| |
The curriculum needs to remain at the center of a college’s
thinking about undergraduate education, said CAO Institute plenary
speaker Stanley N. Katz, director of the Center for Arts and
Cultural Policy Studies at the Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton
University.
In a wide-ranging address, Katz enumerated the changing purposes
of undergraduate education over the past 100 years; explored
the results of structural changes that have made it more difficult
for universities to focus on the specific intellectual needs
of undergraduates; and concluded with a discussion of some new
approaches and opportunities for educators devoted to liberal
and general education in the 21st century.
Katz said he has learned that “the most effective learning is
active learning, that teaching must involve presenting students
with problems to solve, rather than merely lecturing about those
problems. We also need to ask whether we are getting the most
out of technology for both teaching and learning, and how we
can use information technology as a better handmaiden for active
learning.” Structural issues must also be addressed, he said.
“What can we do within the university to create teaching and
learning spaces that make the most of that reality, and utilize
what we have for the benefit of undergraduate education? Is
there anything to be done about reorienting the reward system
in faculty recruitment, promotion, retention, and compensation
to encourage more engagement with undergraduate students?”
Katz suggested some new approaches and opportunities to improve
liberal education in the 21st century:
-
Focus on synthesis and integrative learning
rather than disciplinary analysis.
-
Incorporate the insights of cognitive psychology,
such as the challenges of active learning, the capacity of
the teacher to “awaken opposition” to the teacher’s ideas
in the student, and new forms of interactive mentoring.
-
Take advantage of information technology
and telecommunications to reinvent the learning and teaching
environments.
-
Rethink democratic education to emphasize
the relationship of each individual to the problems of the
society.
-
Challenge students to make value judgments,
especially moral ones.
|
|
|
|
