Other Goals

A search for "Interdisciplinary General Education" finds Cal State Pomona. It lists as goals:

• • Communication Skills and Critical Thinking

  • Historical and Social Consciousness

  • Multicultural Understanding

  • Appreciation of Aesthetic Experiences

  • Articulation of Values

  • Information Literacy

  • Active Student Learning

We address Interdisciplinary Communication and Values elsewhere. Information literacy is captured under Addressing Information Overload Critical thinking is addressed under Skills

Active learning strategies are addressed under Pedagogy

With respect to multicultural understanding, we should first note that there is an extensive literature that suggests that integrating across social boundaries of any sort is quite similar to integrating across disciplinary boundaries [What's a good citation?]. The strategies outlined in Teaching Interdisciplinary Integration and perhaps especially Integrating Coursework and Campus Life will thus be useful here as well.

Multicultural understanding, Appreciation of aesthetic experience, and perhaps Historical and social consciousness could be the focus of Thematic Interdisciplinary Courses Such courses will be more successful if students have first learned how to integrate across disciplines. We discuss how a curriculum could be structured in Designing a General Education Curriculum

Note that what was said in the last paragraph about these particular goals could be said about many other goals that might be articulated by diverse institutions: These too can be the focus of one or more thematic interdisciplinary courses.