Thirteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

Traditional models of teaching in higher education, which have ruled universities for more than 600 years, are slowly being retired and replaced by more active learning paradigms and student-centered pedagogies. The individual autonomy of the lecture hall is being challenged by the social, cultural, and technological changes of an increasingly cosmopolitan world. The process of worldwide globalization has facilitated the movement of people and ideas unlike any other time in human history. We are now partaking in conversations across boundaries of information, ideas, and identities leading to the evolution of a cosmopolitan worldview and an information culture wherein everybody matters and human plurality is valued. While universities are notoriously slow to change, they remain at the core of this evolving culture, not as gatekeepers of information but as facilitators of learning. This paper focuses on the practice and power of co-teaching in higher education as a model of collective autonomy. Such a strategy values the social experience of student-centered learning and aims to empower students to solve real world problems, engage in critical discourse and acquire a culturally proficient consciousness as members of cosmopolitan communities in a globalized world.