Abstracts
Theme One: Nature and Objectives of General Education in the 21st Century
by LIN Chung-I and WU Ming-Chi, National Chengchi University
Changes in the ecosystem of higher education cast a series of transformations inside university education. Different paradigms imply different assumptions of knowledge, study, student-teacher relationship and university structure. The conscious identification of the current development trend of university education is integral. It directs the reformation of general education. Based upon this, this paper observes and analyses the orientation of general education of universities in nurturing talents through studying the development trend of overseas university education. On this background, this paper also explores the highlights and challenges of university general education for Taiwan universities in recent years and illustrates the direction and necessity of a paradigm shift for higher education in Taiwan.
* The paper will be presented in Chinese with simultaneous interpretation into English. This translation of the abstract is by the conference secretariat.
by LEUNG Mei Yee, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
As an educational idea emerged from the 19th century in America and being shaped and promoted in the 20th century, General Education has long been tangled with the idea of Liberal Education. Liberal education as an education ideal, can be traced to the Ancient Greek and still prevails in different interpretations in the contemporary times. This paper compares several important statements about liberal education in the American general education movement after the 19th century, as a way to outline the actualisation of general education under different interpretations. At last, the author tries to point out how the core concepts of liberal education can provide to the future development of general education with a direction under its diversified modes.
* The paper will be presented in Chinese with simultaneous interpretation into English. This translation of the abstract is by the conference secretariat.
by NG Kai Chiu, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
In my previous publication, I stressed the importance of value education under an era of universities with multi-values. This article serves as a sequel with one step forward, explores the extent of the capability of general education in shouldering the duty of value education. (The practice in the Chinese University of Hong Kong is used as a model for discussion in this article). There are three main arguments: 1. General education stresses on “Learn to be”, it is a suitable platform for universities to promote value education. 2. However, university general education with classroom lectures as the teaching mode has inevitable limitations when promoting value education. Lectures focus on the intelligence or reason of the students, yet, the evolution of the emotions and wills of the students are not ensured. “Learn to be” has huge relevance with the latter. 3. Although the aforementioned limitations exist, value education under classroom lectures has its undeniable advantages. The soul of lectures lies on reasoning and reasoning avoids dictatorship, blindness or stubbornness of emotions and wills. Besides, it fosters the communications and debates on different value judgments, encourages the absorptions of students as well as their continuous reflections and self-evaluations. In the era with multi-values, these two functions are precious.
* The paper will be presented in Chinese with simultaneous interpretation into English. This translation of the abstract is by the conference secretariat.
Theme Two : Models of General Education
by PANG Haishao, Beijing Institute of Technology
Since 1920s, the Ministry of Education has been boosting Suzhi (cultural quality) Education among universities in China. In particular, the 3rd national meeting on education featuring quality education was held in 1999. This led to the rapid response and public recognition of cultural quality education and its values among the education industry and the society. Meanwhile, western ideas about general education were introduced through international exchanges on education. They were soon welcomed with the vehicle of cultural quality education.
Today, cultural quality education, quality education and general education co-exist in educational activities in universities. This fusing is developed in four directions and into diversified models. The first direction is “Second Lesson” with Chinese characteristics. That is, to guide and organise students to start up various meaningful extra-curriculum activities by student affairs offices. The second direction is general education courses. This consists of three major modes: lectures on political theories and thoughts with Chinese characteristics, “General Education Electives” or “Cultural Quality Education Electives” and seminars for freshmen.
The third direction is to establish schools of general education or liberal education academia, aiming at a general education reformation that nurtures talents on an integrated manner. Some higher education institutes have already set up “School of General Education” to carry out experiments on such reform. The fourth direction is the setting up of colleges for student management for the education benefits of hostel life. This paper analyses the aforementioned developments with examples.
* The paper will be presented in Chinese with simultaneous interpretation into English. This translation of the abstract is by the conference secretariat.
by SUN Xiangchen, Fudan University
Whether it is between general education and professional education, liberal education and knowledge-based education, the trend of popularisation of education and the demand of general elites or between elective mode and core mode, there are huge tensions. In the past ten years, Fudan University has been actively exploring and solving the challenges inside general education. It initiated a new series of reformation for general education. With a comprehensive delicacy for the current structure, especially in two aspects, actualises the missions of general education. The first aspect is the proposal of the idea about “Fundamental Course Unit”. Such scheme turns the original course to be more systematic and in micro sense, forms an inter-disciplinary teaching team. The second aspect is an education mode with a stress on “Learning” to evict the passive learning habits of the students.
* The paper will be presented in Chinese with simultaneous interpretation into English. This translation of the abstract is by the conference secretariat.
by Ann HUSS, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Is it possible to ensure that each aspect of college life is tied in some way to GeneralEducation (GE)? Morningside College’s GE model, which is specifically designed to engage students with the College’s motto of Scholarship, Virtue, Service, attempts to do just this. This presentation outlines the prospects for—and possible limitations of—small college integrative GE course design and programming.
Theme Three：The Teaching and Assessment of General Education
by Klaus COLANERO, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Based on the reflection on the past two years of teaching the General Education Foundation Programme at CUHK, I show how the two courses based on the two dialogues, with Nature and with Humanity, can be a means to overcome the traditional dichotomy of science as opposed to humanities and, as a consequence, to provide a more solid foundation for a person’s intellectual development. Specifically, I propose that such aims can be achieved by focusing, within the two dialogues, on the interaction between Nature, knowledge, and values.
by CHEUNG Hang Cheong Derek, KIANG Kai Ming and NG Ka Leung Andy, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
The traditional course-end evaluation for the general education courses at The Chinese University of Hong Kong can gauge student’s perception of their attainment of the intended learning outcomes (ILOs) at the end of the course but can hardly reflect the changes of their perception from the beginning to the end. In order to trace the change in students’ perception regarding the ILOs of the GE foundation course In Dialogue with Nature, a pair of surveys with a set of identical questions, namely entry survey and exit survey, were recently developed and conducted at the beginning and at the end of the course correspondingly. While both assessment methods showed that the course was well-received, we identified some inconsistencies in the students’ perception of their degree of ILOs enhancement and found that the entry-exit surveys reveal additional aspects which could be overlooked with the traditional course-end evaluation. The study raises the question of which assessment method provides a more truthful representation of students’ attainment of the ILOs and sheds light on the future revision of the course assessment strategies.
by YANG Jie Jasmine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
From 2012 onwards, the General Education Foundation (GEF) Programme has been added to the existing design of general education in The Chinese University of Hong Kong as a common core programme. It consists of two courses, In Dialogue with Nature and In Dialogue with Humanity. Every student of CUHK is required to take the two courses starting from the second semester of their first year of study.
Each of two GEF courses requires students to study a textbook containing texts originally written in (or translated into) English or Chinese. However, lectures and tutorials for both courses are arranged in three different languages, namely, Cantonese, English and Putonghua. Students may choose to take the courses in any language group of their preference. This paper will introduce the bilingual experience of GEF teaching and learning in CUHK, touching on the reasons for setting up the bilingual mechanism, the difficulties involved, and the feedback from students and teachers.
by GAO Xin, HO Wai Ming and Julie CHIU, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
It is said that love, and nothing else, is what Sappho taught her girls: “Whatever one loves” is “the finest sight on dark earth”. But “love”, as students of In Dialogue with Humanity (a required course under CUHK’s General Education Foundation Programme) would recall, is the theme of Plato’s intriguing dialogue Symposium, forcibly argued as the desire of what is good and beautiful. In the Odyssey, the very first textin the course, the meaning of love has yet another dimension. The only desire of Penelope, the wise daughter of Icarius, is the return of her long-absent husband.
What light can the lyric poetess cast on eros and on women (or their absence) in Plato’s banquet? What new understanding does she bring to women in the Odyssey like Penelope and Calypso? Would Sappho emulate Penelope’s wisdom, as she celebrates Helen’s reckless response to the call of love? Through the looking glass of Sappho, the image of women in love depicted by Plato and Homer becomes more luminous.
by CHENG Wai Pang Damian and LEUNG Cheuk Hang, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
The core of humane education lies in humanity and human civilization. In addition to the rationality, human also has sentiments. As such, rationality and sentiments are indispensable in humane education. This article will review and explore the role of sentiments in humane education, with focus on the tradition and practice of humane education which all along emphasizes on critical thinking.
* The paper will be presented in Chinese with simultaneous interpretation into English.
by FONG Sing Ha, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Included in the second part of In Dialogue with Humanity are two texts: The original Buddhism classic, The Heart Sutra and a commentary, The Heart of Understanding by Thích Nhất Hạnh. With only 260 words, The Heart Sutra involves the essential Buddhism concepts such as the Four Noble Truths, the Five Aggregates, the Six Roots, the Six Gunas, the Six Indriyas and the Twelve Links. For students without foundation of Buddhism knowledge, it is, of course, difficult for them to grasp the inner wisdom of Prajñā. Reading The Heart of Understanding is a convenient way to decode The Heart Sutra. Thích Nhất Hạnh suggested the idea of inter-being and re-illustrated the idea of dependent origination and emptiness in a poetic way. It is true that there are some desirable places in The Heart of Understanding. For example, it visualised “All reality is a phantom, and all phantoms are real.” with “waves and seas”. However, when he was explaining the sufferings of the prostitutes in Manila, he said that the lifestyle of the prostitutes was based on that of the rich women, same analogy applies on other examples (Buddha and devil, America and the Soviet Union). This statement can explain part of the problem; it contains a fallacy though, which is the limitless magnification of one of the links resulting in the fate of a prostitute (i.e. the rich woman). This violates the principle of dependent origination and emptiness. Because of this, the author wants to discuss another classical Buddhism documentation, The Diamond Sutra, with you. It is hoped that the analysis of the characteristics of Prajñā education can help with the revision of the course later on. This paper explores and analyses the characteristics of Prajñā education in The Diamond Sutra step by step as follows: the four arbitrary notions, the notions of dharma, dependent origination and emptiness (note: does not and does), non-dharmas, “in the practice of charity, bodhisattvas should abide in nothing whatsoever”, “The mind should act without any attachments”.
* The paper will be presented in Chinese with simultaneous interpretation into English. This translation of the abstract is by the conference secretariat.