14C New Student Edition - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, September 6, 2000 Experiential courses give students new perspective By Eddie Ahn and Jeannie Baumann Daily Staff Reporters Juliana Kua, an LSA freshman from Singapore, took a crash course in American history and culture through a spring break tour of the Civil Rights movement in the deep South. "It was an eye-opener to Ameri- can culture," Kua said. "I learned so much I never would have been able to learn in a classroom." Kua's spring break experience also brought her one credit closer to graduation. The trip was an experi- ential course offered by the Lloyd Hall Scholars Program called "Get on the Bus." "I wanted them to experience the Civil Rights Movement and get an idea of what it was like to be there," said LHSP Instructor Joe Gonzalez, who taught the course. ie said the 12 students traveled through cities such as Atlanta, Birmingham and Montgomery, Ala., experiencing everything from a speech by Coretta Scott King to run-ins with Ku Klux Klan members. Taking students out of the class- room environment, the University is offering nearly 70 experiential classes for the Fall 2000 academic term. "Books are good. Classrooms are good. But so is experience - experience is important," Gonzalez said. LSA freshman Patricia Welsh said the class provided unforget- table memories. Welsh describes her most memorable experience on the trip as "walking from the Dexter Church up to the Martin Luther King Memorial, and when we got there we all held hands and sang 'We Shall Overcome."' The psychology.and sociology departments offer several experien- tial courses. Some of the classes offered provide students a learning experience through mentorships. Psychology 307, "Directed Expe- riences with Children," allows stu- dents to work with children from 18 months through kindergarten at two University children's centers. "Students start to recognize all of the layers of learning that are going on that sometimes on the surface may seem very basic and very sim- ple," said University Children's Centers Director Karey Leach, who teaches Psychology 307. The course combines hands-on experience teaching pre-schoolers and a lecture format. It requires a few written assignments and no midterm or final. "The textbooks of the class are the children. The coursepack is really the way to provide overarch- ing aspects of child education," Leach said. LSA freshman Christina Urbanowicz's Psychology 211 course in criminal justice placed her in a mentoring situation at the Maxey W. J. Boys Training School in Whitmore Lake. "It makes me feel good to do something to influence (the boys)," Urbanowicz said. Through experiential classes, stu- dents learn to apply academic theo- ries to practical applications. Mabel Rodriquez teaches a two- part course on migrant outreach. .During the spring term, students "academically analyze" migrant workers in the Michigan. In the summer term, the students will visit migrant campus through- out southeastern Michigan and edu- cate migrant workers about pesti- cide, educational opportunities and health issues--- all in Spanish. "They will have a first-hand experience of the living conditions, while battling the same linguistics issues that the workers have to face," she said. Stella Raudenbush, executive director for the Michigan K-12 Ser. vice-Learning Center, teaches Educa- tion 317, "Leadership: multicultural, cross-disciplinary and intergenera- tional perspectives," which combines lecture, class discussions and work- ing in senior centers. She said the class gives students a deeper understanding of what lead- ership is. "You really learn best by doing," Raudenbush said. "The whole pur- pose of an education is to under- stand ourselves as human beings. What else is there?" A Classroom notetakers for hearing impaired students. Use MAC or IBM laptop provided by Services for Students with Disabilities. Must type 80 words per minute. $12.00/hour. 7 R" >: