AN EXPERIENCE IN TEACHING COMMON INTERDISCIPLINARY COURSES AS A PART OF THE MODEL OF LIBERAL EDUCATION

The topic of teaching “paired” courses, when two or more teachers teach students in the classroom, is practically not developed in either domestic or foreign pedagogy. Nonetheless, exactly this practice is profoundly reflecting on many tasks of liberal education model, as it is shown, for instance, by Jonathan Becker. He highlights the whole array of benefits of the practice of teaching courses by two instructors; these include the possibility of intellectual and educational mutual enrichment, an overcoming through disciplinary margins, liberation of students, who open possibilities for reconsideration of their work at the course. Interdisciplinarity, in turn, is an essential principle of liberal education that is just beginning to be introduced into the principles of teaching the humanities in our country. Based on the experience of teaching joined courses during author’s pedagogical career, the article presents the experience of teaching such a course (“Posthumanism in Art”) by two teachers (V. Orlov and N. Fedorova), specialists in different fields: historical musicology and visual arts. The paper shows and evaluates pedagogical strategies and tactics, applied in the scopes of the course; the experience of students, their evolution and fulfilled tasks are analyzed; the opinions about the course of the students and teachers themselves are shown. These strategies include “solo” inserts (where only one instructor leads the class), debates and sharp confrontations between instructors (which can once again liberate or simply amuse students), and co-teaching sessions where instructors reveal a topic in as full a context as possible.

liberal education, paired teaching, humanities, Smolny college, interdisciplinarity, posthumanism, Beethoven, Schubert, technogenic catastrophe, zombie.

Orlov V. S. An experience in teaching common interdisciplinary courses as a part of the model of liberal education. Business. Education. Law, 2021, no. 3, pp. 456—462. DOI: 10.25683/VOLBI.2021.56.349.