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ERIC Number: ED414853
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 1993-Jul-31
Pages: 19
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Innovation in International Education: The Conference Course.
Glickman, Harvey
This final report describes activities and accomplishments of a federally supported 3-year project at Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges (Pennsylvania) to develop three interdisciplinary "conference courses" in international affairs. The courses were offered in the political science department and were titled "North-South Cooperation for Third World Development"; "Human Rights in International Affairs"; and "Issues in the Inter-American Dialogue." The courses used a policy-making orientation, placed students in direct contact with policymakers, and converted student interest in international issues into problem-solving skills. The objective was to involve students in making a "commission" recommendation for action, and required rapid acquisition of relevant knowledge, committee work to achieve trade off and consensus, and cooperative report writing. Faculty from the Departments of Economics, Philosophy, and Spanish re-tooled current knowledge and pedagogical techniques for the courses. An outside expert policy evaluator critiqued the students' reports, and an outside expert on learning evaluated the impact of the course on students. Evaluation indicated project objectives were met, that the conference course is an effective alternative to conventional courses, and that the conference course is better able than conventional courses to hone skills such as developing a policy-recommendation orientation, cooperative learning, consensus decision-making skills, and relating directly to subject-matter experts. (DB)
Publication Type: Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (ED), Washington, DC.
Authoring Institution: Haverford Coll., PA.
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A