The afternoon sessions of the January faculty/staff technologyworkshop were devoted to discussion of the statement of "InformationTechnology Goals for Liberal Arts Students" drafted bythe Library, Technology and Learning Committee. The draft hasnow been revised and, along with this summary of the discussions,is posted on the Educational Policy Committee's Blackboardweb site with the hope of stimulating further considerationof the role of information technology in the education of ourstudents.
Three discussion groups were formed of faculty from the Humanitiesand Foreign Languages, the Social Sciences, and the Natural Sciencesand Mathematics; staff members from the library and computingcenter also participated in each group. The groups were askedboth to comment on the enumerated goals in the statement and toconsider by what curricular and extra-curricular strategies orprograms they might be achieved.
There seemed to be a general consensus in each group that theenumerated goals were appropriate for our students and our curriculum.But the question of how these goals are to be achieved proveda more complex issue. Faculty do not expect to have to teach studentsbasic technology skills (document preparation--word-processing,PowerPoint; communications tools--email, participation in discussionforums, etc.), or even how to use spread sheets or other morespecific software applications, though they clearly expect studentsto have these abilities. There was, however, fairly broad agreementthat academic departments and major programs bear primary responsibilityfor exposing students to the discipline-specific technology skillsand perspectives needed to work at advanced levels in most fields,even if the processes for achieving these vary greatly among departments.
Faculty felt that the enumerated goals must be framed by amore articulate argument for using information technology as apedagogical tool and as a substantive part of the curriculum,perhaps by providing a "mission statement" about therole of information technology in the education of liberal artsstudents. This more general statement of goals should focus onstudents acquiring a sufficiently broad conceptual understandingof technology to facilitate learning the new applications andprograms they will encounter when they leave Wheaton and to fosterthe critical evaluation and use of all electronic informationthey access. It was further suggested that the entire statementshould become a "Debatable Proposition" in the curriculumreview process.
Item #4, dealing with "information literacy," generatedthe most discussion of any particular goal and is clearly seenas the most important for our students. Discussants felt thatit should be made more explicit about the need to be able to "criticallyevaluate electronic information" and to "recognize thelimitations of electronic resources." Many argued that thisgoal is a "moving target" in the sense that it willbe differently realized at each level of a student's educationalcareer and therefore must be continuously pursued at each level.Some discussants felt that the ability to assess critically thebenefits and limitations of information technology to our ownculture and to global culture should also be included as partof item #6.
While the enumerated goals are accepted by faculty, there isa strong feeling that the basic skills needed to achieve mostof them should be acquired or developed outside of a student'scourses in a general education curriculum. The exceptions wereitems #4, which faculty in most disciplines are prepared to teachto, and #6, dealing with legal, ethical and security issues, whichmerit curricular attention at all levels of exposure to informationtechnology. A range of suggestions was made for how students mightacquire the more basic skills and how that acquisition might beassessed. These included:
Back to January Workshop
Content:Tom Brooks, Associate Provost
Last update: 2/2001