AN EXPERIMENTAL COURSE IN SOLVING GLOBAL PROBLEMS

The paper will discuss a 21st century lecture-free course in which there is no syllabus, no pre-ordained objectives, no professor-created context or texts.  Instead, the course starts with questions:  what are the 10 top global challenges faced by humanity?  The second question:  how can we solve them?

Students select which issues they wish to examine, do group research and reports, and then publicize their creative solutions through social media, letters to editors, emails to government leaders throughout the world, and through organizations.

The course relies on a library as a commons, uses technologies and web sources, and centers upon student research, debate and oral presentations.  The professor serves as guide, commentator, and a source for research.  The library is reinvigorated through such a course and helps re-envision the library as the central focus-point of an undergraduate liberal arts university.