Food For Thought [FFT] Learning Community Our FFT learning community is multidisciplinary with service-learning that aims to help students contextualize what they are learning in their courses while developing the skills to work and communicate with others and understand diverse perspectives. The community includes faculty, students, and community organizations. Service-learning communities are typically organized so that the student takes several courses simultaneously that provide the academic scaffolding for the service experience. Our work builds on the understanding of the value added of learning communities and engagement through service-learning; however, rather than the academic course work providing the focal point for integration, the multi-course student teams work with community partners who have in common service needs relating to food (providing food, growing food, and educating the community about food). Students learn how to work across the disciplines to provide community organizations with products and assistance that relate to the common theme of food. Students individually reflect on their understanding of food and integrate course (discipline) specific content. They share and make visible their thinking in an electronic portfolio that links the multidisciplinary learning community with the common theme (food literacy) and purpose (civic engagement).

The Focus of the Investigation Two interdisciplinary initiatives on the IUB campus, Human Biology [HUBI] and the Environmental Literacy and Sustainability Initiative [ELSI], seek to advance knowledge that transcends disciplinary boundaries and to provide transformative learning experiences that nurture students in their cognitive, social, ethical, cultural and global identities. This project will develop and test a novel model of cross-disciplinary service learning as one approach to achieving our goals of fostering student interdisciplinary understanding, intellectual and personal development, and civic engagement. We will collect a variety of data on students and community partners and use faculty and program portfolios as a framework for evaluating this data in order to assess our questions about student learning and community outcomes and to allow faculty to reflect on and plan for improvements in individual courses and the service-learning program as a whole. Environmental Literacy and Sustainability Initiative Human Biology Mother Hubbard's Cupboard Hilltop Garden and Nature Center SPROUTS

Fostering the Work of the Learning Community June 15th, 2006: The faculty and community partners meet to discuss the goals of the project and establish potential service-learning projects. During this meeting the group begins to address the question: What do we mean by "food literacy"? An affinity map is used to initiate this common understanding that will eventually assist faculty and community partners in focusing and connecting student learning goals for the semester. June - July, 2006: Subcommittees meet to plan and prepare to do the work of implementing the service-learning courses and collecting the data this Fall Semester 2006. August 14th (1-5 PM) and August 16th (1-4 PM), 2006: Student Portfolio and Faculty Course Portfolio Workshops for faculty. Fall Semester 2006: Lunch meetings bi-weekly throughout the semester facilitated implementation, shared experience, and problem-solving of the pedagogical model. Spring Semester 2007: Faculty Course Portfolio development is the focus of our work for the Spring Semester. This is facilitating a "mining' of the data and providing a context for the evidence of student learning within each course. Summer 2007: Evaluating and analyzing evidence of student learning is the focus of individual faculty work this summer. In addition, debriefing with community partners during the late Sring and early summer has provided valuable insights that will be most beneficial to or Fall work. Individual faculty have been sharing the work of FFT with their colleagues across the country, for example Heather Reynolds gave a presentation at the Ecological Society of America conference in August. Fall 2007: Composing the Project Portfolio will be the work for the Fall with a keen eye to two presentations planned during the Spring Semester 2008, AAC&U in January and a SOTL Event in late March. A Fall meeting of the CASTL Leadership cluster at IUB provides FFT the opportunity to take its work in progress public. In addition, FFT will conclude the project with a poster at the annual celebration and a poster presentation at a the "Effective Educational Practices" AAC&U conference in Austin, TX, April 10-12, 2008. Portfolio Workshops The agenda for the Faculty Course Portfolio and Student E-Portfolio Workshops held in August 2006 are provided as a PDF file.

Our Research Approach Pedagogical Model Being Investigated: Our pedagogical model is a constellation of multiple service-learning courses across a range of disciplines, organized around a central theme and a common set of community partners, with a built-in support mechanism for cross-disciplinary sharing and collaboration - a learning community. We have chosen food and agriculture as a model interdisciplinary theme that cuts across critical social, economic and environmental issues at local to global scales, but we anticipate broad utility of our approach in advancing teaching and learning about other inherently multidisciplinary issues in the HUBI curriculum and beyond (e.g. environmental literacy, human health and disease). Our model operates very much within the framework of the Teaching Commons, where faculty, students and community come together to engage in experiential learning, dialogue and reflection, making visible both the work of teaching and learning and its power to transform student, faculty and community life.

Student Portfolio Gallery: The student learning community and their individual electronic portfolios. [A link provided access for all students to one another's portfolios during the Fall 2006 Semester.] Issues in Dietetics HPER N401 A culminating class to address current issues in dietetics, including such topics as medical ethics, CAM, and reimbursement for services. Students will develop a career portfolio and ready themselves for the dietetic internship process. Risk Communication SPEA E412/512 Risk communication is the means by which technical information is communicated to others (the public included), especially in the context of making decisions about environmentally related policy (such as siting of a landfill). The course emphasizes both theory (in lectures) and practical experience through developing and acting in role-play scenarios. Graphic Design StudioFINA S452 Directed, advanced study in graphic design. The City as Ecosystem COLL E105 Can cities and nature coexist? This course will provide a foundation in ecosystem ecology and explore its applications to the creation of sustainable communities. Topics include ecosystem services, global change, and sustainable use of resources. FFT Student Electronic Portfolio Template A template was developed to help students with the construction of their e-portfolios. This template was emailed to student KEEP accounts.

Faculty Course Portfolios [A template used by faculty to develop their final course portfolios, linking their evidence of student learning from their individual courses as it relates to the central question of this project is linked above. Individual faculty course portfolios are linked below with each faculty participant.] Vicky Getty, Director, Didactic Program in Dietetics, Applied Health Sciences,Issues in Dietetics Diane Henshel, Associate Professor, School of Public and Environmental Affairs,Risk Communication James Reidhaar, Associate Professor, School of Fine Arts,Graphic Design BFA Studio Heather Reynolds, Associate Professor, Biology,The City As Ecosystem Faculty Course Portfolio Template This template is being used by participating faculty to initiate their course portfolios and to foster discussion across the disciplines and courses for faculty.

Emerging Results Evidence of Student Learning and Civic Engagement

Presentations and Publications Poster Presentation SOTL Spring Celebration, April 2007 Poster Presentation Ecological Society of America Conference, August 2007 SOTL Event Presentation, March 28, 2008 Roundtable Presentatiom AAC&U Effective Educational Practices Conference, Austin, TX, April 2008 Poster Presentation SOTL Spring Celebration, April 2008 FFT Ecological Society of America - Reynolds 2007 This poster was presented by Heather Reynolds in August 2007. FFT AAC&U 2008 Roundtable Handout FFT IUB SOTL 2008 Presentation March 28th, 2008 SOTL Leadership Grant Presentation FFT IUB SOTL 2008 Spring Poster Session April 25th, 2008 SOTL Spring Celebration

Helpful Resources and References Teaching and Learning at Indiana University The Advancement of Learning: Building the Teaching Commons Carnegie's integrative Learning Project Portfolio AAC&U LEAP Final Report (pdf) AAC&U Assessment Resources Peer Review of Teaching Project Whitney Schlegel: Seeing Student Thinking and Building a Space for Collaborative Faculty Curriculum Development Jack Mino: Making Interdisciplinary Connections Gallery Portfolio