談通識教育之課程發展－一些個人省思

Developing Courses for General Education-Some Personal Reflections

劉兆漢(Chao-Han Liu)

《通識教育季刊》 2卷3期 (1995/09) Pp. 1-5

https://doi.org/10.6745/JGE.199509_2(3).0001

摘要

在本論文中，通識教育課程之發展，將以其所關連之努力目標－致力於強化大學在「資訊時代」中所能扮演的角色，做為討論之方向，並且將嘗試探討及說明通識教育在社會，價值，科學，及技術等方面所能提供之課程。

並列摘要

In this paper, course development for General Education is discussed in terms of its relation to the broader efforts to reconfirm the roles of universities in the era of ”information age”. Attempts to develop courses for General Education concerning issues relating to society, values, science and technology will be described. It is well recognized that in the contemporary society, many of the controversial public issues are related to science and technology. Ordinary citizens are often asked to pass judgement on those matters. They can make intelligent decisions only if they have the knowledge to help them understand the technical aspects of the issue and their interplay with political, economic as well as ethical aspects of the problem. Some of the courses for General Education should be designed to provide our students the opportunity to acquire the ability to build up such knowledge base. At the same time, the courses should be designed to cultivate an intellectual environment in which students with different culture background can interact. In this paper, examples of the effort to develop such courses will be presented. One example is about a course on Arms control, developed and taught at the University of Illinois in the United States. The other one is a course on Global Change, developed and taught at the National Central University in Taiwan. Similarities and differences in the-two cases will be described and discussed.