Marlet Badeo

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

General Education Curriculum Approach

What is a general education curriculum approach?

General education curriculum approach is a subject-based study system where each student learning online or thru correspondence courses makes an extensive research on the subject being studied as part of the course curriculum. This broader approach in subject study is much better if not the best to way to equip students with knowledge of the varying subject that matters on his chosen course. This will exploit the wide array of information available online, thus allowing students to attain high level of critical thinking.

For example, if a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration incorporates such subjects as Management, Marketing, Accounting, Sociology, Economics and etc., the student may take the initiative of concentrating first on an extensive research of information on sociology as part of the course requirements.

The course facilitator will have to test the degree of knowledge the student has at various level of study. For instance, Sociology 1, then Sociology 2 and so on until the student has mastered the study of the subject. After finishing the extensive subject study, a student maybe granted an Associate Degree in General Education which could be a stepping stone to earn a bachelors degree.

At this point, the student may either proceed to continue with the other subjects under the chosen course or shifts from his or her chosen course and proceed with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Sociology. This approach is to determine whether the student is actually interested to pursue a degree in business course or that her passion is on the field of sociology.

Students in this kind of approach will be much more knowledgeable and are much more skilled than students of the present system of college learning program because they are more focused and are researched-extensive based. The present system of “labo-labo” college course curriculum is not focused and are very highly diversified.

Another thing is, presently we have a very slow paced system of learning. I made an analysis and this system is archaic. With the advent of modern technologies such as computers, internet and multi-media, these technologies are at our disposal in aiding us achieve a fast paced learning system. Why is it necessary to attend a class lecture on a daily basis for four years, when you can gain same amount of knowledge in less than a year through the use of technology.

This system and approach which was instituted centuries ago was based on the premise that then there was less sources of learning like books because there were very writers of research thesis and that students then were lead to doing experiments at that time to extract knowledge and information. The result of this experiments which was translated into thesis and authoritative books has accumulated over time and became textbooks or references and their authors are now regarded as experts or scientists. So, all these information are actually being recycled again and again except for some field of study where there is a continuing research or innovations and other discoveries.

My thesis is that, why don’t we shorten the time of college study through the use of technology so that college degrees will be given out at the very least expensive way. A wide array of information is available on the internet, so why not exploit it. Experimenting a new and radical approach such as this wouldn’t become realistic if our present obsolete-minded education officials, school officials, professors and deans sit there in the hierarchy. For the professors, that threatens their profession.