There's a substantial amount of information about linked courses
available through the Washington Center at The Evergreen State
College, and the Learning Communities listserv. I'm in the process
of trying to put together a sort of reading list -- but what may be
most useful to you to know is that this is a very widespread
movement and goes way beyond (though I think it includes) linking
writing courses to discipline courses. Lots of experience out there
with it, and with the administrative complications involved.
It seems to me the question could easily go either way, depending on
how you saw the linkage working, but my own view would be that the
easiest thing to do is make the linkage a simple matter of the
registrar's signing students up for both courses and the courses
functioning for all administrative purposes as though they were
freestanding.
Thus a student who passed the disciplinary section and flunked the
writing one could later sign up for another one, hooked to some other
discipline, or to a freestanding one if that's an option. Similarly,
the student who flunked the disciplinary section and could just sign
up for another one, and consider her writing requirement or whatever
passed. I think to hook them together more intimately would
_presume_ that the two teachers were collaborating fairly intensely,
and my own preference is not to presume that, but to let
collaboration happen if it develops. The Aquinas Program here, which
is three linked courses, has gone both ways -- separate marks,
separate credit, and totally uniform homogenization. I'm involved in
the homogenized one, and it's demanding and inflexible in important
ways.
Is what you're envisioning two classes, each composed of the same set
of students, or would the students in the writing class compose a
subset of the ones in the disciplinary class?
I can get you more information about LEARNCOM and the Washington
Center if it would help. There's recently been a discussion on the
Learning Communities list about the demands on faculty of linked
courses, and compensation of various kinds for participating in such
communities.
-- Russ
__|~_
Russell A. Hunt __|~_)_ __)_|~_ Aquinas Chair
St. Thomas University )_ __)_|_)__ __) PHONE: (506) 452-0424
Fredericton, New Brunswick | )____) | FAX: (506) 450-9615
E3B 5G3 CANADA ___|____|____|____/ [log in to unmask]
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~~~~~~~~~~~~ http://www.StThomasU.ca/hunt/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~
