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Handout
with Information
Handout
with Information |
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What
is World Builders?
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World
Builders is a course leaping
towards the future. It is designed to
bring people together
with an interesting vision,
to focus their minds on
the aquisition of knowledge
in the context of critical
thinking and playful speculation,
to provide, in the context
of technology, a playground
and a construction set
for expanding minds.
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In
this course, which is
coming into being out
on the web, students
design planets from
the stellar dust through
the emergence of plants
and animals in balanced
ecological communities.
Their planets are posted
on the web for all the
world to share. The
web site provides a
rich list of web resources
for the students to
explore in each lesson,
as well as lesson material,
questions, and supporting
science information.
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World
Builders is a social
experience that brings
people together. The
sense of ownership and
the vision of the product
engage the emotions
as well as the mind.
The task is challenging,
and requires a combination
of talents very rarely
found in one individual.
Each person in the group
becomes a precious resource
to the others. Each
idea is valued -- and
evaluated. Choices must
be made. Different parts
of the project must
be very closely coordinated.
Sometimes a group passes
through conflicts on
the way to triumphant
creation, but they learn
as they go.
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World
Builders makes transparent
use of technology. Students search the web
for knowledge, email each
other to exchange ideas,
write their chapters with
word processors, pour
their images from SuperPaint
to PhotoShop to GraphicConverter,
and synthesize their products
into colorful web pages.
They are reaching for
animation now. Will we
greet the new millenium
with 3D pages?
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World
Builders teaches important
concepts. Although this educational
model could be used
with different materials
in other contexts, in
this case students are
dealing with natural
laws that do not bend,
with problems of resource
limitation, with the
connectedness of future,
present, and past, with
the adaptations that
living things (and cultures)
must make to survive.
-
This
course is not limited
to university students. Serious scientists participate
in world building --
and find that it challenges
them. Junior High School
students would find
this project very attractive.
At every level, the
learners expand their
knowledge and understanding.
-
World
Builders is creating
a new model in education. It is a course in which
the aquisition of information,
while essential, is
subordinated to the
synthesis and processing
of that information.
This model embraces
a world in which enormous
amounts of information
are available to everyone,
but choosing, using,
and shaping relevant
information are skills
that must be learned.
This course encourages
question generation,
and evaluation of those
questions. It encourages
the integration of knowledge
from a number of diverse
disciplines, and creates
context for what is
learned, rather than
allowing the storage
of isolated facts.
-
Anyone
who has a connection
to the web can take
this course.
Space and time are unimportant,
because the information
is on the web and the
other students and the
professor are available
by email. It could easily
become a distance education
course, although the
in-class meetings are
a lot fun. Video Conferencing
would be a natural addition
to this course if the
group members were separated
geographically..
-
World
Builders provides a
safe framework for speculation,
creativity, and play.
Ideas
are shared, embellished,
and modified as the
group gives feedback
and encouragement to
its members.
- World
Builders is not intended
to replace tradional courses,
but
rather to supplement them,
to spur student curiosity,
and to help students to
integrate what they already
know. After taking a problem-focused
course, students look to
traditional, structured
courses to give coherence
to what they have learned
-- and to what they yet
want to know.
http://www.world-builders.org/
http://curriculum.calstatela.edu/courses/builders/
©
Elizabeth Anne Viau, 1997, 1998,
2003, 2004. All rights reserved.
This material may be used freely
for instructional purposes but not
sold for a price beyond the cost
of reproduction. Please inform the
author if you use it at eviau@earthlink.net.
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