From foundation to consolidation: An innovative model for general education at HKIEd

This presentation will describe some of the features of the “new” GE at HKIEd. The Foundation Course (FC) is a double-semester course for all year one students. Through a thematically-linked sequence of lectures, students are introduced to some of the traditional themes and disciplines in the Arts/Humanities, Sciences and Social Sciences. They also attend weekly small-class tutorials which will function as communities of inquiry (CoI), where they will develop skills and dispositions appropriate for reflective thinking, dialogue and writing. Members of a CoI regard themselves as one among others, a perspective which enables them to forge meaningful connections between the subject matter they are presented with, and their own ideas, values and goals. But the FC poses several challenges, including: how to integrate disparate topics and disciplines into a coherent course structure, how to create a safe place in which traditionally “quiet” students will become actively engaged, and how to prepare tutors to manage their classrooms appropriately. We will describe our responses to these challenges. All students will take the new Consolidation Course (CC) in their third or fourth year (from 2014). They will work in small teams under the supervision of a course advisor, assisting each other as critical friends in developing their own culminating project, which will utilize e-portfolio technology. The project requires them to reflect critically on their undergraduate experience, and to imagine the kind of future to which they might aspire.