academic credit for learning something fun, yet interesting, from a peer? This is just one example of a Student Initiated Course (SIC), a laid-back, discussion-based class option worthy of consideration.<\/p>\n
SICs take advantage of one of Stanford\u2019s most valuable resources\u2013the student body itself. Students have the opportunity to design a curriculum and instruct their peers on a specific topic of interest.<\/p>\n
These one- to two-unit weekly classes taught for credit\/no credit cover an eclectic range of unusual\u2013and often under-represented\u2013subjects. This quarter, students had the opportunity to enroll in SICs ranging from \u201cDevelopment and Diversity in Papua New Guinea\u201d to \u201cDiscoveries and Debates in Neuroscience Research\u201d to an \u201cIntro to North American Taiko.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jenna Gunderson \u201911, an avid sports fan, co-taught a course called \u201cIntroduction to American Sports in American Society\u201d last quarter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe thought that some Stanford students might be interested in learning more about sports,\u201d she said. \u201cWe thought maybe it would get them pumped for going to different sporting events.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dan Bohm \u201910 taught the class with her. Unsurprisingly, he\u2019s also a big sports fan\u2013he writes for The Daily\u2019s sports section and has played and coached different sports throughout his life. In coming up with the idea for the class, both Bohm and Gunderson felt that providing students with greater exposure to sports and their rules, histories and roles in our society might make students more excited about attending Stanford games.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted to spread the wealth about sports to a group on campus that we thought wasn\u2019t necessarily as interested as we were,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Janani Balasubramanian \u201812 and Matthew Miller \u201812, who are teaching a class called \u201cThe Color of Ecoliteracy\u201d this quarter, also wanted to expose fellow students to their combined intellectual passions of racial studies and the environment. They felt that these particular passions were lacking adequate coverage in the available professor-led courses here.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a lot of really great environmental studies classes and a lot of great classes on race,\u201d Balasubramanian said. \u201cBut there aren\u2019t that many classes that deal with both.\u201d<\/p>\n
Miller agreed that SICs like theirs have the potential to provide a more interdisciplinary angle to topics than the typical department offerings might.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe feel that a lot of times classes make you fraction off your academic passions and not really deal with the whole equation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
One of Miller and Balasubramanian\u2019s students, Rachel Dowling \u201910, signed up for the class because of its efforts to synthesize two previously isolated issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cI decided to take this class because there aren\u2019t any other classes that deal with this specific issue,\u201d she said. \u201cIt addresses a unique feature of environmentalism.\u201d<\/p>\n
To lead a SIC, teachers-to-be are required to attend training sessions, secure a faculty advisor, fill out an application and prepare for a quarter\u2019s worth of instruction by assembling materials, PowerPoints and discussion ideas.<\/p>\n
According to students who have taken SICs before, their shortcomings are minimal and understandable due to the logistics of these classes; they simply don\u2019t meet that often in any given quarter.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor a one-unit class that meets only one hour a week, I thought that most of the drawbacks\u2013lack of coverage of certain topics, for instance\u2013were manageable and understandable,\u201d said Chris Seck \u201810 who took Gunderson and Bohm\u2019s class on sports in the fall.<\/p>\n
Helen Kwan \u201911, who took a SIC on Harry Potter her freshman year, had little to say in complaint about her SIC either.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe the biggest drawback would be a lack of potential resources that professors have access to,\u201d she stated.<\/p>\n
In addition to providing students with exposure to under-explored areas of interest, SICs also foster a different, more comfortable format of idea exchange within the classroom setting.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn most regular classes, the information tends to flow one way\u2013the professor enlightens the student with lectures and stories,\u201d Seck noted. \u201cIn student-led classes, the experience tends to be more interactive because the age gap\u2013and experience gap\u2013is not so great.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ever wonder what the deal was with that one-unit class on Disney films being taught by the guy down the hall last spring? Were those fliers a joke or could students actually get academic credit for learning something fun, yet interesting, from a peer? This is just one example of a Student Initiated Course (SIC), […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-201769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201769\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}