The Chronicle Blog Network, a digital salon sponsored by The Chronicle of Higher Education, features leading bloggers from all corners of academe. Content is not edited, solicited, or necessarily endorsed by The Chronicle.
Building Knowledge Together: Interactive Course Exhibits as Project-Based Learning
By Brian MathewsJuly 12, 2015
A program I’m proud of at Virginia Tech is something we call Course Exhibits. The philosophy behind it is that there are all these great conversations happening behind the closed doors of the classroom—what if we could make that public?
We’re sorry, something went wrong.
We are unable to fully display the content of this page.
This is most likely due to a content blocker on your computer or network.
Please allow access to our site and then refresh this page.
You may then be asked to log in, create an account (if you don't already have one),
or subscribe.
If you continue to experience issues, please contact us at 202-466-1032 or help@chronicle.com.
A program I’m proud of at Virginia Tech is something we call Course Exhibits. The philosophy behind it is that there are all these great conversations happening behind the closed doors of the classroom—what if we could make that public?
We provide a visible space in the library and offer a wide variety of components: digital screens, display cases, projection, large format printing, etc. We can also do a lot of customized work such as wood structures, 3D printed items, and fabric. On top of that we also provide technical and design support.
ADVERTISEMENT
A number of faculty have taken us up on this and each time we improve. But it’s definitely not an easy sell. “Build an interactive exhibit” is intimidating if you’re not in a design major. I’ve encountered a handful of professors who like the concept but are concerned about student pushback. As we do more of these I’m hopefully that the barriers to entry will be reduced.
Inspiration I was inspired by the work of Charlie Bennett at Georgia Tech who worked with an English course exploring homelessness in Atlanta. The students studied the Mad Housers and constructed a shelter together. They also created an assortment of digital content and print artifacts related to the theme. The library housed all of this of this as an exhibit.
Exhibit at Georgia Tech
Library Commons as Showroom At Virginia Tech we’re building around the theme of the commons as a showroom for knowledge. We want people to be surrounded by interesting interdisciplinary works. See what your peers are working on. Sometimes that means displaying research posters as a gallery and other times it’s a full-blown installation. The aim is to regularly refresh the content every few weeks. The Pedagogy We’re trying to tap into the spirit of “learning by making” with the idea of translating course material into something that is communicated to a general audience.
ADVERTISEMENT
Lauren Pressley talks about how this project exemplifies Chickering & Gamson’s good practices in undergraduate education:
Scott Fralin is our master builder. None of this would exist without him. He has run with it and made the program his own. He builds everything from scratch and spends a lot of time working directly with faculty and students.
