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instructors the kinds of integrative learning that they will experience in subsequent
courses.
The interdisciplinary approach favored in the Global Challenge lends itself to the
cultivation of analytical skills and “the integration of disciplinary insights.”
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Although
basic knowledge of global affairs is a significant part of the curriculum, and part of the
learning outcomes assessment plan, emphasis is on meta-cognitive skills such as moral
reasoning and empirical analysis. The Global Challenge is “layered” in such a way as to
permit students to investigate scientific, ethical, and economic dimensions of global
problems, integrating a new type of analysis at each stage. The course can be visualized
as a pyramid (see Fig. 2) with the most general topics introduced at the beginning (or top)
of the pyramid, meta-cognitive skills introduced in the middle, and more specific topics
explored at the end (or bottom) of the pyramid.
During Unit One of the Global Challenge, students discuss what it means for an
issue to be “global”, as opposed to international, national, or local. The HIV-AIDS
pandemic is presented as a “typical” global issue – one which affects the entire world and
which may be solved (or exacerbated) by behavior (both political and personal) in all
parts of the world. The interdisciplinary nature of the AIDS crisis is also discussed, with
the medical, scientific, economic, political, ethical, and security aspects of the disease
subjected to at least preliminary analysis. Students tend to be surprised by the sheer
magnitude of the situation, as well as how much deeper the impact of AIDS has been in
certain parts of Africa (as contrasted with North America). However, instructors do not
expect that their understanding of the AIDS crisis will be particularly thorough or
probing. Again, the idea is to show students what a global issue looks like and get them
Convention