Page 239 - Crisis in Higher Education

210 • Crisis in Higher Education

5. Enhance job search skills and networking.
6. Prepare for interviews, have practice interviews, and know how to
dress professionally.

A one-hour course in the sophomore year could address the first three
points, and a second one-hour course in the junior year would prepare
students for the job search process in their senior year. Program advisory
boards (PABs), which are discussed in Chapter 8, are useful resources for
this endeavor.

10.2 PEDAGOGY

A critical change in pedagogy is switching from teacher-centered to
student-centered learning, meaning that the method of instruction is
customized to match how students learn. Another element is online
learning, which has the potential to fundamentally change how knowl-
edge is delivered by greatly reducing or possibly eliminating face-to-face
interactions, traditional printed textbooks, student activities fees, and
dormitories. These two changes should be viewed together because online
learning presents opportunities for faculty to redesign how knowledge
is delivered in both traditional courses and 100% online courses. These
important points are discussed in detail in the following sections.

10.2.1 Student-Centered Learning
Chapter 7 discusses student-centered learning, describes different learning
styles, and offers an example of how this might be accomplished for a course
in basic statistics. The following discussion takes a step back and describes
how the different types of courses—general education, disciplinary core,
major field of study, and minor field of study—impact what and how stu-
dents are expected to learn. For this discussion, major and minor fields
are combined because a minor field of study is often a subset of courses in
a major. For example, students who decide to minor in psychology would
take fewer psychology courses than students who are taking a major.
Figure 10.2 shows that the learning environment changes as students tran-
sition from general education courses to their major and minor fields. Course
content becomes more challenging and learning more focused. As students