A DEGREE COURSE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY: SOME IMPLICATIONS OF POST-MODERNISM FOR THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF MATERIALS SCIENCE %26 ENGINEERING

作者：Packham David^*

来源：Journal of Materials Education: An International Journal with a New Concept in Journal Publication , 2012, 34(3-4): 95-115.

• university teaching
• postmodern condition
• liberal university
• Enlightenment project
• neutral knowledge
• critical thinking
• concepts of %26quot
• truth%26quot
• grand narrative
• controversy
• debate
• %26quot
• failure of classical physics%26quot
• uncertainty principle
• coexistence of rival theories
• Einstein%26apos
• s %26quot
• fictions%26quot
• energy resources
• pollution
• limits to growth
• xenocestrogens
• dominant social paradigm

During the last half-century universities have faced major social and intellectual challenges, often seen as constituting a crisis. It is argued here that the intellectual challenges are associated with a move away from the confidence inherited from the Enlightenment towards the uncertainties of the postmodern condition. The implications for the way in which we educate students are discussed. It is argued that students should be helped to see a broad vision of their subject and its relation to other disciplines. Further, by encouraging them to enter into controversy, to debate and to form opinions, they will develop capabilities needed in their personal and professional lives. The major part of the paper is concerned with pedagogic examples illustrating how these ideas might be implemented in a materials degree course. These challenge students to consider the nature of theories and proof in science; the way non-scientific factors - social, political and economic - influence issues of material resources and pollution; and the dominant social paradigm, which constitutes the unexamined philosophical context of many materials courses.

• 出版日期2012-8