Submitter: Marquita Walker, PI
Additional (3): Lynn Duggan, Joseph Varga, Marquita Walker- Labor Studies Program, School of Social Work
Title: Globalization and the Economy: Discontents and Realities
CTL Funding Level: $6403.00
Abstract:
This proposal seeks to create a new collaborative course sequence within the Labor Studies Program, School of Social Work, which will improve student learning and success on the IUPUI and IUPUC campuses through an interdisciplinary approach that encourages students’ acquisition of critical thinking skills within a peer-based system of problem-based learning. The Global Problems, Local Solutions (GPLS) course sequence challenges students to be pro-active problem solvers, utilizing knowledge gained through study, interaction, and hands-on application to tackle some of society’s most difficult issues. This three course sequence, team-taught and shared through Polycom and Oncourse, begins with L205: Globalization and its Discontents, an intensive on-line course focused on reading, discussion, and problem-formation within the context of the developing global economic, social and political system. L205 serves as a prerequisite for two courses: L375, Global Comparisons: Labor Relations Examples from Three Continents, which focuses on comparative industrial relations systems in three countries, and L376, Global Problems, Local Solutions, which focuses on local problems in the Central Indiana region. Situated in Socio-constructivist Learning Theory (Gredler, 1997), this project posits that learning takes place between learners and more skilled others through the negotiation of meaning. This thematic curriculum change prepares Labor Studies students to compete in a fluid, globalized economy of primarily nonunion workplaces. The addition of this course sequence to the curriculum constitutes an attempt to join in one of the approaches to the design curriculum which is consistent with IUPUI’s efforts to implement and evaluate the PULs as we approach our campus reaccreditation in 2012