1. The Challenge of Global Literacy: An Ideal Opportunity for Liberal Professional Education
- Author
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Nair, Indira, Norman, Marie, Tucker, G. Richard, and Burkert, Amy
- Abstract
Within higher education in the United States and Canada, calls to promote global awareness and global literacy among undergraduate students have become increasingly urgent. Yet, there are multiple challenges in achieving these outcomes. One challenge lies in making this "literacy" authentic and relevant for diverse students aspiring to be professionals in different fields. A second challenge is reconciling the tension between teaching for deep mastery of knowledge in a subject area, on the one hand, and teaching for broader global awareness through a collection of courses or experiences, on the other. A third challenge is developing in students the tacit understanding that enables them to link the global and the local in ways that are meaningful and useful in their work and their lives. This is particularly relevant in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, where the problems students see in the classroom are usually decontextualized, and where solutions are developed as if the broader (e.g., social, environmental, political) context were irrelevant. Perhaps the greatest challenge of all is supporting faculty as they wade into the necessarily interdisciplinary nature of such teaching and learning. The primary question, however, is: What is global literacy, and how do we teach it? In this article, the authors describe their attempt at Carnegie Mellon University to approach this question in a semi-empirical way by gathering the outcomes faculty members see as most salient for global literacy. (Contains 3 figures.)
- Published
- 2012