Grad Uni Jon Choi wins course development grant to teach summer course on “The Future of Ocean Use.”
Duke Ph.D. Students Help Create Unique Undergraduate Summer Courses
Graduate University Scholar Jon Choi was one of several recipients of the Duke Interdisciplinary Studies‘ and Office of Undergraduate Education’s Summer Course Development Grants. Jon is pursuing a joint J.D. – Ph.D. program. He began his Ph.D. program in Marine Science and Conservation in 2017, then took a hiatus from his department to earn his J.D. at Duke Law in 2021 before returning to his doctoral studies. From the Duke Interdisciplinary Studies news, linked above:
The Future of Ocean Use
Within the Department of Marine Science & Conservation, Ph.D. student Jon Choi worked alongside faculty members Rebecca Vidra and John Virdin to create a course entitled “The Future of Ocean Use.” Choi stated that the course grew out of a webinar series hosted by Oceans@Duke that highlights ways in which Duke researchers and alumni are working on ocean-related issues.
Vidra and Virdin wanted to make the webinars’ content more sustainable, so they applied for the Summer Course Development Grant and asked Choi to help develop a course.
At first, Choi struggled to decide how to create a cogent throughline for the course from the diverse webinars. He decided to focus on developing writing skills at the undergraduate level, using what he learned as a Duke Law student. Through two-page policy memos summarizing complex issues, students will hone their ability to think critically about the challenges facing the world’s oceans, consider the intended audiences for their writings, and improve their use of active voice and sentence structure.
The course begins with two weeks focused on learning critical writing and research skills, starting with an initial draft memo summarizing the rapid acceleration of human use of the ocean. During the following four weeks, students will craft two memos per week on a variety of topics, such as deep seabed mining, illegal fishing, small scale fisheries and offshore wind.
These memo assignments start with a prompt that places students in the role of a junior staff member who must brief people in different organizations.
To help students strengthen their writing, Choi built in numerous writing workshops and one-on-one meetings. By the end of the course, students will have written nine memos. They can then reflect on them and revise their five favorite memos for grading.
