What I’m Reading: ‘Disrupting Ourselves’

Randall Bass, vice provost for education and a scholar of teaching and learning at Georgetown University, presented some of his thoughts on learning and higher education as part of our convocation series at Southern Utah University. Afterward, I was inspired to read more from him.

In his article “Disrupting Ourselves: The Problem of Learning in Higher Education,” published in Educause Review, Mr. Bass discusses how new ideas are reframing what we think of as the “formal curriculum” and how to redesign courses to have a better impact on learning. This got me thinking about how we are incorporating high-impact practices into our curriculum.

Because of Mr. Bass’s insights, our discussions in the geology program now revolve around integrating multiple high-level geology classes around a single research topic so that students are presented with a challenge and then use the course material and instructors to learn what they need to complete the project. That approach is putting the students in control of their education while showing them that none of our courses are self-contained.

Our students are starting to see the interconnectedness of our courses and thus the interconnectedness of the subfields of geology as a discipline. All professors should follow Mr. Bass’s advice and constantly evaluate and improve their curriculum to join what I hope will be a continuous evolution to improve the quality of higher education.