田思怡譯
As educators question what college should look like in the 21st century, one answer is: global.
And to higher education trailblazers, that means more than junior year abroad or overseas internships. They find campuses to be insular places that leave students ill prepared for a globalized world, and they question the efficacy of traditional pedagogy, especially the lecture format, at a time when the same information can be imparted online.
教育家問,21世紀的大學應該是什麼樣子,一個答案是:全球化。
對高等教育的開拓者來說,這意味不只是大一出國或到海外實習。他們發現校園是與外界隔絕的地方,讓學生沒有做好足以適應全球化世界的準備。而且,他們質疑傳統教學法的功效,特別是授課的形式,因為當下已經是同樣的資訊可以在網路上傳授的年代。
Consider one emerging approach, wherein students hop from campus to campus across continents, earning an undergraduate degree in the process. In these programs, they spend the majority of their college years outside the United States and immerse themselves in diverse cultures. Foreign cities are their classrooms.
"More and more students, especially at the elite end, are realizing,'I can get my basic learning on the Internet and then have this collection of experiences around the globe that enhances who I am as a person,'" said Michael B. Horn, a co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute.
不妨看看一種正在興起的方式,學生從世界五大洲的一個校園跳到另一個,在這個過程中取得學士學位。在這些學程中,他們大學生涯大部分時間都在美國以外的地方度過,浸淫在不同的文化中。外國城市就是他們的教室。
克萊頓.克里斯藤森研究所的共同創辦人麥可.洪恩說:「愈來愈多學生,特別是菁英學生,逐漸明白「我可以在網路上學到基本知識,又累積了這樣的全球經驗,使我成為一個更強的人。」
Campus hopping is not for everyone.
Many students don't want to give up the sustained community built over four years on a campus. Administrators note that 18-year-olds who choose this unorthodox college path have a special blend of traits: maturity, curiosity, adventurousness, flexibility and openness.
頻頻換校園並不適合每一個人。
許多學生不願放棄在同一個校園度過四年所建立的持久社群關係。學校行政人員注意到,在選擇這種非正統大學道路的18歲學生身上,可以看到以下幾種特色的特別組合:成熟、好奇、冒險、彈性和開放。
If It's Third Semester, This Must Be Berlin 若是第3學期,必須去柏林
W. Louis Brickman, 18, could have taken many paths to college. As a student at the prestigious Hunter College High School in New York, he was accepted at several elite liberal arts schools and two research universities. But he surprised teachers and friends by choosing to enter the second class at the Minerva Schools, a startup based in San Francisco, where he will spend three-quarters of his time in other countries.
"I'm passionate about international travel, and it felt to me inadequate to stay in one place for four years,"said Brickman, who was born in Berlin and raised in Manhattan.
18歲的路易.布里克曼有很多條通往大學的路。身為紐約名校亨特學院附屬高中的學生,他被幾所菁英文科大學和兩所研究型大學錄取。但他讓老師和朋友大為意外,選擇進入二流的米諾瓦大學,一所設在舊金山的新學校,在那裡就讀,他有四分之三的大學時光將在其他國家度過。
在柏林出生,在曼哈坦長大的布里克曼表示:「我熱愛出國旅行,我覺得在同一個地方待上四年不夠好。」
Minerva, which is affiliated with the Keck Graduate Institute, was founded by a former tech executive, Ben Nelson, who believed that traditional colleges were not adequately preparing students for the real world.
After freshman year in San Francisco, students will move to a new country each semester; by the time they graduate, they will have lived in Berlin; Buenos Aires; Seoul; Bangalore, India; Istanbul and London. Minerva's first two classes comprise 139 students from 35 countries. They live together in leased residence halls, where they cook for themselves, and meet for seminars in libraries, museums or parks. Not owning buildings enables Minerva to keep costs to $22,950 a year, including tuition and housing but not travel.
米諾瓦大學是凱克研究所的關係學校,由曾任科技公司執行長的班.尼爾森所創辦,他認為傳統的大學未能把學生準備好去適應真實世界。
在舊金山讀完大一之後,學生每個學期都會搬到一個新國家;到畢業時,他們將已住過柏林、布宜諾斯艾利斯、首爾、印度的班加羅爾、伊斯坦堡和倫敦。米諾瓦最早的兩個班級由來自35國的139名學生組成。他們一起住在租來的學生宿舍,自己煮飯,在圖書館、博物館和公園碰面開討論會。沒有自己的校舍讓米諾瓦把每年的費用壓低到2萬2950美元,包括學費和住宿費,但不包括旅費。
Minerva's approach to upending traditional education goes beyond travel.Professors lead live video seminars that are reserved for group projects and debate — students often meet to take the classes together. And while majors are offered in the usual fields, like humanities, science and business, the overarching goal is to teach students to think critically and creatively and to communicate and interact well with others.
"We want them to be able to adapt to jobs that don't even exist yet, so we give them a great range of the best cognitive tools," said Stephen Kosslyn,Minerva's founding dean.
米諾瓦顛覆傳統教學的方式不只有旅行。教授帶領直播的視訊研討會,用於分組研究和辯論──學生經常碰面一起上課。雖然提供一般領域的主修科目,像是人文學科、科學和商業,首要目標是教導學生批判性思考和創意思考,並能與其他人有良好的溝通和互動。
米諾瓦創校校長史蒂芬.柯斯林說:「我們要他們能適應現在甚至還不存在的工作,因此我們給他們很多種最好的認知工具。」
Based on research into how students learn, Minerva's faculty concluded that a key skill is being able to apply learning in new and different contexts.Toward that end, students keep blogs during their travels about how they're using the concepts they learned freshman year. Yes, they're graded.
"For the past 14 years of my life, I've been imagining I'd have this traditional college campus experience, so that part has been somewhat of a challenge," Brickman said. "But every class is relevant to the real world."
米諾瓦的教學人員從有關學生如何學習的研究歸結出,一個關鍵技能是能把所學應用在新的和不同的情境。為達到這個目標,學生在旅行期間用部落格記錄他們如何利用在大一學到的觀念。沒錯,他們要被打分數。
布里克曼說:「我人生的過去14年,我一直想像我會有傳統的大學校園經驗,因此,那一部分多少是種挑戰。但每一個課程都與真實世界有關。」
Erin McNellis, 21, did not travel far when she started at Webster University in St. Louis, where she also grew up. But she chose it because its international program would enable her to keep on traveling.
Webster has campuses in seven countries, and partnerships with schools in seven more. Students can study in Thailand, Ghana, China, Japan, Mexico and throughout Europe. About 20 percent of its students study elsewhere in the world; some never study in St. Louis at all.
21歲的艾琳.麥克奈利斯開始在她生長的聖路易市就讀韋伯斯特大學時,沒有離家很遠。但她選擇這所學校,是因為它的國際學程能讓她不停旅行。
韋伯斯特大學在七個國家有校園,並與另外七國的學校有夥伴關係。學生可以在泰國、迦納、中國、日本、墨西哥和整個歐洲學習。大約20%學生在世界其他地方學習;有些學生完全不在聖路易上課。
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