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-知识分散、过度专业化、对学生学习重视不够-与其他学科的问题类似。有些问题，例如不能很好地交流，是传统上所谓的“普通教育”的缺陷造成的。然而，在专业中，性别教育与专业化的分离造成了分散的学习。没有什么地方比东北大学（NU）这样的大型大学更难解决这个问题了，独立学院为有不同期望的学生提供各种各样的课程。 NU提出了一种新的本科教育模式，通过充分整合gen-ed和专业，并将前者的责任与负责后者的教师放在一起，为所有本科教育提供了转型的希望。 通过协商过程，NU社区已经确定了共同的普通教育目标，这将巩固新的模式。适用于我们所有的程序，它们包括一组技能，背景，观点和连接，由部门教师翻译成特定领域的目标。学生将通过遵循主要部门教师使用学科和文科课程，模块和非课堂经验（例如合作教育）设计的途径，以累积的方式实现目标。 在该项目的目标和总体目标中，两个赠款年度的主要具体目标包括：1。在工程和计算机科学学院、工程技术学院和文理学院的科学系开始实施新模式。 2.在非科学单位推进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）的实施。 从一开始就将学生学习和方案成功的评价和评估纳入项目。 东北大学在两年的时间里向NSF申请20万美元，以支持主要的教师发展（在基于能力的教育，在学科背景下教授基因技能，评估和使用交互式教学法），并为项目的科学和技术领域的课程修改提供时间/津贴。该模型应该是特别感兴趣的其他复杂的大学和NU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.