Interdisciplinary GE Curriculum Proposal
March 1998

Date: Wed, 25 Mar 1998 15:54:48 -0700
To: kjones@mail.sdsu.edu, colwill@mail.sdsu.edu, delcast1@mail.sdsu.edu,
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From: Hayes Anderson 
Subject: Prospectus - Interdisciplinary GE Curriculum
Cc: handerso@mail.sdsu.edu
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Following the meeting with Dean Kaiser, Portland State University, Interim
Vice President for Academic Affairs, Ethan Singer asked for a summary
outline of our goals and objectives.  Noting that this could only be seen
as a working draft, we sent him the attached outline.  It is based on the
work done by the IECC during 1996/97, subsequent discussions, and an
attempt to relate our goals and objectives to the University G.E.
Committee's goals and objectives for G.E. courses.  Again, this should be
read as a preliminary statement related to our endeavors.

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

SDSU....The Public's University

SDSU's Interdisciplinary GE Initiative begins from the premise that education is a communal effort, the aim of which is to develop students as citizens. Our goal is to enhance the role of the university as a truly public institution and to create a coherent, interdisciplinary general educational experience that fosters intellectual inquiry, creativity and community.

GOALS

To inspire a passion for learning and cooperation among members of the university environment, including administrative units, faculty, students, staff, and constituent communities;

To foster community and respect for diversity;
To develop an intellectual community that prepares participants to become lifelong learners through critical investigation and production of knowledge;
To foster reflection, creativity, and critical thinking skills through a curriculum that explores multiple ways of knowing, including scientific, aesthetic, technological, and humanistic ways of knowing;
To foster modes of inquiry that address knowledge as historically contested and to encourage awareness of the social and ethical dimensions of knowing and learning
To encourage the development of multiple literacies, including the ability to identify, retrieve, critically evaluate and to express knowledge claims through graphic, numeric, oral, artistic, and written modes of communication;
To foster psychological and social as well as intellectual growth; To promote the development of students as citizens in a culturally diverse, changing society;
To encourage responsibility linked to the ability to solve problems and act for change, both individually and collaboratively;

STRATEGIES

The interdisciplinary and integrated nature of our proposed curriculum is designed to respond to a complex nexus of change in our local and global communities as well as to the increasingly diverse SDSU student population that works, commutes, and has family responsibilities.

Our recommendations, then, represent strategies for rethinking the structure of the curriculum, the connection between courses, and the ways in which learning occurs. Their purpose is to provide guidelines with which to develop an integrated educational experience through immersion in thematically-based, co-taught, multi-unit, interdisciplinary courses that will, by design, constitute a planned and logical sequence of study that permits student choice and complements existing programs and majors.

In addition to transforming course design, we recommend developing pedagogical strategies that are intrinsically motivating, and that respond to the diverse histories, concerns, and learning styles of our students. We hope to encourage discovery-oriented learning by including experiences as diverse as staging performances, participating in community partnerships, and incorporating students into seminars, labs, libraries, and course planning itself. Finally, we want to facilitate collaboration between faculty members by providing an environment in which faculty share syllabi, teaching methods, and pedagogical successes, as well as their concerns about students.

PHILOSOPHY, CONCEPTS, AND VALUES

Student learning is strongly affected by the learning context perhaps even more than the learning content. A significant body of research suggests that the purposeful creation of academic community is necessary to the development of an educational environment that values learning, especially in nonresidential college environments. Enhancing student learning through the self-conscious design of learning communities is a powerful way to achieve general education curricular reform that will provide our students with the foundation for advanced learning in any field, prepare them with the skills needed in any career, and engage them in active learning that will enable them to become responsible partners in building the communities of the future. (See Barbara Leigh Smith, Creating Learning Communities, Liberal Education, Fall, 1993, pp. 32- 39.)

Key Concepts related to integrated curriculum model:

Skills/Competencies-Based Learning in an Interdisciplinary, Thematic, Multi-unit Course Context Sensitive to Student Diversity
Learning as Collaboration between and among Faculty of Different Disciplines and Fields of Expertise
Learning as Collaboration between and among Students of Different Disciplines and Year-levels
Collaborative Learning Builds Community/Community Generates Student Success
Active, Problem-based Learning: Creative Learning Linked to Practice, i.e., early and frequent application of theory/knowledge to “world”
Active, Problem-based Learning Generates Lifelong Learning
Active Learning Generates Informed and Active Citizens
Learner Outcomes Assessment Replaces Seat Time Assessment

Core Values of Interdisciplinary Learning Community Approach to GE:

Curricular Coherence
Interdisciplinarity: Links between Broad Fields of Human Inquiry
Active Learning among students, faculty, and community
Team-Teaching
Community-University Learning Partnerships as Curricular Concerns

Key points of contrast between present and proposed GE:

Replaces distribution fregmented model of general education with coherent, thematic, interdisciplinary, multi-unit courses (varying numbers of units by year level)
Substitutes teams of faculty working with groups of students, assisted by undergraduate and graduate peer-mentors in a “learning community”, in place of single-teacher led, lecture-dominated teaching formats
Incorporates multiple learning strategies, including lectures, small group workshops, and tutorials, within the context of multi-unit courses
Builds community linkages into the curricular requirements

APPENDIX: POSSIBLE CURRICULUM DESIGN
YEAR I: FRESHMAN / TRANSFER EXPERIENCE

WAYS OF BEING
New student coordinated studies courses are interdisciplinary, team-taught (4-5 faculty), and designed to provide an integrated educational experience as an intensive introduction to university-level work. These first-year courses, organized around broad themes relating to "identity and community," are designed explicitly to bridge scientific, humanistic, and artistic ways of knowing. Finally, they are designed to engage students in the process of learning outside, as well as inside, the classroom. By the end of their first year, students will have engaged in a clearly-structured, closely-supervised "Bridging Learning Communities" project of limited duration.

Credits: One 12-unit interdisciplinary , coordinated studies course, required EACH semester of the student's first year at SDSU for a total of 24 units; or a single 24-unit, year-long course.

YEARS II: SOPHOMORE EXPERIENCE

WAYS OF KNOWING
These second-year experiences on the theme "Ways of Knowing" are designed to develop increasingly sophisticated skills in critical thinking and abstract thought through attention to scientific, humanistic, and artistic approaches to the production of knowledge. Faculty are expected to build opportunities for Bridging Learning Communities into this second- year program.

Credits: One 9-unit interdisciplinary, coordinated studies course AND one 7-unit course in Sophomore Year.

YEARS III and IV: UPPER-DIVISION EXPERIENCE

WAYS OF WORKING
These upper-division courses prepare students to make the transition from student to community member by permitting students to focus on issues of personal interest, or themes compatible with their major. Although all such courses are interdisciplinary, they may concentrate on a series of disciplines within the humanities, the sciences, or the arts. Community partnerships, fully integrated with the academic goals of each course, are a vital component of this upper-division experience. Credits: 9 units of an interdisciplinary, coordinated studies course or course cluster taken during junior and/or senior years, which includes 6 units of Bridging Learning Communities.

I. Structure:

1. Faculty involved in each course must represent at least four disciplines and two colleges.
2. Those faculty who intend to teach in SDSU's Interdisciplinary Initiative will design the specific content structure of each multi-unit course, which will vary with faculty interests and expertise.
3. In the interest of interdisciplinary inquiry and an integrated learning experience, faculty in coordinated studies will co-teach all large-group activities rather than assume responsibility for one segment of a course.
4. Each course will involve small seminars and group activities as well as meetings of the entire class.
5. Each course will be designed to address the goals listed above: specifically, to foster analytical and communicative skills, community, and respect for diversity. Because extensive writing and attention to diversity is expected to be integral to each coordinated studies course or cluster, we do not propose separate GE courses to meet writing or diversity requirements.

Interdisciplinary GE Curriculum Proposal March 1998