Learning Themes For The Future, part 2

THE LEARNING
EXPERIENCE

Discovering new knowledge, refining it in the marketplace of ideas, and putting it to work is at the heart of the learning

experience in great universities like this one. The excitement of discovery attracts the best scholars and students, energizes our teaching and learning, and makes possible our greatest contributions to the quality of life. To pass this excitement to the next generation, we must reinvigorate the role of research in the learning experience. Our curriculum has always involved research experiences in the form of fieldwork, laboratories, and seminars, involving students in the thrill of discovery.

There is a transformation of the learning experience going on inside and outside the classroom. In large part, this transformation involves the vast expansion of knowledge itself and also new technologies of learning. Should classroom lectures be replaced by combinations of video lectures, self-paced learning with interactive software, and computer-driven access to libraries, with the classroom as the focus of discussion? We have the beginnings of a campus dialogue on these issues.

How well students learn in the classroom significantly depends on what happens before and after the classroom hour. Learning outside the classroom will play a stronger role in the university of the future. Students and faculty will spend more time working together on research projects, in residence halls-based learning communities, and in off-campus learning experiences such as internships and study abroad. Information technology and distance learning will facilitate communication and interactive learning between faculty and students in out-of-class hours. Pilot projects in residential learning communities are paving the way for large-scale transformations in the way students, staff, and faculty interact to promote learning.

THE LEARNING
COMMUNITY
The learning community is another component of our vision. We currently have an intellectual landscape of mine shafts, where most of us are organized in mines, working to deepen the mines, but with not much reflection about corridors that should link us to other miners. We are so poorly connected that we have greatly weakened our shared sense of learning.
I encourage us to think about a different organization that is much more balanced with horizontal structures. We should not abolish the mine shafts; they are too important and they are the source of much of our knowledge. However, we do need to strengthen the commitment of our specialized units with a stronger awareness of our institutional mission.

the bottom line