I wrote about working on re-evaluating our core classes at “Office Hours” last month. Robert Boyd, one of our faculty, continues the discussion at our CIRI Blog:
http://ischoolapps.sjsu.edu/blogs/wp/ciri/2012/12/17/a-reimagined-core/
I am also using some new-found time between semesters to read and reflect on two noted thinkers/practitioners, one old and one new. The Idea of a University by John Henry Newman was originally published in 1852 where Newman proposed the theoretical underpinnings of what would become University College, Dublin. At core, Newman argued “the general principles of any study you may learn by books at home; but the detail, the colour, the tone, the air, the life which makes it live in us, you must catch all these from those in whom it lives already.” The interaction with faculty, practitioners in the field and with fellow classmates animate and deepen our own learning and can, and should, be introduced and fostered through a re-considered core.
Published a few months ago, The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reconsidered written by the founder of the Khan Academy directs our gaze forward. In describing what higher education could be like, Salman Khan imagines an education “rather than taking note in lecture halls, (where) students will be actively learning through real-world intellectual projects”. Key elements in the content, delivery and assessment of the curriculum must be further explored, but the innovation actively promoted at SLIS makes the discussions, questions and possibilities for the foundation of our curriculum full of promise, rigor and creativity for faculty and students, alike.