Taylor University made major changes to IAS 110 Foundations of the Christian Liberal Arts this year, emphasizing smaller classes and more relational learning. The changes aim to better prepare students for the rigor of academic life and to deepen their engagement with Scripture.
In previous years, Foundations was marked by massive classes, each consisting of a fourth of the freshman student body, Edward Meadors, director of the foundation core program, said.
They rotated between different speakers, who spoke on “Right Relationships” with God, creation, self and others. Preceptorial groups and connections provided smaller groups in which this community and relationships were found.
In the new Foundations class, freshmen are divided into 26 smaller groups of approximately 30 students, each taught by a professor and assisted by three teacher assistants (TAs), Meadors said. The classes meet three times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
The freshman class meets during plenary sessions, which occurs on Thursdays six times during the semester. Freshmen are also required to accumulate 12 hours in a community or cultural activity of their choice. This includes attending a theater performance, sports game, ministry event or community service project.
Preceptorial groups turned into “life together groups,” which met during Welcome Weekend only. These provided students with an on-ramp to life at Taylor, led by students who were part of last year’s preceptorial groups and who seek to continue that community, leader Ella Watson said.
A major focus of the new course is sequential learning. In previous years, students studied modules based on right relationships in a variety of orders.
Foundations now progresses from orientation to life at Taylor to learning the skills needed to be successful in college, moving gradually toward theological topics. Students will take classes on the order of salvation, baptism and communion, as well as the traditional concept of Scripture Engagement, what Meadors describes as “an evangelical catechism.”
While learning this content, students will also develop relational skills, something facilitated by the small course sizes.
A major part of that relational learning comes from the expanded number of TAs. Assisting with tasks such as grading papers and taking attendance, TAs also teach the class on Fridays, facilitate discussion and form relationships with freshmen, Sophia Calnin, a TA for a Foundations class, said.
Calnin joined the class precisely for that reason.
“I felt really connected to my Precept leaders the previous year and I felt called to, like, be that for the incoming class,” she said. “So far, the experience has been great. I’ve been able to meet a lot of the new freshmen and make a connection with them, where they can ask questions and I can almost, like, be a mentor for them.”
Sophia appreciates her relationship with her fellow TAs; the teamwork makes the class better, as she’s able to see what content her colleagues struggle with and what they understand easily. She incorporates this into her dealings with students, she said.
Meadors designed the revamped course. He was inspired by recent research studying the effects of class size on first year seminars when rethinking the class, he said.
“I sense my responsibility to be researching, studying best practice in first year seminar education,” Meadors said. “There’s a lot of scholarship in the matter, amplifying with each year. It’s a big deal across the country.”
After reading much of the scholarship, he became convinced that shrinking class sizes was the best way to improve the course, as class sizes had been proven to be the most important predictor of class quality.
Students taking the Foundations course have the opportunity to grow, learn about the benefits of the Christian liberal arts and mature in their faith within Christian community.
“We’re envisioning being on a journey, challenged, tempted,” Meadors said. “We’re on this pilgrimage together, and the hope is that we can encourage and coach one another to keep our eyes on Jesus, with the awareness that all of this is moving us in the direction of eternity.”
