Liberal Arts

A foundation of critical thinking, engaged active learning, is essential to a complete education, but trends in liberal arts colleges for more practical, career-based learning is eroding this foundation. Also the use of computers and the latest technology to provide distance learning may further decrease the amount of engagement between students and classic liberal arts themes of understanding the world to better understand one’s place within it. Therefore, a new type of school should be developed that can preserve the best of the old with the power of the new. The liberal arts school I envision is one that teaches a classic liberal arts education, with an emphasis on the great thoughts of Western Culture, in an on-line format, utilizing all of the benefits that modernized technology has to offer. At this point, the modernization of education through technology is inevitable, and it is important that we prepare ourselves and seek out its advantages and anticipate its potential disadvantages. Technologies such as blogs, wikis, and online learning communities are already used in schools today, helping to keep teachers and students connected in and out of the classroom. These resources could open doors to a remarkable education to people divided by barriers of economics or distance. It may be that the new communications tools are what will make it possible for a classic liberal arts education to survive into the future.

Liberal Arts

The other day in class we discussed the idea of a cross-curricular minor at Cornell.  I actually really liked that idea a lot and decided to explore it further in my final paper.  I’m not sure if it’s the absolute best type of education but it is an interesting idea.

My model focuses heavily on faculty advisors working with self-motivated students to create at least cross-curricular minors.  Also emphasized however are BSS style majors as well as classes which discuss the process and debate surrounding education and literacy.  Minors must include a writing course about (or related to) the topic.  A minimum of three different fields (apart from the writing class) must go into the minor and a proposal must be passed by both the student’s advisor and a committee of faculty appointed by the school.

Other than this minor there are no requirements, but rather certain areas–particularly math and language–are emphasized by faculty advisors.   Writing across the curriculum and in almost every class is a way in which writing can still be strongly featured throughout the school as well.

My ideas aren’t completed yet so feel free to ask, probe, or query any of my ideas it will really help me develop my argument and I would really appreciate it.

The New Liberal Arts

My idea of a liberal arts system is not just limited to college. I propose that we start teaching wide ranges of topics in elementary schools. Then by the time we get to high school we can spit it into two branches, the college bound kids and the vocational bound students. The vocational bound kids will just prepare a skill or trade that they will be able to use as soon as they graduate. The other college branch kids are going to be the leaders in society. They will increase literacy before entering college. 

Once these students enter college, they be tested on many skills in many different subjects. The real core focus of the college is to improve literacy in as many topics as possible, develop reasoning rational people in a society, and promote a higher understanding of subjects and concepts that are thought to be understood.

The students will be able to do these because of the breadth of knowledge at hand in the college. There are very few general education requirements. There is no writing program. Majors only take ten courses to achieve, but they must also take twenty other courses that are in a different topic and you can only take a max of three courses in the same field other than your major. This promotes students to take many fields.

Admission will be based on the students goals, extra curricular involvement, and personal evaluation rather than test scores. This will ensure that the students enrolled are ones that want a higher education in the new liberal arts setting.

With this education students will be prepared for all the world can bring because they are literate in as many areas as allowed, they are rational, and they have a higher understanding. This will allow them to be leaders, as well as, functioning members of society.

What a liberal arts education should be.

A liberal arts education’s mission is to give a person the necessary skills to be a better citizen locally, nationally and globally, and the abilities to succeed economically, socially and politically.  The reason for this is that it will create individuals in society that are aware of the problems in their communities, whether they be a town or the globe.  By giving a student the necessary skills to succeed individually, they can then better help the world around them.

General education requirements would have to be met so that all students have a common knowledge.  Also, all of the required classes would be the same for each individual.  The course would be in the areas of history (world and national), politics, sciences, a language, math, writing, communication, and religion.  The reason for these courses is to get students to think about the world around them, how it works, what is wrong with it, and then to find ways to solve those problems.  The logic behind not allowing students to pick which class they will take to fulfill the requirement is that this way a student would have the same knowledge as other students, thus better enabling them to work together to solve issues at hand.

As above, students must take a writing course, which they would be requried to take in their first year.  Colleges would not just let that be the end of a students writing career, on the contrary, a student would continue to write extensively in all courses that they take.  Also students would be required to create a portfolio by the end of their sophomore year, which would be reviewed by a group of professors.  Those professors would then determine whether the student needs to take another writing course to better their skills at writing.  If so, the student would not take another writing course, but would rather work with the writing center during their next class on every paper the worked on.  Then at the end of the course the writing center can determine if the student is improved enough and therefore completed the writing requirement.

The college should also encourage volunteer work, participation, student organizations and leadership opportunities.  This emphasis would help to create individuals that will go out of their way to help others.  It will also teach students that by working together more can be accomplished than if someone works alone.  To further this cause, the college would require active participation in the 4-H program in the area.  From helping with events to even planning and running them.  This would not only then help the students in the college better understand what they can do, but it would also create opportunities for younger generations by giving them examples to look up to.

All of this type of education relies on students being in class.  With advancing technology, classes may become virtual chat rooms rather than actually physically coming to a room.  Technology will be a part of the college but it would not be a very large aspect because that form of education removes the true social interaction.  By communicating via the internet a student doesn’t learn how to work with a person, they cannot lead events by an online chat.  Having classes online would only put students at a disadvantage in that they do not have the personal skills necessary to effectively communicate with people.  This is because they would just sit at their computer all day, never leave the room, and therefore never come in to contact with other people, other ideas, other beliefs.  Yes, they can just talk on the internet to people and get their ideas that way, but that removes the personal aspect of society, the very thing that friendships and relationships are built upon.

This form of education would teach students to pay attention to the worlds around them and give them the skills necessary to address problems that may arise in those worlds.  For example: with people receiving an education like this they can begin to solve the problem of illiteracy within the United States and the world.  This would be because enough people would now be aware of the problem, see something wrong with it and actually do something about it.

That is my education in a nut shell, if something seems to be missing or doesn’t make sense, go ahead ask me, or just rip holes in my opinion either one would be appreciated!

Intro to Liberal Arts Program

One of the greatest advantages to a liberal arts education is its ability to provide a broad base of knowledge while simultaneously giving the opportunity for in-depth study. In today’s society, a liberal arts education should incorporate several disciplines as well as endow students with skills that will be necessary in the real world. Each individual’s studies must include courses in creative expression, a foreign language, the social sciences, math, philosophy and political science. In their first year, students will participate in a first-year program that focuses around the study of philosophy and creative expression as well as the student’s personal involvement within the community. Upon graduation, all students are expected to have attained a competent level of writing, without necessarily having taken a composition course, determined through a writing portfolio. Students will also be required to be well-versed in the use of technology. All of these requisites lead to the goal that these students will go on to be responsible, influential and beneficial members of society.

My idea of liberal arts program.

My idea of education is to produce better individuals who are educated and well-rounded, and can fully engage in political, soical, economics and professional life so that they can build a better society. The mission of a college should be to produce an educated person who has background knowledge but also critical and analytic mind to effectively use it, thus not only the tools but also how to use them in life battle. Moreover, each student will be trained to be a good citizen who interested in the global issues and can participate in changing the world into a better place to live.

My Liberal Arts program will include the requirement courses to provide cultural knowledge. Each student will be required to take the following classes in thier first two years – a math, a social science, a fine arts, a laboratory science, physical education, a general writing and one social service.  All of these are required for the basic cultural knowledge and the studnets will be learning about what is happening in the world and how can they contribute to build a better society.

We will also have another two requirements to make sure students will be helped for their profession. The first one is the writing within the major. Since there are different communications for different professions, this writing class will help the students writing for their majors. This will be taken within their second or third year. The second requirement is to have an internship on their fourth year, since it will introduce them to their career field or the graduate schools.

This program has a lot of requirements to make sure that the students have basic background knowledge and critical mind to see an issue from different perspectives. Only when they have them, they will be able to escape from their own prejudices. They will be able to see everything from a wider scope, but still have an indepth knowledge of their field. Thus, they will be individuals who know how to improve themselves as well as benefit the society.

Any questions or comments are very welcome.!

Thanks.

Liberal Arts

A liberal arts program’s main focus should be teaching students how to think and how to learn. It should produce life long learners whocontinue to learn on their own. In a way a liberal arts education should just be the building block of learning. It should also develop students into world citizens that are multi-culturally literate. Students should leave college with knowledge and an understanding of other cultures. Not only should cultural learning be present in as many classes as possible, there should be endless opportunities for studying abroad. It’s impossible to truly understand other cultures without experiencing them firsthand. In my opinion, a liberal arts college should not have any specific general education requirements because they are often just service classes. This way a student’s education is tailored to his or her personal interests. The classroom environment would be more positive because all students would be there out of choice, not out of requirement. Students shoulddesign their own curriculum that is evaluated and passed by a faculty committee. It is necessary for a liberal arts college to have small, discussion based classes. They encourage students to generate opinions and voice them, as well as challenge others. Discussions should have a variety of formats to meet everyone’s needs. A liberal arts education should be available to anyone who wants it. It should also be a goal to have as much diversity as possible. A liberal arts education should not involve the traditional grading system. Instead, students should be evaluated by their professor by whether or not they demonstrated growth and effort. It should be more of a pass or fail system, where at the end of a class the student does some sort of culminating project or portfolio to demonstrate their learning. Professors would provide written evaluations that could be reviewed by future employers. Technology should play a somewhat significant role in a liberal arts education but it should not dominate it.

Peer Editing

I know this has been a blog conversation already, but it’s strange to me how little I feel gets accomplished during our editing sessions. Everyone comes to the group with a few specific things that should be changed, but I feel like my rough draft looks exactly like my final paper. Should revision be completely changing the original paper? I spoke with a friend at a different school who said that in his writing class they got marked down a grade if their final paper looked anything like the rough draft, which made me think.. if that were our class I’d be in big trouble. However, maybe requiring the drafts to look significantly different would be an effective way to be sure people don’t think they’re done after one draft. Any thoughts?

online classes

I know we talked about this in class, but I wanted to extend it to the blog. How many of you have taken on-line classes? Do you think they were just as rigorous and effective as your regular classes? What kinds of classes did you take? I’ve only taken one on-line class, and it was photography. Obviously I didn’t get the lab experience or the chance to use different types of cameras, but I got a lot out of it. It gave me a lot more freedom actually, because I could do my work whenever it was convenient and I could do it all day one day and not the next.

Gen Ed Requirements

I’ve been pondering the idea of no gen ed requirements and I was wondering whether or not students would still take a wide variety of classes, even if it wasn’t required. I know I would, just because I’m interested in a a wide variety of subjects. When I look at the course catalog, I want to take everything. But I have to think about what requirement it would fill and whether or not it would count towards my major, etc. I feel like if I had no requirements I would take an even wider range of classes. What do you guys think? Would you guys still take a wide variety of classes even if it wasn’t required?