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Skills l
Inquiry in and across Disciplines
l Intercultural and Community l
Engaging the World l
Integrative
This is the
companion web site for an article by Stephen C. Ehrmann that
appeared in Liberal Education, AAC&U's magazine (click
here to see the article).
Does your institution have a
commission or committee reexamining its educational goals?
Does your accreditation review involve a fresh look at the
educational goals of a major, or of the whole university?
What roles does technology play in redefining what students
learn, or how they learn, beyond adding a computer literacy
course? As we look at change in institutions around the
world, it looks like technology has implications for
virtually every dimension of a college education.
A statement from the Association of
American Colleges and Universities, "Our
Students' Best Work: An Accountability Framework Worthy of
Our Mission," defines liberal education -- an education
for work, citizenship and life -- in terms of five defining
outcomes, listed in the next paragraph. As you explore
this web site, you'll see that the technology's
has implications for the nature of each of these five
outcomes. (Technology can be used to improve education in
other ways, too. For more on these other strategies,
click here.)
Each link below leads to
examples from various colleges and universities where the
goals, content, and strategies of education have begun to
change in light of technology use in the wider world.
1) Strong
analytical, communication, quantitative, and information
skills— achieved and demonstrated through learning in a
range of fields, settings, and media, and through advanced
studies in one or more areas of concentration. [So far, this
section includes extensive materials on
digital writing across the
curriculum and more modest resources on
information literacy.]
2) Deep
understanding and hands-on experience with the inquiry
practices of disciplines that explore the natural, social,
and cultural realms—achieved and demonstrated through
studies that build conceptual knowledge by engaging learners
in concepts and modes of inquiry that are basic to the
natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, and arts;
3) Intercultural
knowledge and collaborative problem-solving skills—achieved
and demonstrated in a variety of collaborative contexts
(classroom, community-based, international, and online) that
prepare students both for democratic citizenship and for
work;
4) A proactive sense
of responsibility for individual, civic, and social choices—achieved
and demonstrated through forms of learning that connect
knowledge, skills, values, and public action, and through
reflection on students’ own roles and responsibilities in
social and civic contexts;
5) Habits of mind that foster
integrative thinking and the ability
to transfer skills and knowledge from one setting to another—achieved
and demonstrated through advanced research and/or creative
projects in which students take the primary responsibility
for framing questions, carrying out an analysis, and
producing work of substantial complexity and quality.
More on assessment and evaluation:
How the faculty can use
student portfolios and online
surveys to help assess and plan such learning in all
five of these defining outcomes of a liberal education.
The work on this site was
inspired by AAC&U's invitations for me to speak at the
Institute on General Education and by their
Greater
Expectations initiative. The TLT Group conducted a
series of webcasts, co-sponsored by AAC&U, about the
implications of technology for the shape of general
education. - Steve Ehrmann, The TLT Group
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