A New Integrative Model for Undergraduate Education: Achieving General Education Through the Major

在本科科学教育中发现的许多问题——知识碎片化、过度专业化、对学生学习的重视不足——与其他学科的问题相似。有些，比如不能很好地沟通，是由于传统上所谓的“通识教育”的不足造成的。“然而，正是专业与专业的分离造成了学习的碎片化。在东北大学（Northeastern University）这样的大型大学里，这个问题最为棘手。这些大学的独立学院为有着不同期望的学生提供各种各样的课程。西北大学提出了一种新的本科教育模式，通过将本科教育与专业教育充分结合起来，并将前者的责任交给负责后者的教师，从而为整个本科教育带来变革的希望。通过协商过程，北大社区已经确定了共同的通识教育目标，这些目标将成为新模式的基础。它们适用于我们所有的项目，包括一套技能、背景、观点和联系，可由部门教师转化为特定领域的目标。学生将通过使用学科和文科课程、模块和非课堂经验（如合作教育），遵循主要部门教师设计的途径，以累积的方式实现目标。在计划的目标和广泛目标内，两个资助年度的主要具体目标包括：1。在工程与计算机学院、工程技术学院和文理学院内的理学院推行新模式。促进在非科学单元中实现与科学相关的共同目标（信息素养、定量推理和对自然世界的理解）。评估和评估，无论是学生的学习还是项目的成功，从一开始就被纳入了这个项目。东北大学要求美国国家科学基金会在两年的时间里提供20万美元，主要用于支持教师的发展（在能力教育、学科背景下的教学技能、评估和互动教学法的使用方面），并为该项目科学和技术领域的课程修改提供时间/津贴。其他综合性大学应该对这种模式特别感兴趣，北大打算继续广泛分享其经验。

Many of the problems identified in undergraduate science education--fragmentation of knowledge, overspecialization, inadequate emphasis on student learning--parallel those in other disciplines. Some, such as the inability to communicate well, result from deficiencies in what is traditionally called `general education.` Yet the very separation of gen-ed from specialization in the major creates fragmented learning. Nowhere is this problem more intractable than in large universities like Northeastern University (NU), where independent colleges offer a wide array of programs to students with differing expectations. NU proposes a new model for undergraduate education that, by fully integrating gen-ed and the major and placing responsibility for the former with the faculty charged with the latter, holds transformational promise for all of undergraduate education. Through a consultative process, the NU community has identified the shared general education goals that will undergird the new model. Applicable to all our programs, they include a set of skills, contexts, perspectives, and connections, translatable by departmental faculty into field-specific objectives. Students will achieve the goals in a cumulative manner by following pathways designed by the major department faculty using disciplinary and liberal arts courses, modules, and non-classroom experiences (e.g. cooperative education). Within the project's goal and broad objectives, the principal specific objectives for the two grant years include: 1. Launching implementation of the new model in the Colleges of Engineering and Computer Science, the School of Engineering Technology, and the science departments within the College of Arts & Sciences. 2. Advancing implementation of the science-related shared goals (information literacy, quantitative reasoning, and an understanding of the natural world) in the non-science units. Evaluation and assessment, both of student learning and of programmatic success have been built into the project from the outset. Northeastern requests $200,000 over a two-year period from the NSF to support predominantly faculty development (in competency-based education, teaching gen-ed skills in disciplinary contexts, assessment, and the use of interactive pedagogies) and released time/stipends for curricular modification in the science and technology areas of the project. The model should be of particular interest to other complex universities and NU intends to continue sharing widely its experiences.