CapstoneCourseOption

AHS Capstone Proposal April 2006

Background

The current AHS Capstone requires all students to take a one semester Olin course that allows students to produce an AHS project in an area of their expertise, building upon their AHS concentration.

After running this activity for two semesters, some issues have arisen:

• Some students, particularly those with smaller AHS concentrations, are unprepared for advanced work in a specific AHS discipline and therefore have trouble meeting deadlines or producing a work they deem significant because they need to educate themselves on basic concepts.

• Many students are unfamiliar with the methods of advanced AHS work and challenge whether contextual research or intensive revisions are necessary (or struggle with these tasks even if they do not challenge them).

• Many students would benefit from taking an additional course in their Concentration. Having an additional course as part of the AHS Concentration was part of the original Olin curriculum (i.e., the AHS Capstone was initially intended to follow three courses of AHS work, and not just two as is now the case).

• This activity is extremely labor intensive for faculty, often taking as much or more work as a full-sized AHS course even though it is considered a half-course workload at most.

• This activity does not make the best use of faculty expertise, as much of the time is required for simple administrative tasks or coaching projects in a different AHS discipline.

The following proposal offers students a second alternative to the Olin Project Capstone, namely, a Course Capstone.

Proposal for the 2006-2007 Academic Year

There are both philosophical and pragmatic motives for this proposed plan.

• Philosophically, the AHS Committee has come to question whether a Project Capstone is the best way for all Olin AHS students to “cap off” their Olin experience.

• Pragmatically, the current program cannot be sustained given current AHS staffing. Currently 3.5 course-credits are devoted to it per year (where one course-credit corresponds to one faculty member teaching a typical Olin course of four credits). We learned this year that proper delivery of this course requires approximately 7 course-credits. The AHS Committee only has 11-13 FTEs/year (depending on the year because some faculty have AHS-light alternate years), and already requires adjuncts to fully deliver the curriculum. The AHS Committee is spending increasing quantities of time recruiting, training, and helping adjuncts, so that model is certainly not sustainable.

The AHS Committee proposes to allow the AHS Capstone requirement to be satisfied in one of two ways: via the Project Capstone (same as current AHS Capstone), or via a Course Capstone—an approved AHS course that further extends a student’s AHS Concentration. Whether they wish to take a Project Capstone or Course Capstone, in fall or spring, students must clear their plan with the AHS Committee by the end of the spring 2006 semester.

• Students can register for the AHS Project Capstone on April 19 if they wish to take it in the fall 2006 semester. This means the registration system does not have to change.

• The AHS Committee will email the entire class of 2007 and explain the new option to petition to replace their Olin AHS Capstone Project course with a Course Capstone, i.e., with an additional course in their AHS Concentration. All students in the class of 2007 must then do one of the following things by April 30:

1. Students who will take the E! Capstone course can email ahs@olin.edu and Steve Schiffman a message that says “I will take the E! Capstone in the _ semester.”

   • RESPONSE: Steve Schiffman will respond to these emails.

2. Students who wish to take the AHS Project Capstone at Olin in either semester must email ahs@olin.edu a brief checklist that lists their proposed project title, mentor, etc. The deadline for receipt of this petition is sometime in early May, for fall and spring students. If the spring students cannot yet complete the checklist, they should indicate their intention to enroll in the one-semester Capstone prep course in the fall.

   • RESPONSE: The section leaders (Lynn for fall, Caitrin for spring) will follow up with the students in their section as they see fit.

3. Students who wish to take the Course Capstone (an additional course in their concentration) must propose this course in an email to ahs@olin.edu indicating the semester, school, title and number of the course and a sentence about how it relates to the student’s already-approved concentration. The student will also paste into this proposal the course description from the relevant course catalog. The criterion for an acceptable course is that a student makes a convincing argument for how it extends or deepens the student’s concentration. Consistent with the philosophy behind this option, a student will need to show that he or she is exercising this Course Capstone option because he or she feels that, compared to a Project Capstone, it will benefit him or her more to get a chance to explore the concentration further through a course. Thus the student must explain why the Project Capstone is not a good choice for her or him. Students must choose their Course Capstone prior to starting a course. They cannot declare that a course is a Course Capstone once it has begun or retroactively. To fulfill the Capstone requirements with a Course, the student must give a presentation to the Olin Community at the end of the Capstone semester about how this course capped off his or her Concentration.

   • RESPONSE: The AHS committee will send a response explaining whether the course is approved or rejected as a Course Capstone.

4. All Project and Course Capstone students will give a presentation to the Olin community at the end of their Capstone semester in a Capstone Expo.

5. For the 2006-7 year, students who miss checklist deadlines will automatically be enrolled in the fall Project Capstone. Before the start of fall semester, those students may petition to AHS to enter the Project Capstone in spring or to take a Course Capstone in either semester.

AHS Capstone Prep Course for the 2006-2007 Academic Year

The AHS Committee requests permission to run the 1-credit AHS Capstone Prep course again in fall 2006. The course seems to be a success this semester, though we will make a full report to the ARB when the semester ends.

Proposal for the 2007-2008 Academic Year

The AHS Committee plans to revisit this issue for the 2007-2008 academic year, integrating the best successes of the two model year (2005-6 and 2006-7), and take appropriate action.