Abstract
This paper offers a model for a highly compulsory course designed to be empathic and person-centred within the parameters of the regulatory environment. Highly compulsory courses are those which require undergraduate students to study general subjects, in addition to subjects in their chosen academic degrees, and to satisfy the requirements within the duration of a first-degree course programme. Students who fail to comply must either remain at university until all highly compulsory courses have been successfully completed or to leave university without a degree. A relatively recent phenomenon, the highly compulsory course blueprint is being reproduced in university settings across Asia. The empathic person-centred highly compulsory course model described in the paper emerged through the interplay of three elements: an understanding of the modern regulatory environment informed by the work of philosopher-historian, Michel Foucault; an approach to writing ordinary lives extrapolated from the work of cultural historian, Catherine Hall; and real life-like scenarios based on a knowledge and understanding of the ordinary lives of students conscripted to the course that accrued in an 18-month period between 2015 and 2016. The resulting course is predicated on four principles: challenge; openness and transparency; availability; and flexibility. The first is a response to the regulatory environment’s requirement that the highly compulsory courses within its purview be meaningful from a pedagogical perspective; the other three are designed to support student-conscripts through the challenge. If neither the detail of the course nor the principles on which it is predicated convince, the three elements introduced in the first part of the paper offer a possible approach for the development of highly compulsory courses that are sensitive to, and which mitigate against conflict with, learners’ lives outside the classroom.
Highlights
In higher education, highly compulsory courses are a relatively recent phenomenon
The empathic person-centred highly compulsory course model described in the paper emerged through the interplay of three elements: an understanding of the modern regulatory environment informed by the work of philosopher-historian, Michel Foucault; an approach to writing ordinary lives extrapolated from the work of cultural historian, Catherine Hall; and real life-like scenarios based on a knowledge and understanding of the ordinary lives of students conscripted to the course that accrued in an 18-month period between 2015 and 2016
If neither the detail of the course nor the principles on which it is predicated convince, the three elements introduced in the first part of the paper offer a possible approach for the development of highly compulsory courses that are sensitive to, and which mitigate against conflict with, learners’ lives outside the classroom
Summary
Highly compulsory courses are a relatively recent phenomenon. They obligate students to undertake additional work that is unrelated to their chosen degree subject and, if this is not completed within the period of a degree course, they face the prospect either of remaining at university for longer than was planned or, worse, leaving university without a degree. The remedy to the problem posed by the phenomenon of the highly compulsory course emerged through the interplay of three elements. The resulting course model, which emerged within the parameters of the regulatory environment is predicated on four core principles. These are: challenge, openness and transparency, flexibility and accountability. The first, entitled ‘Underpinnings’ describes the three elements that facilitated the course’s production; the second provides an outline of the course itself
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