Student seminars make the grade

In the next two weeks, some undergraduate students will be applying to teach their own UCLA courses.

Undergraduate Student Initiated Education, a new program being offered by the UCLA College, lets upperclassmen propose, develop, and facilitate one-unit seminars. Much like Fiat Lux classes, the discussion-based, student-run courses would focus on very specific topics and be graded on a pass/no pass basis.

USIE is based on UC Berkeley’s DeCal, a 25-year-old program that now offers between 100 and 150 student-facilitated classes each semester.

Jeff David, a fourth-year history and political science student, has been planning his proposed seminar on science fiction for two years – ever since he found out he might have a chance to design a class at UCLA.

“I got really excited about it. I wrote up a syllabus – it was like, ‘All right, let’s go,’” he said.

This past June, the Academic Senate voted to approve the USIE program, giving students such as David the opportunity to put their plans into action and facilitate classes as early as this spring.

Some students are most excited about the teaching aspect of the program.

“I did a bit of teaching when I was in high school, and I always liked to help my friends study,” David said, adding that his passion for science fiction made the topic a natural choice.

Other students are working on seminar applications in hopes of broadening the scope of subjects offered at UCLA.

Faith Christiansen, a fourth-year political science student and chairman of the Bruin Republicans, said she would like to facilitate a course about conservative political leaders or movements.

“There is not intellectual diversity on our campus,” Christiansen said. “A lot of the upper-division classes get very specific. I guess I could call them leftist-leaning.”

Christiansen said she thinks many students would like a wider variety of class options, regardless of their individual politics, and her class would be a step in that direction.

Amit Urban, a fourth-year international development studies student and a member of the Student Welfare Commission’s Substance Abuse Awareness Committee, also said he wants to expand the school’s curriculum.

“I didn’t see anything (about substance abuse) at UCLA, so I thought it would be cool to teach a class,” he said.

But before they are allowed into the classroom, student facilitators must find faculty mentors, shape their ideas into lesson plans, and take a course to learn classroom management skills.

Course proposals are due next week, and many say they are having difficulty securing faculty mentors. David, Christiansen and Urban all said they are still searching for professors to back their proposed classes and help them plan their lessons.

Students had mixed opinions about taking courses taught by their peers. Some said taking a student-facilitated course might be better than taking a course taught by a professor.

“I think it would be interesting,” said Kelly Ro, a fourth-year math student. “If they’re in that program, you know it’s because they want to teach. With some professors, you know they just want to do research.”

But other students are unsure how valuable a course run by another undergraduate student would be.

“I’d be concerned about how much knowledge I’d get out of it,” said Timothy Ho, a second-year undeclared student.

Monica Aviles, a fourth-year math student, said she might worry about facilitators’ biases.

“If you’re a student, you interact with other students,” she said. “There may be a personal conflict in there.”

Polly Pagenhart, who coordinates facilitator training and resources for UC Berkeley’s DeCal program, explained that learning from professors is very different from learning from other students, and said the two should not be compared so directly.

“The biggest problem ... comes when you mistake peer education as a poor duplicate of expert-driven education,” Pagenhart said.

“The point of these classes is not for a student to replicate a professor’s role,” she said. “The point is for us to inspire peers to work together (to create) a space in which students can take responsibility for their own learning process.”

Meanwhile, aspiring student facilitators are thinking about how to handle the difficulties that may arise from teaching other undergraduates.

“I thought it would be weird seeing my students at a party or in a social setting,” Urban said.

He added that the social aspect could lend a positive, productive dynamic to a seminar.

David said he was not worried about personal conflicts of interest, and would not hesitate to give a friend a failing grade if it were deserved.

“If I had a friend in a class, then that friend should know to do what needs to be done,” he said. “If they’re my friend and they’re not working hard, then what are they doing in my class?”

Christiansen and David said they plan to keep their classes engaged by emulating aspects of good professors’ teaching styles.

“I think the more interactive and the more personal professors get, the more students learn,” Christiansen said. “As soon as someone cracks a joke or puts a personal example into it, people remember.”

“The trick is to get the students interested,” David said. “Once they get in, we’ll keep them interested.”