As a project-based course, XCC students and faculty engage in projects with community partners to contextualize active, experiential learning while addressing a real-world challenge or enduring human question. Students rely on robust team and project experiences to apply theoretical knowledge to practical problems while honing collaboration, creativity, and communication skills.
“In all my years of teaching I have never felt as supported in my teaching as I have in this Cross-College Challenge experience.”
Janine Bempechat – Clinical Prof – Wheelock
As external stakeholders, community partners enable students to develop accountability for their work to researchers, nonprofits, entrepreneurs, alumni, and others for whom the students’ work will have an impact. Community partners benefit from new and diverse perspectives on their proposed projects and receive a deliverable (report, prototype, etc.) as the product of a rigorous academic process. In the past, faculty have often relied on their personal networks or fellow researchers to identify suitable community partners to serve as experts on the project subject matter. In other cases, faculty are matched with community partners who have proposed projects through the XCC website.
Team-Taught
XCC is open to all full-time BU faculty from both the Charles River and Medical Campuses. Part-time and adjunct faculty may also be considered. XCC faculty model interdisciplinary collaboration within their sections and guide student teams as they tackle substantial real-world challenges. Faculty pairs are formed in XCC in different ways. Sometimes two faculty members express interest together to work as a teaching team. In other cases, individual faculty members are introduced to potential faculty partners from a different school or college who have similar interests. XCC looks to leverage the different strengths and disciplines of the teaching partners as the faculty team models the interdisciplinary focus of XCC. The sooner that a teaching partner is identified, the sooner the remaining process of course development can proceed.
Faculty do not necessarily need to have expertise in the subject area of their project; however, they ensure academic rigor and that the Hub area learning outcomes are met.
Integrated General Education
The Cross-College Challenge course is the only Hub course allowed to carry 4 Hub requirements. Therefore, the design of each section/project needs to be explicit about how it is teaching to these areas and meeting the learning outcomes. This needs to be articulated in the syllabus. All of the XCC courses satisfy the Intellectual Toolkit Hub requirements in Creativity/Innovation, Research and Information Literacy, and Teamwork/Collaboration. The fourth Hub requirement addresses Communication in written, oral, and digital forms, and varies by course number. The 6 Hub requirements and their respective learning outcomes are as follows:
Intellectual Toolkit
Creativity/Innovation
BU students across all fields of study will benefit from learning how to think in new ways, imagine new possibilities, take new approaches, and/or make new things. Creative activity is a source of deep human satisfaction and common good. In addition, the ability to generate and pursue new ideas is quickly becoming a prerequisite for entry into the skilled workforce, which places a premium on applicants’ creative skills and potential for contributing to creativity’s more applied offspring, innovation. BU graduates should understand how the creative process moves from need or desire to design to draft to redesign to execution; they will have personal experience of taking risks, failing, and trying again; and, in this way, they will have developed the patience and persistence that enables creativity to come ultimately to fruition.
Students are required to fulfill two requirements in this area. LEARNING OUTCOMES (all outcomes are required)
Students will demonstrate understanding of creativity as a learnable, iterative process of imagining new possibilities that involves risk-taking, use of multiple strategies, and reconceiving in response to feedback, and will be able to identify individual and institutional factors that promote and inhibit creativity.
Students will be able to exercise their own potential for engaging in creative activity by conceiving and executing original work either alone or as part of a team.
KEY CONSIDERATIONS FOR XCC PROJECTS/COURSES:
How does the Design Thinking Process apply to the problem students will tackle?
Can this process be explicitly used to inform the structure and approach of the course and project?
Design Thinking Process:
Understand: Learn more about the people and the problem
Reframe: Search for meaning and insights
Ideate: Generate and evaluate new ideas
Prototype: Create something to communicate your idea
Test: Gather and apply feedback to improve the idea
Show: Share your idea with others
Students should reflect on and discuss the processes they are using to build innovative thinking and creativity into their problem-solving approaches
Research and Information Literacy
Scholarly research—the process of posing problems, designing effective investigative strategies, collecting and evaluating information, drawing conclusions, and presenting findings—drives the creation and dissemination of new knowledge in and across all academic disciplines, professions, and walks of life. Today’s information explosion places a particular requirement on anyone doing research to develop the abilities associated with information literacy—knowing how to locate needed information, assess the accuracy of sources, and use them to good effect. Boston University’s mission as a research university embraces the conviction that research and information literacy should be central to an undergraduate university education. By learning from scholars on the BU faculty how new knowledge is created and disseminated, and by conducting or participating in research, BU students join a community of inquiry with a commitment to the pursuit of knowledge that crosses borders and connects generations.
LEARNING OUTCOMES (all outcomes are required)
Students will be able to search for, select, and use a range of publicly available and discipline-specific information sources ethically and strategically to address research questions.
Students will demonstrate understanding of the overall research process and its component parts, and be able to formulate good research questions or hypotheses, gather and analyze information, and critique, interpret, and communicate findings.
KEY CONSIDERATIONS FOR XCC PROJECTS/COURSES:
Students should understand that information literacy is not a “one-shot” deal (e.g., one visit by the library staff), and that students need to broaden their understanding of research.
Key questions faculty should be asking:
What role can research play in the project as it develops?
How can faculty get students to go beyond what they are given to read?
Key questions to ask students at the outset and throughout the course:
What do you (students) know about this topic?
How do you know it?
Students as producers of information
Why do you (students) need to cite your sources when producing work?
Students need to understand how this builds credibility and why that is important
Consider using low-stakes assignments early in the semester
Have students reflect on the research process – think about what they learned regarding information literacy.
Teamwork/Collaboration
Collaboration defines the 21st-century workplace. Employers rely increasingly on teams—groups of people with different backgrounds and training who tackle projects jointly—and they identify the ability to collaborate with these diverse groups as an essential skill for almost every position. Civic life in an increasingly interdependent world also calls more and more for the ability to collaborate with people from different backgrounds and with different perspectives, build consensus, and compromise for the good of a broader purpose. Training in and the practical experience of teamwork teaches the process of innovation, develops leadership, and fosters knowledge of one’s own strengths and appreciation for those of others.
Courses and cocurricular activities in this area must have all outcomes.
LEARNING OUTCOMES (all outcomes are required)
As a result of explicit training in teamwork and sustained experiences of collaborating with others, students will be able to identify the characteristics of a well-functioning team.
Students will demonstrate an ability to use the tools and strategies of working successfully with a diverse group, such as assigning roles and responsibilities, giving and receiving feedback, and engaging in meaningful group reflection that inspires collective ownership of results.
The project needs to be designed such that teamwork and collaboration are necessary in order to complete the project. The complexity of the project must engage multiple viewpoints and experiences, leverage different skill sets, and require an interdisciplinary approach in order for the project to be accomplished. This is the foundational principle of the Cross-College Challenge.
Students need explicit instruction in teamwork so that they understand how to create and maintain an effective team.
Teams should complete a team contract in which they explicitly set goals, assign roles and responsibilities, discuss their processes, and identify how they will work together.
In addition, teams should have at least one experience giving and receiving feedback within the team.
ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS – CREATING TEAMS
Faculty should assign members to teams (no self-selection by students)
Diversify the team members (e.g., college, major, class year, gender, skills, etc.)
Consider asking students to self-identify strengths/skills or preferred roles (e.g., Writer, Analyzer, Organizer, Presenter, Data Analyzer, Editor, etc.)
Communication
Digital Multimedia Expression
In a world where messages are routinely conveyed through audiovisual media, BU students need to develop an understanding of the role and impact of color, composition, rhythm, and acoustics that matches their mastery of verbal syntax and rhetoric. Today, in addition to live performances and installations, BU graduates receive information and experience the world through websites, videos, and podcasts. They must be able not only to consume and appreciate these and other forms of digital expression, but to evaluate and produce them.
LEARNING OUTCOMES (all outcomes are required)
Students will be able to craft and deliver responsible, considered, and well-structured arguments using media and modes of expression appropriate to the situation.
Students will be able to demonstrate an understanding of the capabilities of various communication technologies and be able to use these technologies ethically and effectively.
Students will be able to demonstrate an understanding of the fundamentals of visual communication, such as principles governing design, time-based and interactive media, and the audiovisual representation of qualitative and quantitative data.
KEY CONSIDERATIONS FOR XCC PROJECTS/COURSES:
Consider the various ways that you will be using and teaching audiovisual media throughout the course and the project. For example:
Will students be communicating with external community partners using different media? If so, what do they need to learn in order to do that professionally and respectfully?
Students will be communicating with each other on teams as well as managing their projects – what are best practices and communication technologies for doing this?
What project-related digital media assignments will help students meet the learning outcomes?
Students will make some type of team presentation at the end of the semester (e.g., to class, community partners, XCC Expo, etc.). What do they need to know (about their audience, ways to convey their messages, appropriate media to use, etc.)?
Students should reflect on what they learned regarding oral and/or signed communication.
Oral and/or Signed Communication
BU students should be able to communicate information in a clear and coherent formal oral and/or signed presentation, to engage responsibly with others, and to make use of a range of disciplinary appropriate informal oratory. As with writing, effective oral/signing communicators should prepare remarks with an awareness of their purpose and their audience. Because oral and/or signed communication is generally interactive, students should be able to attend and respond thoughtfully to others. They should also understand that public presentation serves an essentially civic function as a means of participating in collective debate and decision-making.
LEARNING OUTCOMES (all outcomes are required)
Students will be able to craft and deliver responsible, considered, and well-structured oral and/or signed arguments using media and modes of expression appropriate to the situation.
Students will demonstrate an understanding that oral/signed communication is generally interactive, and they should be able to attend and respond thoughtfully to others.
Students will be able to speak/sign effectively in situations ranging from the formal to the extemporaneous and interact comfortably with diverse audiences.
KEY CONSIDERATIONS FOR XCC PROJECTS/COURSES:
Consider the various ways that you will be using and teaching oral and/or signed communication throughout the course and the project. For example:
Will students be communicating with external clients or constituents? If so, what do they need to learn in order to do that professionally and respectfully?
Students will be communicating with each other on teams – what are some best practices for doing this so that they can “attend and respond thoughtfully to others”?
Students will be making some type of team presentation at the Showcase at the end of the semester. What do they need to know (about their audience, ways to convey their messages, appropriate media to use, etc.)?
Are there other formal or informal presentations that students will make (e.g., to the class, to clients, etc.)?
Students should reflect on what they learned regarding oral and/or signed communication.
Writing Intensive
Writing is fundamental, the most important form of expression that BU undergraduates must develop. In almost every professional setting, BU graduates must be able to express their ideas in clear, coherent prose. Effective writing demands the honing of skills, but it also cultivates ways of thinking, evaluating evidence, constructing responsible and convincing arguments, and generating creative ideas. As effective writers, BU graduates will pay close attention to the potential readers of their writings; as responsible writers, they will take ownership of their message and the means of communicating it, and hold their writing to high standards of truth, accuracy, validity, and humaneness.
Writing-Intensive courses also accommodate students’ learning to write to the standards of majors and professions, such as journalism, that place a premium on the difference between arguments and expository accounts.
Writing-Intensive Courses have the First-Year Writing Seminar as a prerequisite and develop at least learning outcomes 1 and 2 below.
LEARNING OUTCOMES (outcomes 1 and 2 are required, outcome 3 is optional)
Students will be able to craft responsible, considered, and well-structured written arguments, using media and modes of expression appropriate to the situation.
Students will be able to read with understanding, engagement, appreciation, and critical reasoning.
Students will be able to write clearly and coherently in a range of genres and styles, integrating graphic and multimedia elements as appropriate.
KEY CONSIDERATIONS FOR XCC PROJECTS/COURSES:
Consider the various ways that you will be using readings and teaching writing throughout the course and the project. For example: Will students be communicating in writing with external community partners? If so, what do they need to learn in order to do that professionally and respectfully?
Students will be communicating with each other on teams – what are some best practices for doing this in writing so that they can “attend and respond thoughtfully to others”? What are the project-related reading and writing assignments that will help students meet the learning outcomes?
Students will make some type of team presentation at the end of the semester (e.g., to class, community partners, XCC Expo, etc.). What are the relevant writing deliverables? What do they need to know (about their audience, ways to convey their messages, appropriate media to use, etc.)?
Students should reflect on what they learned regarding oral and/or signed communication.
