January 8, 2008

AAC&U's LEAP Principles & College Learning for the New Global Century

According to the Association of American Colleges and Universities' website:
Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP): Excellence for Everyone as a Nation Goes to College is a ten-year campaign to champion the value of a liberal education—for individual students and for a nation dependent on economic creativity and democratic vitality. The campaign seeks to expand public and student understanding of what really matters in college—the kinds of learning that will truly empower them to succeed and make a difference in the 21st century.
The recently released LEAP Report, College Learning for the New Global Century (pdf), "highlights 16 schools or educational systems whose innovative educational practices and programs embody the report's recommendations and Principles of Excellence," including BGSU's BGeXperience program. A clear recommendation from the report concludes:
The LEAP National Leadership Council recommends, in sum, an education that intentionally fosters, across multiple fields of study,wide-ranging knowledge of science, cultures, and society; high-level intellectual and practical skills; an active commitment to personal and social responsibility; and the demonstrated ability to apply learning to complex problems and challenges.

The council further calls on educators to help students become “intentional learners” who focus, across ascending levels of study and diverse academic programs, on achieving the essential learning outcomes.
The following are the Principles in Practice identified in the LEAP Report (click each link for more details):
Aim High -- and Make Excellence Inclusive
Give Students a Compass
Teach the Arts of Inquiry and Innovation
Engage the Big Questions
Connect Knowledge with Choices and Action
Foster Civic, Intercultural, and Ethical Learning
Assess Students' Ability to Apply Learning to Complex Problems


What types of learning experiences are your students doing that support some of these principles?... Click on the COMMENTS link below to get started!


1 comment:

Nils Peterson said...

I was searching for LEAP and you turned up in Google. I'm with Washington State Univeristy's Center for Teaching Learning and Technology.

I think we have a couple of interests in common. First, we moved our blog "off shore" for reasons at least partly explained here We welcome your thinking about those ideas.

Second, our shared interest in AAC&U LEAP and I'm hoping shared explorations about its implications. Here are materials I'm taking to AAC&U conf April 2.