Renewing the Undergraduate Archaeology Curriculum

美国考古学会（SAA）、历史考古学会（SHA）、美国人类学协会（AAA）和美国考古研究所（AIA）已经承认，目前培养考古学本科学生的方法存在危机。资金短缺和从学术资源到私人资源的转移，世界范围内遗址破坏和掠夺的急剧增加，后代和当地社区中出现的政治激进主义，复杂的新政府监督和监管，技术创新，科学知识库的急剧增加，这些都超过了教育工作者用教学策略适应这些变化的能力。[见K. A. Pyburn，“改变的状态：学术界围攻下的考古学家”，载于《21世纪的考古学教学》，S. J. Bender和G. S. Smith主编，SAA, 2000。为了解决这个问题，SAA成立了一个跨社会的课程特别工作组，并为一个由来自全国各地的多元化和坚定的教育者组成的研讨会提供支持。该工作组为考古学教学制定了一套核心原则和指导方针，这些原则和指导方针对考古学学科在21世纪的生存至关重要。工作组正在与SAA、SHA、AAA和AIA合作，以尽快在整个学科中实施这些指导方针，并更新课程。Smith和Bender（2000）将这些原则总结为管理、多样性、社会相关性、伦理和价值观、沟通、关键技能和社会科学问题解决。这是一个为期三年的项目，包括在美国八所学术机构基于这些原则设计、测试和评估新课程的核心方面。它致力于制作一套完整的灵活的课程材料，以取代或重新设计任何高等教育机构的现有课程。该项目的目标是使推荐的课程内容和经过验证的教学技术尽可能有效地免费提供给尽可能广泛的教育工作者。开发团队的参与者是从对教育和研究都有承诺的教师中挑选出来的。此外，他们还被选为这些原则所强调的特定专业领域的代表，代表各种机构类型（社区大学、有或没有研究生课程的公立四年制大学和私立大学），并提供地区多样性。（这些机构分布在八个不同的州。）这些教员开发人员得到了三位教育专家的协助。此外，一个由八名考古学家组成的咨询委员会正在协助课程的开发和评估，每名考古学家在七项原则的一个单独领域都有专长。学生评估员也参与了项目的关键阶段。每个参与者首先与国家认可的专家和技术顾问合作，在其本国机构开发两个单独的课程。总的来说，正在设计、教授和评估16门不同的课程。我们估计，在为期三年的计划中，将影响参与院校约700至1200名学生。此外，美国现有的340个本科专业提供人类学或考古学的本科专业或辅修专业的课程材料。在三年的资助期内，该项目有可能影响全国所有30,000名已申报的本科人类学专业，以及估计每年50万至60万名选修本科人类学课程的学生。

Anthropology (81)The Society for American Archaeology (SAA), the Society for Historical Archaeology (SHA), the American Anthropological Association (AAA), and the Archaeological Institute of American (AIA) have acknowledged a crisis in current approaches to the training of undergraduate archaeology students. Funding shortages and shifts from academic to private sources, dramatic increases in site destruction and looting worldwide, emerging political activism among descendant and local communities, complex new government oversight and regulation, technological innovations, and dramatic increases in the scientific knowledge base have outpaced the ability of educators to accommodate these changes with their teaching strategies. [See K. A. Pyburn, "Altered States: Archaeologists under Siege in Academe" in "Teaching Archaeology in the 21st Century," Edited by S. J. Bender and G. S. Smith, SAA, 2000.] To address this issue the SAA established an inter-societal Task Force on Curriculum, and provided support for a workshop made up of a diverse and committed set of educators from across the nation. This Task Force produced a set of core principles and guidelines for teaching archaeology that are crucial to the survival of the discipline of archaeology into the 21st century. The Task Force is working with the SAA, the SHA, the AAA, and the AIA to initiate implementation of these guidelines across the discipline with renovated curricula as rapidly as possible. Smith and Bender (2000) summarized these principles as Stewardship, Diversity, Social Relevance, Ethics and Values, Communication, Critical Skills, and Social Science Problem Solving.This is a three-year project encompassing the design, testing, and evaluation of core aspects of a new curriculum based on these principles at eight academic institutions across the United States. It is engaged in producing a complete set of flexible course materials suitable to replace or redesign extant curricula in any higher educational setting. The project goal is to make recommended course content and proven teaching techniques available as efficiently as possible without cost to the broadest possible audience of educators.Participants on the development team were chosen from faculty who have demonstrated a commitment to both education and research. Further, there were selected to be representatives of particular fields of expertise foregrounded by the principles, to represent a variety of institution types (community colleges, public four year programs with and without graduate programs, and private colleges), and to provide regional diversity. (The institutions are located in eight different states.) These faculty developers are being assisted by three education experts. In addition, an Advisory Board of eight archaeologists, each specializing in a separate area of the seven principles, are assisting with course development and assessment. Student evaluators are also participating in crucial stages of the project.Each participant is first developing two separate courses at their home institution in collaboration with nationally recognized specialists and technical consultants. Overall, 16 different courses are being designed, taught, and evaluated. We have estimated that this project will impact some 700-1200 students in the participating institutions over the three-year course of this project. In addition, course materials are being made available to the 340 existing undergraduate programs in the U.S. offering undergraduate majors or minors in anthropology or coursework in archaeology. Beyond the 3-year grant period, this project has the potential to impact all 30,000 declared undergraduate anthropology majors nationwide, and an estimated 500,000 - 600,000 students who enroll in undergraduate anthropology classes yearly as electives.