Abstract

• The General Education Foundation (GEF) Programme in CUHK and the Common Intellectual Experience (CIE) Programme in Ursinus College in USA, as common-core programmes, share a similar vision to shape all undergraduates into better global citizens through studying internationally recognized classic texts.
• With notable overlap of vision, teaching philosophy, and texts in the curricula of the GEF and CIE programmes, there is a high potential for developing a long-term international partnership which benefits the teaching and learning of GE in both institutions.
• We propose a pilot project on the collaborative teaching and learning of the common-core GE courses with Ursinus by introducing to the GEF and CIE two classics from each other’s syllabus, supported by a sharing of online video-lectures on these texts and online exchanges of views on them among teachers and students of both sides.
• The project will serve two goals:
  1. Mutual development: through the collaborative teaching and learning of the culturally diverse texts selected from each other’s syllabus, faculties of both institutions will develop more teaching ideas while their students will gain richer learning experience.
  2. Internationalization at home: without leaving home, students and teachers of both institutions will gain an exchange experience through intellectual dialogues with their counterparts overseas, broaden their cultural understanding, and develop mutual respect.
• The goals will be realized in three steps:
  1. To produce micro-modules for blended-learning of the texts selected from the GEF and CIE syllabi;
  2. To develop an online discussion platform to facilitate discussion of the texts between the teachers and students in GEF and CIE.
  3. To implement collaborative teaching and learning of the texts selected by GEF and CIE in each other’s curriculum.