We interact, cooperate, and share wisdom and creativity

Learning Communities EXPO

FLCs, CCP, and humanities research program teams presented their study results

On Friday, February 22, the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) at Korea University held the 8th Learning Communities EXPO at the Global Conference Hall and Special Exhibition Hall of KU Museum, Centennial Memorial Samsung Hall.

KU’s CLT provided 3 programs: Creative Challenger Program (CCP) designed to inspire students to conduct research, experiments, or even research outside to solve self-proposed tasks in their area of interest, Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs) which aim to encourage professors in developing teaching methods with other colleagues, and the KU initiative for College of humanities Research and Education (CORE) program which helps students organize themselves into teams and implement research on a topic of interest. At the Learning Communities EXPO, the results of 9 months of studies conducted by the participants were released and displayed.

At the event, the best teams from each program received awards, 4 excellent teams including ‘Eduvengers’ presented their study cases, and every team exhibited their research papers. A total of 75 teams including 40 CCP teams, 15 FLCs teams, and 20 humanities research teams took part in the exhibition.

The students who conducted their own experiments for the last 9 months agreed that they had a great autonomous learning experience. Eo-jin Shim (’17, Department of English Language Education), a member of an award-winning CCP team called ‘Eduvengers’, expressed her impressions by saying, “We actively, not passively, took part in doing our research, which is not an opportunity commonly given to undergraduate students.” She added, “Finding solutions to self-proposed problems certainly helped us grow academically.” Shi-young Yang (’17, Department of Sociology), another member of a humanities research program team called ‘Saegil,’ also said, “Playing an active leading role in our study, instead of receiving knowledge passively, was helpful.”

Cooperating with other team members for an extended period of time was also a special experience for the students. Jeong-hoon Heo (’14, Department of Political Science and International Relations) and Bo-hyuk Kim (’14, Department of Political Science and International Relations), student members of a humanities research program team called ‘Dalai Lama,’ said, “Our research topic was North Korea, which could be a sensitive issue, so we sometimes came into conflict with each other.” They continued, “However, for a year, we worked together, respectfully exchanging our views, and finally came to a meaningful conclusion.” Hye-in Han (’17, Department of English Language Education), another student member of ‘Eduvengers,’ said, “Because we chose a research topic ourselves, we could do the research enjoyably, and come up with good results.” She also expressed her feelings by saying, “Through this teamwork experience, I learned what kind of attitude I need to have whenever I am involved in group work.”