Irit Kleiman and Her Students Got GUTS
This past February, Assistant Professor of French Irit Kleiman and her students celebrated a grant award from the Grants for Undergraduate Teaching and Scholarship (GUTS) program. In the following interview, Kleiman discusses this innovative project, which partners undergraduates with faculty in determining future course offerings.
Q: What is the project about? How will it be implemented?
IK (Irit Kleimain): At its broadest level, my project is about giving talented students a chance to explore the pleasures of research; about cultivating the wonderful pool of talent in our RS students; about building teaching materials that can bring the world of medieval French letters alive in the classroom; and about bringing together teaching and research. I’ll be guiding a team of four undergraduates, students of mine in medieval literature courses, as they carry out independent research projects based on their own particular interests. Each student will write up and write about their research experience, and s/he will also assemble a portfolio of targeted multi-media materials for use in teaching medieval literature in its full performative, manuscript-based, and historical context. At the end of the semester, we’ll hold a mini-conference where the students will share their work with the broader BU community. All are invited!
Q: Why do you think it’s beneficial for undergrads to be involved in the decision-making process behind course offerings?
IK: Asking students to think critically about what goes into the processes of learning and teaching—to think strategically about the goals of pedagogy as communication and guided critical inquiry—requires them to think critically about learning itself, about the goals of classroom education, and about why something (a text, an image, etc.) is important. I think that students are capable of working at this higher level, and that the experience of shifting planes, so to speak, can be transformative.
Q: What do you hope students will take away from this experience? What are you expecting in terms of the results of the project?
IK: First and foremost, I want each of these four students to come away feeling deeply enriched by an intense and wonderful learning experience. I want them to feel satisfaction at their own growth, and pride in their own accomplishments. Next, I want to have materials that I can use for years ahead to deepen the classroom learning experiences of my students. I want to be able to say, “a student in the class X years ago built this,” and I want the student hearing those words to be motivated to carry out his/her own project.