What is the Best Students can Expect from a General Education Course?

What is the Best Students can Expect from a General Education Course?

Speaker: Dr. Chen Ju-chen (Department of Anthropology)
Date: 1 March 2019
Time: 12:30 – 2:00 pm
Venue: Rm 701, Hui Yeung Sing Building
Language: English

Like many of her colleagues, Dr. Chen Ju-chen believes that general education is critical in the university’s undergraduate curriculum. General education (like anthropology) broadens students’ perspectives, trains their critical thinking skills, and facilitates whole-person development. However, one thing Dr. Chen learned about teaching general education at CUHK is that some students believe that general education, especially courses in Area A “Chinese Cultural Heritage”, are boring and irrelevant in nature. They only take these courses to fulfill the university requirement for graduation, and they come with “no expectation.” To teach students with little motivation, Dr. Chen often starts from asking them: “What do you think is the best you can expect from a general education course?

In this GE lunch seminar, Dr. Chen would like to explore what her students and she have figured out in answering this question. This discussion is about fixing a shared goal with general education students; and how that can help maximize the benefits of general education.    

Speaker’s Bio

Dr. Chen Ju-chen is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Anthropology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her scholarly interests cover a number of topics and geographic locations: female migrant workers in China and their efforts to obtain better houses for their sons; Filipino domestic workers in Hong Kong and the wishes they realize through participating in beauty pageants; and independent musicians and music event organizers in Hong Kong and Taiwan with a focus on their non-accumulative lifestyles. Dr. Chen is interested in the relationship between gender and migration, and she uses aspiration as the keyword to analyze the pursuits of her various research subjects. Dr. Chen has been teaching in the Department of Anthropology since 2009. Over these years Dr. Chen has taught the following general education courses: UGEA2180 Chinese Culture and Society, UGEA2334 China Today, UGEC2653 Gender and Culture, and GENA2192 Women, Men, and Culture.