2. 1
Our GBU Bioepistemological
Educational Model Project
(BEEMP) ®
CONTENT
•Our theoretical starting point
•Theoretical Foundation of our Educational Model
•Educational Foundations of the Giordano Bruno GlobalShift University
I. Technopedagogy I Online Pedagogical Model
II. The Collaborative Virtual Education. WEB 2.0
III. Processes for implementing the GBU Pedagogical Model
IV. Steps towards the Technopedagogical Design of a 100% virtual
learning environment
a. Content Development
b. Periodical Content Updating
c. Instructional and Multimedia Design
d. Tutorial Design
e. Platform User Support
V. Giordano Bruno GlobalShift University Diagram
VI. About the Academic Professionals
VII. The Modules, The Units
VIII. Synthesis, as a conclusion about the structure of a course
3. 2
Our theoretical starting point
Behind the foundation of our higher education global Project ‐the Giordano Bruno
University‐ underlies a major revolutionary bio‐epistemological, philosophical and
pedagogical model of thought. This model springs from new research and
understanding of the phenomenal processes of the biological acquisition of human
knowledge, carried out by the neurosciences1 and confronted with cultural
objectionable outcomes produced throughout the millenarian construction of our
history.
Scholarly based, our project emerges, first, from the evolution of intertwined
philosophical, cultural and biological contemporary research concerning the final
“state of our World”. Second, from a very serious critique of the perceptible
present cultural models and organizational realities. And third, from our
commitment to construct a better future based in the foreseeable possibilities of
our cognitive, cultural and biological human condition.
Theoretical Foundation of our Educational Model
The new bio‐epistemological perspective of our understanding, and the ulterior
model of administration and distribution of knowledge built through a frame of
time and space ‐defined as civilization2‐ created behind the manifestations of our
recorded human history, a silent form of human software, recorded into the
archetypical specifics of our neuro‐physiology.
The above has happened more or less in a scientific and identifiable way oscillating
in the different eras and places of our history; either, as the primitive holistic and
symbolic appreciation of reality, evident in the mythical, sacred and heroic
narratives (stone, clay or paper) or ‐in more recent times‐ in the scientific
achievement of our bioepistemological development present in the rational linear
processes of a logical construction of knowledge that highlights the lack of a
holistic approach.3
In summary, and for the sake of underlining the academic tools of the
technopedagogy built to support our GBU educational Project, we assume that our
“present symbolic thinking era” was created by the holistic capabilities and
perception of our brain giving birth to a complex World. In parallel, our multiple
forms of social and economic organization created our primitive and (still)
theocratic civilizations, expressed in their religious, political and economic
structures. This opened the door to a modern scientific and technological
environment, that today, enters schizophrenically in conflict with the ancient
1
New neuroscientific research transforming neurology, neurosurgery, psychiatry, psychology, education- is opening
inexhaustible topics to improve human life not only about health and curing brain diseases alzheimer, parkinson,
autism, effects of stress, etc. - but also about the promising possibilities of a different functioning of the brain to find
creative solutions to human problems.
2
Cfr. Braudel, Fernand (1995), El as, Norberto (1987), Wolf, Eric (2001, 1999, 1982), for a deep understanding of the
historical development of mankind from a vision of a long scale of time.
3
Cfr. Gibbons et al.
4. 3
structural leftovers of our primal and phenomenally created contents of
consciousness.
The famous bicameral mind hypothesis (Julian Janes, 1990:84) versus the debate
about left and right cerebral dominance over linear –abstract‐ and holistic ‐evident
and spatial‐ thinking of our species, in conjunction with the last one hundred years
of intense neuroscience investigation, teaches us that the human perception of the
World has gone through this primitive process from spatial (possibly right brain
dominance) to logical‐mathematical (still hypothetical left brain dominance), for
the construction of a subjective truth. Neither one of these theories, has achieved
an epistemological grand synthesis of the whole or the particular.
This theoretical and still hypothetical knowledge of our human thinking and the
processes of acquisition and distribution of knowledge, give us an educated hint
about the brain’s structure and functioning. In the same way that the bilateral
anatomy of our eyes (vision) and ears (dimensional perception) perform the
function of the respective stereoscopic and stereophonic capabilities to perceive
the World in a multidimensional reality, our brain has been similarly configured.
This is evident in its bilateral hemispheric structure.
Ears and eyes are anatomically and apparently constructed to interact among them
through the corpus callosum to naturally synthesize the perception of the whole
with the particular, the abstract with the evident, the linear with the spatial, and so
on, creating not a new lateralized or partial thinking, but a holistic perception of
reality which, if not blocked by our cultural linear preconceptions, will naturally
exponentiate the possibilities of our human potentials and understanding.
The cognitive synthesis in this line of thinking, will be our “stereo cognition” (as
stereophonic or stereoscopic), the brain’s simultaneous and conscious perception
of reality as a totality. Taking this into the field of education and distribution of the
commodity of knowledge will necessarily change our conventional vision of
classical pedagogy. One very often based in the hierarchical transmission of
accumulated, culturally subjective information, structured using a mixture of
sources found in the preeminence of logic and the dogmatic principles of our
metaphysical tradition (or even worse), grounded in the neural records of our
short term historical memory, product of the left or right dominance of our brain.
This is the anachronistic pedagogy which actually teaches us how to survive and be
aware of our immediate perceptible reality, and the one we have to overcome.
With this set of scientific data and the cultural synthesis of our abstract
introspection, we firmly believe that the time has come to revise our pedagogical
tradition from a bio‐epistemological perspective, which will necessarily lead us to
propose a new post‐modern “stereo cognitive” holistic education.
This idea implies a revolutionary revision of the theoretical framework of our
classical methodologies of teaching and learning, as well as, the traditional
administrative foundation of higher education institutions.
5. 4
Much of this has to do with the perception and comprehension of the interaction
that occurs between the whole and the particular, in the sense that institutional
education has evolved, amongst others, from the culturally biased frame of the
particular (notwithstanding its religious, political or economic roots) to the
universal, very often systemic and scientifically based frame. In a general analysis
of our history, this still postulates an incomplete vision of the world and
impoverishes our educational and cognitive realities.
The above is even more complicated when we realize that in the field of education,
from medieval times to present, the main actors have been the religious, political
or economic power holders, who throughout the centuries have declared their
universities as open spaces to promote the “universality of knowledge”, these were
founded and are operating to self‐preserve their meta‐educational privileges.
The challenge of our age is to overcome this ancient and stubborn instructional
paradigm by going beyond the foundational power of traditional institutions, by
designing new forms of education with a supra‐religious, supranational and supra‐
economic scope and with a new holistic pedagogical methodology that could help
us to break away from the prisons of our instructional heritage and take a step
forward in the awakening of a new evolutionary consciousness for humanity.
With these ideas in mind we postulate a major deconstructive exercise in the
ontological, epistemological and axiological thinking chapters of our civilization.
We propose to essentially change our negative self‐conscious human archetype
inspired in our imperfect, still religious‐oriented narratives to a new positive
ontological self‐image. Our consciousness, in its turn, will impact the
deconstruction of the epistemological and axiological contents of civilization.
So we, the contemporary humans, inspired in a new axiology consistent with the
most recent insights from neurosciences, could gradually proceed, to the
intellectual deconstruction of the self‐fulfilling prophecy of subordination,
unconsciousness and insecurity we have unconsciously self imposed and mirrored
in our deterministic fate and repetitive historical human development.
Educational Foundations of the Giordano Bruno GlobalShift
University
Once deconstruction is accepted in the notion of “the World of our making”, and no
longer in the fatal predetermined outcomes of our metaphysical tradition, we
categorically establish the three pedagogical foundations of our educational
project: nonsubordinative, intercultural and transdisciplinary. The latter
foundations are necessary for the holistic understanding of our World by our
students, in consistence with the stereo‐cognitive capacity to link the whole with
the particular and achieve a full grasp of the intercultural and trans‐disciplinarian
knowledge.
From this conception, our challenge was to translate these philosophical and
pedagogical principles into a concrete techno‐pedagogy and bio‐epistemological
6. 5
instructional tools that could be, in the pragmatic field of education, transmitted
and factually experienced by our multicultural students.
We enter in a brick by brick conceptual construction of our instructional design, by
structuring the tools to foster stereo‐cognitive thinking of our students, by linking
in every step of the student’s compulsory reflective work and the permanent
association of the whole with the particular, specially in the confluential areas of
the transcultural and trans‐disciplinary fields of our academic programs and
contents of study.
The emergent outcome was a collaborative intercultural and interdisciplinary
system of virtual interaction among students of all nationalities, creeds and
cultural backgrounds in a custom made “WholeLife experience" educational
techno‐pedagogical proprietary system.
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Educational Online Model
Not many years ago, traditional pedagogical models were centered in teaching and
most of them used the presential modality. They presupposed that the teacher was
the exclusive owner of knowledge and students should passively receive
knowledge by memorizing it. However, two decades ago, the scientific advances on
Pedagogy, reoriented education towards a new pedagogical model, which asserts,
in order to educate, that teaching processes must be conceived bounded to a
learning process.
Although these are recent changes, there’s no doubt that the model is still changing
while finding that students should obtain knowledge to enable specific skills as
future professionals. Therefore, in the present context of a society of information
and knowledge, learning to build skills comes in strict closeness with the use of
new technology to boost its development.
Today, the new information and communication technologies progress aligned to
WEB 2.0, that allows networking in social and virtual environments for learning.
This system enables the creation of collaborative and flexible spaces of teaching‐
learning, that provide students with a bigger autonomy, making teacher
accompaniment possible, as well as the frequent, permanent counseling and
communication with his mates. Promoted by modern pedagogy since the eighties,
the teacher has assumed the role of a learning facilitator who gives the student the
opportunity to build his own knowledge.
The possibility to drive teaching‐learning as an interaction between the teacher
and the student, evolving in parallel with the boosting of technological
development, is an ambitious promise. It offers us the certainty that UN's
Educative Millennium Goal can be fulfilled with the current technological tools.
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Virtual Collaborative Education – WEB 2.0
Virtual education uses tools from the new communication and
information technologies to support and modernize the new process of
teaching‐learning with more effectiveness. It allows the student to work
in an independent, collaborative and multicultural way, in rhythm with
his capabilities and possibilities.
The system holds the next advantages:
• Increases the capacity of critical thinking, self‐management and
the abilities for solving general and specific practical problems.
• Uses WEB 2.0 capacities together with the resources of electronic
communication networks.
• Uses synchronous and asynchronous communication tools.
• Promotes de‐centralized knowledge: professors and students
located in different places with Internet access and information
available at the time it is required, distributed by the thousands
of servers around the world. In our system, learning can happen
and be facilitated regardless of place and time.
• The student can move forward, backward, review or deepen in
the information and learning process according to his rhythm
and achievements.
• There are virtual simulation systems between students and
professors which provide important experimental learning.
• All accessible information can be reviewed and updated to fulfill
the needs, creativity and inventiveness of each student, and be
reused and shared with all the educative community.
• Motivates long distance communication giving the bases to
create multicultural environments.
• Collaboration between students with different cultures creates a
multicultural learning environment, as students, academic tutors
and professors coexist within a course environment and beyond.
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III. Processes for implementing the
GBU model
12. 11
Processes for implementing the GBU Model
The implementation of the GBU techno‐pedagogical model, in the context of Virtual
Education, is one of the capital challenges of our educational proposal. It aims to
guarantee excellence and go beyond the conventional international standards.
Our techno‐pedagogical model constitutes the main strategy for achieving active
student participation and meaningful learning, by the interaction of the educative
community of the Giordano Bruno GlobalShift University.
The model focuses on the following points:
• Incorporating the pedagogical, didactic and technological strategies of
the WholeLife Platform providing autonomous, cooperative and
collaborative knowledge, and, most of all, a knowledge oriented towards
the development of creativity.
• The teaching‐learning process seeks to create personal interaction
between tutor‐student, student‐student, and student‐educative
complements.
• Resources and WEB 2.0 elements are addressed for adequate
communication, facilitating synchronous and asynchronous
communication.
• Learning assessments will be based on best practices of conventional
evaluation methods, but will add new assessment and peer‐assessment
techniques, which have proved important and effective in learning
evaluation.
• Tutorships will be a complementary space for reflection on the praxis
and contents by the educative community, centered in the interaction
between the student and professor, students among themselves and
other virtual social networks.
Considering the previous characteristics, we propose a number of processes and
tools that compose the GBGU Techno‐pedagogical Model. This will make
accreditation supported by 100% virtual learning environments possible.
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Stages for the Technopedagogical Design of 100% Virtual
Learning Environments.
Content Development
The content of GBGU programs has been developed by specialists in each discipline
to meet higher academic and quality standards. The programmatic part of the
content, has been design by Doctors, all standing specialists in their disciplines.
The development of the programs comprised four phases:
a. Curricular Design
b. Content Production
c. Bibliography selection
d. Selection of Electronic Bibliographic Resources
Periodical updating of contents
To keep the validity of our contents, we will keep current through a process that
includes specific and new needs for each course. The academic office will develop a
master plan according to the proper requisites of each specialty.
Instructional Design and Multimedia
Instructional Design
The Instructional Design of the pedagogical process followed by students covers
the following stages:
1. Analysis of the educational material
2. Analysis of User’s typology
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3. Instructional Plan
4. Educational Techniques
5. On‐line and educational situations and activities
Multimedia Design
Multimedia Design is about adapting the content and educational activities for
their delivery in Multimedia resources that appeal to students for its quality,
creativity and richness.
Tutorial Design
The GBGU educational model incorporates academic tutors in a strategic place of
the teaching‐learning process. The role of tutors is to accompany, guide and advise
the student throughout the learning process. A tutor monitors the student's
process. His main functions are:
• Supervise the learning process.
• Keep student motivation, establishing a relation of continuous trust and
communication, promoting his participation and supervising his
performance until the end of the course.
• The tutor is mainly responsible for logistic support and triggering the
students’ perseverance within the online system.
• Provide students with different learning resources within the technological
model, links, documents, network resources, etc.
• Encourage students to efficiently use the systems's communicative tools for
collaborative learning and interaction (chat, forum, blogs, wikis, etc).
• Assess individual homework and chair teamwork.
The tutor is not the author of the didactic material, but becomes a consultant‐
professor for the themes developed in a course. This is why, the tutor’s formation
and training is a fundamental element of GBGU's techno‐pedagogical structure
addressed to facilitate the adaptation of professors to a new role as online
teachers.
The training of tutors is essentially practical, and will be delivered through the
same multimedia resources than students.
The majority online tutorship will be basically delivered in written format, so they
involve working time. As long as tutorships are recorded as texts in an intelligent
knowledge base, they become interactive learning materials for future generations.
Students will receive answers to their questions and arguments in no more than
18 hours in labor days and 36 hours on weekends.
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We consider that the success of this 100% online education rests in two essential
elements:
. The quality of the contents, and the continuous updating and
validity in their multimedia delivery.
. The strategic presenter and motivating role of the tutor in the
online academic processes.
It is necessary then, to establish the order, parameters and specific rules that will
allow tutors the correct attention in the follow up of each of the students. It is also
important to clearly outline the scope of their functions, as well as generating the
figure of tutor Coordinators to supervise and advise tutors. GBGU is responsible for
providing periodical updating related to best tutorial practices.
Instructional Design will deliver a Training Course for Tutors that considers the
following questions:
1. Introduction to the GBGU Techno‐pedagogical Model.
2. Activities to keep Student motivation.
3. Handbook for Tutors.
4. Guide and parameters for content engagement.
5. Consulting and orientation on the multimedia platform and tools.
6. Effective learning activities.
7. Conventional and critical monitoring.
8. Assessment.
User platform support
In practice, online systems work efficiently when they rely on a team of
collaborators in charge of giving technical support to users.
This team is responsible for tracking applications and ranking of the cases that
need technical support and concrete resolutions of problems.
It is very important to have an optimum communication cycle between the
supportive technical team and the users, which should be completed in a
reasonable timeframe. If GBU does not comply with this, there will very probably
be a high risk of creating disappointment and frustration in users, increasing
desertion level.
Our supportive system will follow each of the cases thoroughly through
applications controlled by support‐tickets and attended in no more than 18 hours
and 36 in weekends.
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V
GIORDANO BRUNO GLOBALSHIFT
UNIVERSITY DIAGRAM
18. 17
GIORDANO BRUNO GLOBALSHIFT UNIVERSITY DIAGRAM
The next diagram presents the form and fundamental principles for the delivery of
our online education model. It anticipates the standard format containing the
philosophy and the central purpose of our university.
This purpose is, in essence, to liberate the student from the fears, trends and
ancestral complexes of the human being arising from the ontological and
epistemological perception of ourselves and from the limitations that come from
the monocultural, disciplinary and unidimensional scope of the traditional
educational institutions.
The technology by itself will not motivate or make the difference in the student’s
educational process. The intelligence of the programs, processes and training of
teachers and tutors, together with the conviction of spreading the enthusiasm and
the humanistic philosophy of our university, will mark, from the beginning, the
purpose of forming a new generation of young people ready to really transform the
world where we live.
The previous statement is strengthened with the idea that a good technique and
well designed pedagogy is critically important.
Once the student enters the platform, he will find the following components in the
courses:
a. A handbook (guide) with the steps to follow in each course,
and an introductory video to identify each of the stages to
complete the basic requirements of a course.
b. In his virtual classroom, he will find a Syllabus and the
subjects ‐divided in modules‐ to help him follow the adequate
flux of each course. Subjects will contain specific information,
general bibliography and complementary materials.
c. He will select the module that follows according to his
program and find the module’s break down.
e. Students can access modules in accordance to their
personal rhythm of studying.
Here, we present a brief example:
Module1) Epistemological history of the human being (bibliography,
complementary materials, links and specific activities).
Module 2) Neurotheology, Neuropolitics and Neuroeconomy (bibliography,
complementary materials, links and specific activities)
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Module 3) Neurosubordination, civilization and stereo‐cognitive education of the
third millennium (bibliography, complementary materials, links and specific
activities).
Module 4) Neurorenaissance (bibliography, complementary material, links and
specific activities).
Course structure
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a. Each course will consist of 6 modules delivered in 6 sessions (60
mins) of video‐lectures transmitted by the teacher and 7 sessions
(9 hours) of multimedia activities. So, each module will be
delivered in a total of 14 online sessions, albeit the online
sessions in which students interact between each other (see
Technopedagogy Chart).
b. The total of online directed activities for each module is 42.
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a. Each module will be assessed with a quiz which when approved opens
the next module of the course.
d. To finish each module, the student must pass a final auto‐delivered
multiple choice quiz previously elaborated by the teacher.
e. The system will randomly create different exams for each student.
f. Whole Life: The process of WholeLife works with two vertebral
columns, one philosophical and another educational:
I. Inwards (introspective): contains and holds the basis of pedagogical,
institutional, organic, bioepistemological, traditional perception vs
introspection towards the individual and his structures, to enter in a
constant process of autoevaluation, real evolution and avant‐garde
growing, boosted by our online system of knowledge.
II. Outwards (facing the world): supports the formative basis ‐
historical, dialectic, identitary and critical‐ present in the design of
the professional and preparatory studies of W1, W2 and W3.
The first approaches issues around the educational process since the
transformation of the traditional vertical relation of authority and subordination
between the teacher and the student and institution versus student corps, to
include, in the renovated educational system, the horizontal and multidisciplinary
relation of the student with his generation classmates, and inclusive,
22. 21
transgenerational interactions. In this same manner, we question the bioepistemic
relation of the renowned cerebral lateralization or linear logical processes versus
neuronal holistic processes facing the potential capability of spatial and
multidimensional perception of the traditionally dormant right hemisphere.
The second point, outwards, approaches the alienated relationship of the
individual with the specifically religious, political and economic cultures
surrounding the world.
Here, the historical‐philosophical infrastructure of our educational platform
centers in the origin of the human phenomena of subordination, authority, power,
affiliation, identity, stratification, discrimination and conflict. The purpose is to
construct an initial self‐knowing perspective, upon which, the student can develop
a critical judgment in the process of acquiring knowledge. The latter is
implemented through the technological and original instrumentation of our
educational system, which is called WholeLife.
WholeLife will constitute, for certain, the central function of the operative system
that distinguishes us, because it is precisely, the system which allows unification
and synthesis in only one educational basis consisting in:
a. General knowledge acquisition
b. Formation
c. Methodology
d. Professionalization
e. Specialization
It also contemplates the aforementioned avant‐garde paradigms, parallel to the
vertical relation with the teacher and the institution: the horizontal interaction
between students and their companions, and finally, the promotion of
interdisciplinarity through the exercise of multidimensional analysis of the
subjects of study with a critical vision frame of totality.
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Notwithstanding its complexity, WholeLife deploys in only three
stages:
a. First Stage: The essay presentation page including the basic
function of the student´s personal data (photograph and general
biographical data), the thesis resuming the essence of the
student's academic work, a space containing most of the drafts
24. 23
and the final essay, as well as the graphic and audiovisual
resources (photographs, diagrams, videos) which allows the
exponent to enrich his presentation.
As soon as the presentation is edited, the student can submit it to
the transversal scrutiny of his companions, under the option of
personalized invitation to a minimum number of five students, or
the option of opening without limits, that, among other things,
will be the basis for the parallel possibility to access a
transcultural experience of inter‐universitary socialization.
25. 24
b. Second Stage: Discussion of the student’s work, from the
dialogue columns of argumentation and counter argumentation,
while personally "meeting" the participants in the discussion
with the photograph and biographical data, offering the
possibility of transporting the GBWL experience to other social
networks, if students decide to meet outside the closed
environment of their specific scholar environment.
The system is designed for the student to decide which
personal information he makes publicly available. One
elemental function of this page is the expiration date of the
discussion, restricted to three days from the publishing of his
essay. Once exhausted, the system will automatically close
entries, and proceed with the assessment, the next stage in
the process.
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c. Final stage: evaluation and collective grading of the essay.
In this stage participants must deliver assessment on their
companion's essay in no more than 24 hours, explaining his
grade in a special box designed for this purpose.
The system has the automatic capacity to average the
assessments of all participants and estimate a final grade.
Once obtained, this result will be averaged with the grade of
the multiple choice exam and the partial exams presented
after each module.
WholeLife is digitally integrated by the following components:
i. One page for essay publication with the following fields:
1. Title of the essay
2. Thesis
3. Content with a minimum and maximum of characters.
4. Complementary materials (Links, files, videos).
5. Essay classification in themes, key words, courses,
degrees, etc.
6. Saving essay drafts for later submission.
7. Publishing.
ii. A page for the student’s discussion.
iii. A page where students can grade an essay.
iv. A space where the student will see the essays for grading
(includes boxes to determine the status of the essays
already graded and the essays waiting to be graded), and
deadline warnings.
These spaces must accomplish the following requirements:
a. Essays will have a deadline for their online publication.
b. In the discussion space, the student has access to the photograph of the
person commenting on his essay. Likewise, the one who comments can
see the basic data and photograph of the schoolmate that wrote the
essay.
c. The essays can be seen by any member of the educational community in
a catalogue of essays with diverse classifications. All the members can
27. 26
comment the essays, but students must only grade essays assigned to
them.
d. Essays can only be graded by students of advanced semesters.
e. Each essay will be graded by four students randomly.
f. Comments to essays will have a three to five day timeframe to be
posted.
g. Essays will be saved in the student’s portfolio, after the process is
finished.
Therefore, there are five boxes for essay grading and status:
1. PUBLICATION
2. DISCUSSION
3. GRADING
4. FILE
5. PUBLIC CATALOG, where the student finds the essays
for grading and their status.
The "cafeteria" is a permanent space for social interaction to exchange
ideas, propositions and impressions. It will be a space to create interaction
with tutors, teachers and other GBU members.
This structure will be standardized for all courses, anticipating that
audiovisual material (videos, movies, presentations, conferences, didactic
activities) will be provided by the teacher in the page available for this
purpose.
Finally, we highlight that WholeLife concentrates 90% of our educational
approach because it entails the three most important elements of
distinction in our vision: multidimensionality, trans‐disciplinarity and
multicultural approach.
29. 28
About the academic professionals
In GBGU, teachers are responsible for creating the fundamental contents of each
course to be delivered by diverse multimedia resources. Therefore, he must
provide the text, the complementary materials and the links, as well as the
corresponding videos. The professor will be responsible for delivering the
videotaped lecture, and supplying the references and orientational elements to be
adopted by tutors for the correct accompaniment of the student.
Our online courses use prerecorded video sessions. The teacher's participation in
front of the camera, as well as the quality of the final edition of his class, become
the critical factors of course success. Additionally, chat sessions and emails can
reasonably replace delivery hours for the lecture. In these cases, the ability of the
professor and of the tutors to communicate in a written way becomes a cardinal
point for their assessment.
Following, we present some important points for the hiring and periodical
evaluation of lecturers:
a. Image: It is important to consider that grammar and orthography, as well as
typography selection and presentation skills will be crucial image indicators for
lecturers and tutors.
b. Constant Communication: It is important for teachers and tutors to constantly
check their email, to be able to follow up and support students in a timely manner.
c. Tracking: The teacher must look after the organization for the tracking of his
course, a vital characteristic in the online experience of our lecturers.
d. Professional design of materials and complementary contents that should be
standardized: A team of supportive professionals will be employed for the design
and operation of the materials. We will support teachers in this matter to assure
they concentrate in the creation of quality content.
e. Interaction with tutors who should track and solve operative problems and
questions (about deadlines, electronic signature, etc.) considering that teachers
must not spend time that does not add value to the material. There must be a
technical supportive area to solve connection and access issues.
f. FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions: All public communications –questions and
answers‐ will be presented in this division in an accumulative format since more
than one student can have the same doubt, creating and intelligent knowledge
base.
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Teachers and tutors
These are the main guidelines to consider for the hiring of teachers and
tutors:
a) Professional formation and teaching experience. We must assure that teachers
have a profound knowledge of their discipline. This task will be fulfilled by
reviewing the teacher's academic experience, and requesting at least two reference
letters from their previous institutions.
b) Direct and online communication capacity. We will make sure that teachers are
skilled in the use of main digital tools for direct communication with his students.
We will test teachers in three different mock‐up lecture sessions.
c) Grammar and orthography are basic skills for the hiring of teachers and tutors.
d) Constant communication. As mentioned above, teachers and tutors must
continually check their emails and forum participation.
e) The system should provide a tool to score teacher activities.
Tutor Coordinators:
1. Coordinators are preferably PhD's with high proficiency in the disciplines
they coordinate, and are involved in the subject's main discussions. They
must prove sufficient experience as tutor coordinators in their previous
engagements.
2. Coordinators will supervise the tutors’ work.
3. Each coordinator will be responsible for 15 tutors within their discipline.
4. The coordinator is the link between the teacher, the tutors and the
technicians that give technical support to the platform.
5. The coordinators supervise materials prepared by teachers previous to
delivery, caring that they fulfill the necessary requirements of quality and
institutional and technical specifications.
6. The coordinators are responsible for the elaboration of the partial module
assessments of the courses and the final multiple choice assessment.
Tutors:
They should track and solve operative questions and problems.
Digital designers:
They are responsible for the standardized professional design of the material and
complementary contents.
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The Modules
The courses are structured in different modules. Each one of them consists in
different working materials, activities, support activities, self‐assessment, partial
and final assessments, in such a way, that each student studies at his own rhythm,
advised by the tutor, whom can suggest an order and an ideal length for each
process.
At the end of the course, it will be important to gather opinions about the course
format and user experience to enters into process of continuous improvement.
In each module, students will access the following resources:
• Basic material for reading, study and practice.
• Discussion Forum
• FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
• Library
• Glossary
• Tutor Communication
• Discussion Panel
• Readings and complementary activities
• Self‐assessment and autodidactic exercises
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Synthesis, as a conclusion on the structure of the course
The design of each one of the online courses will require the active participation of
a professional group of technicians to support the instructor in the creation of a
technologically viable, visually attractive and pedagogically coherent course.
A 16 week course can include one or more weekly activities from the following
pool of examples:
. Analysis of a series of readings (text book and supportive
materials)
. Reviewing of presentations, videos and links.
. Participation in forum, chats, questionnaires, WholeLife, etc.
. Discussion boards for themes and cases that require individual
or collective virtual investigation within a restricted length of
time.
. Solving a test for each module concerning assigned readings.
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STUDENT MANUAL
GIORDANO BRUNO UNIVERSITY
Presentation
The present manual is for you, student of the Giordano Bruno University. It is a
general introduction, in seven points, to your participation in your GBU virtual
university. Likewise, it will help you understand the main ideas of our philosophy,
pedagogy, online navigation in your virtual campus, local and international
academic tutoring and above all, your active participation in our educational social
network: the WholeLife Experience, one of the most innovative and important
components of your University.
We summarize the most relevant aspects of your online life in GBU in seven main
chapters:
1. Introduction. Synthesis of the philosophy and emphasis of our educational
system.
2. Our schools, Programs of study, Techno‐pedagogical model and the
standard instructional structure of our academic contents.
3. Our Web‐Site, Login platform, critical navigation into your online courses,
Contact with Tutors and Academic advisors, WholeLife experience and the
25 steps to pursue and approve a prototipical GBU course.
4. Your “Generation” and our Global Educational Social Network.
5. The Club of Budapest and the CAS (Center for Advanced Studies)
6. Local and International Tutoring.
7. Towards the Future.
Introduction.
The Giordano Bruno Online University was created with the purpose of offering a
revolutionary educational model, accessible to practically any person in the world,
interested and qualified to complete a degree in Higher Education.
Ours is a hybrid educational system with profound online work combined with the
assistance of physical high school institutions which will, not only facilitate a
physical point of reference, tutorship and permanent consulting, but will also grant
students the possibility of a dual accreditation (national and international) and
acquisition of the best professional skills for employability.
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Our philosophy is based on the cutting edge idea of helping our students
understand the world we live in. We are committed to create in them the seed of a
critical, non‐subordinate and innovative mind‐frame to question civilization in its
structural organization and its particular process of acquisition of knowledge,
regardless of the student’s area of specialization.
This is why all of our programs of study require as part of the General Education
mandatory courses within the first three trimester, the World 1, World 2 & World
3 courses, which ‐in essence‐ teach the student the origin of our civilization –past‐,
the state of our world today –present‐, and the possible outcomes and
transformational opportunities for the future.
1. Pedagogy
Our model of transmission and acquisition of knowledge is a result of a serious and
current educational trends review, which is built over three fundamental pillars:
a. Transcultural (cross‐cultural) education.
b. Interdisciplinary Education
c. Holistic Vision (stereo‐cognition).
Basically, the first one promotes the plurality and openness of diverging thought,
reflected in the cultural differences that exist in our world.
Here, the teaching of openness, tolerance, otherness and the right to be different
are essential.
Therefore, as a student, your first experience is to form part of a multicultural and
multidisciplinary group ‐My Generation‐ that will constitute your generation ‐21
people‐ from all the available regions of the world. This group will interact with
you through your college. They are also your Graduation Generation. They will be
your friends and students from other programs, cities and backgrounds you can
consult. You will also meet with your classmates, with whom you will work all
along your courses. Each time you choose a course, you will have the opportunity
to meet new classmates. GBU programs will give you the experience to create new
international and intercultural relationships with each course you take.
Interdisciplinary education is based on the idea of overstep limitations of
education constrained to the frame of disciplinary specialization, and provide you
with an amplified vision of reality that aims to holistic understanding of it, that, by
definition, is not isolated but forms part of a larger system.
The group work generated within “the WholeLife Experience” will allow you, not
only to bring forward and put into practice and share your personal criteria and
acquired knowledge, but also to participate in a serious dialogue and constructive
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criticism of our environment and your personal enrichment implicit from
teamwork which this pedagogical technique especially fosters.
Stereocognition.
As the human being has two eyes to see in stereoscope, two ears to listen in
stereophony, he also has two brain hemispheres that interact among them through
the callous body to make possible the different biological functions, some of logical
nature –linear‐ and other of perception and spatial characteristics, such as the
necessary imagination to create an idea in 3D like architecture, literature or music.
Our educational emphasis is placed on developing this capacity in our students; to
increase their understanding not only of the courses of study in their uniqueness,
but in the context of the totality of reality and the relationships between its parts.
So, the understanding of the past, the present and the future possibilities for our
world ‐World 1, World 2 and World 3‐, the non‐subordination to any preconceived
truth, the critical attitude in face of the acquisition of knowledge, crossculturality,
transdisciplinarity, and stereo‐cognition approaches implicit in our didactical
processes are, in sum, the formative guidelines that distinguish the Giordano
Bruno University.
2Our Schools
Giordano Bruno University has twenty nine academic programs (Bachelor’s,
Master’s and Doctorate), courses and certificates delivered within our five Schools.
You can consult our schools and their constantly growing programs’ offer in our
Website: http://www.gbgu.org
Bachelors and Masters are organized in General Education courses, Blocks of
mandatory courses for the first, second and third year and Elective Courses. They
are taught by trimesters in which you can register up to three regular courses per
term.
Our Institute of Continuing Education offers unique courses of different current
topics, with potential credit towards our accredited degrees and certificates.
You may choose your preferred program of study after posting your exam in our
application menu, and, as you enroll as a GBU student, you will have the possibility
to choose from the mandatory and elective courses of your program.
Our tutors and mentors will optionally help you with a basic vocational exam
recognizing your skills and suitable and personal choice of study, as our system
allows you to tailor your academic track with a variety of minors and majors.
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3. Our technopedagogical model.
Each course of study is structured in six modules, outlined in the syllabus, that
contains six videolectures, its bibliography, online links, activities, practical cases,
quizzes and a Bank of Topics for essays.
At the completion of the six modules, there will be a Final exam and the
requirement to write an essay which encourages your interaction through with
your generation.
In the space called “WholeLife”, you will work together with your generation and
“grade” two essays of your classmates ‐the system will randomly select them for
you‐, through a “star rating” tool. These grades will be verified by the local tutor in
your geographical area.
It is important to point out that, even if you could have access to external help
throughout your academic cycle in essays and examinations, it is highly
recommended that you rely on your personal effort and pedagogical process to
truly acquire scientific knowledge. For graduation and obtaining of the
professional degree, you must be aware that the final examination is NOT online,
but in a controlled physical environment.
4. Our Website, login platform & the Basic Elements for Navigation.
In the section of our website Pre‐login, you will find general information about
GBU totally open to the public. In a subsection of the pre‐login you will find a
questionnaire and an application form for enrollment with all the necessary steps
for this process. Submit transcripts of your High School records or University
credits, if any. You will receive an email answer of acceptance with your personal
password or rejection in the next 48 hours. In case of rejection, an explanation and
instructions for a second application will be included.
Once officially accepted you will have access to the Login section through your
personal password. The first element you will see in this section is a Welcome
video from our Chancellor, Professor Ervin Laszlo.
Here you will be able to select your courses and get acquainted with your
generation’s fellow students, which will constitute the basis for your team work
and a permanent source of consultation.
5. Brief and easy application for admission:
1. ‐ After you power up your computer, enter our Website: http://www.gbgu.org
2. If you have not read the general information about the university, its mission,
the programs and the courses, we invite you to take a closer look.
3. Fill out the application form and send it to the university.
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4. Submit transcripts: high school record and college/university credits.
5. 6. Wait for the institutional response and your admission to the university.
Upon admission, you will be issued your student ID and password.
UPON ADMISSION:
7. YOU ARE NOW IN THE LOGIN PAGE, ACCESIBLE ONLY TO REGISTERED
STUDENTS. THIS IS YOUR VIRTUAL CAMPUS. Through YOUR GBU DASHBOARD,
ON THE UPPER PART OF THE SCREEN YOU HAVE A SELECTION OF TABS WHERE
YOU WILL FIND EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO COMPLETE YOUR ACADEMIC CYCLE.
8. Once you are officially admitted to your program, you may register for 3 courses
PER TERM going to “My Student Page” in the Student Information System.
9. After registration, proceed to the financial section and pay for your selection of
courses. In “My Student Page” there is a link to “My Financial Account”. You will
have clear instructions for your payment options in that link.
10. Check your academic and financial page to verify that all the information is
accurate. (My Student Page and My Financial Account).
11. Proceed to the virtual campus and greet your cohort in the “My Generation”
tab. This is the group you will be interacting with throughout your selected
courses per term.
12. For each course, complete the 6 modules ‐six videolectures, its bibliography,
online links, activities, practical cases, quizzes and the writing and editing of an
Essay. The link within “My Courses” section on the left menu “How to Navigate” is
an explanation of how to navigate throughout your course. Also, you will have
tutors to assist you in every course. The explanation on how to contact them will
be explained further down in this manual.
13. At the end of each term, obtain your final grades and then proceed to register
for the next term. You may see your grades in each course and have a general
transcript within the “Student Page”. To enroll in new courses each time, just
repeat the process.
6. Course Structure
It is very important to know that each module is generally structured in the same
format, to allow a congruent flow of your work throughout your academic cycle.
These are its parts:
1. Video lecture
2. Reading Material and bibliography
3. Online Activities and Links
4. Partial Quiz (multiple option, fulfill the paragraph, etc.)
5. Practical and updated Cases.
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6. Final Quiz
7. Essay and grading process. The “Whole Life” experience.
7. General Recommendations.
The video lecture is an introduction given by the professor to the topic of study. .
We recommend you to pay special attention to the professor and remind you that
you can see this video as many times as necessary to gain deeper understanding.
We also recommend you to write personal notes while going through your
bibliography and reading materials, not only trying to summarize the key ideas of
the texts, but also ‐and especially‐ your pertinent commentaries, reflections, ideas,
refutations and debatable issues written in the text, that will later on help you
construct the thesis and argumentation of your essay.
In this chapter, particularly recommended, is to try out a comparative analysis and
with your own experience and knowledge to form a personal and critical opinion
towards the relevant subjects of the course at hand. We highly encourage you to
indulge your personal research concerns.
The Online Activities and Links must also be studied taking notes of the relevant
themes, as well as your critical reaction to them, in order to continue enriching the
formation of criteria in conjunction with the comparative analysis of the different
materials.
The examination ‐multiple options, matching of columns, fill the missing words, etc
should be covered in due form and time in the corresponding section. We
recommend you take this examination when you feel self‐confident with your
capacity to master the study material within your course.
Once you have completed the six modules, in each of its parts, you may proceed to
interact with your classmates (21 generational members) and construct a final
essay to be developed in a dialogue‐fostering mode within the “Agora” space
designed for this specific function.
The Course Head, besides specifying the specific subjects for the essay and the
thesis to prove or disapprove, will also specify the diverse components of the latter
that in consensus, and in agreement with the interests of the group, the students
must develop.
Peer review will be confirmed or modified by the local tutor (within the Associate
Licensee) of our institution.
It is important to note that the essay must contain and reflect four fundamental
virtues of the student’s knowledge about the subject:
a. Mastery of the academic content of the course
b. Critical and comparative analysis capacity
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c. Openness to cross‐cultural interaction
d. Interdisciplinary contribution to the subject in development
Once the essay is completed by the group, there will be a collective grading to
average this grade with your other grades within the modules. This will provide
you the final grade to the course.
8. Your Generation
Your generation constitutes your group of team‐mates of different nationalities
and disciplines. They will accompany you throughout your academic three month
cycle in the online activities –blogs, chats, etc.‐ and discussions and writing of the
essays. You will have the opportunity to meet many new classmates and GBU
students as you go forward to your courses.
This group dynamics intends to create long lasting international, inter‐cultural and
trans‐disciplinary bonds, which enrich the process of knowledge acquisition and
fortify the exercise of teamwork, dialogue, deliberation and academic debate
converging the different perspectives of the group members.
We recommend you to establish contact with your classmates as soon as you
enroll, so that your relationships will help you create mutual support, a constant
consulting blog, friendships and teamwork.
The system is designed to establish contact within the GBU environment or
through diverse social networking tools such as Facebook, Twitter, MSN
Messenger, MySpace, etc.
Once a year, GBU will organize events to foster physical encounters where you can
meet your fellow classmates and establish conversation about special GBGU
projects for extra credits towards your programs.
9. The Club of Budapest
The new pedagogy that inspired the creation of Giordano Bruno GlobalShift
University found in The Club of Budapest, its suitable academic and philosophical
associate, for their shared academic, pedagogical and philosophical principles and
goals. As a result, they submitted as their joint purpose to provide the students a
humanistic, universal and holistic vision, as the foundational basis of a new
consciousness to create a critical mind frame that will distinguish them. To achieve
this, The Club of Budapest fully participates in the development and counseling of
our GBU academic programs and is committed to its future teaching.
The Club of Budapest is an informal international association dedicated to
developing a new way of thinking and ethics that will help resolve the social,
political, economic, and ecological challenges of the 21st century. With its list of
internationally renowned members, the Club initiates a dialogue between different
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belief systems and world views in order to co‐create and develop effective
strategies for responsible and sustainable action with a global focus.
The idea of the Club of Budapest was developed in 1978 in a discussion between
Aurelio Peccei, founder and first president of the Club of Rome, and Ervin Laszlo,
systems philosopher and also member of the Club of Rome at that time. They were
convinced that the enormous challenges to humanity can only be dealt with
through the development of a cultural and cosmopolitan consciousness. Based on
these ideas, the Club of Budapest was founded by Dr. Laszlo in 1993. The founding
city and namesake of the Club lies at the heart of Europe and is spread out over
both banks of the Danube River. The successful merging of the two cities Buda and
Pest is achieved and symbolized by the famous Chain Bridge, which,
metaphorically represents our ambition to build bridges between generations,
disciplines and cultures. Therefore, it was selected as the logo and signet of the
Club. The main essence of the global efforts lies in the initiation of this
multicultural and transgenerational dialogue.
The Mission of the Club of Budapest is to be a catalyst for the transformation to a
sustainable world through:
• Promoting the emergence of planetary consciousness
• Interconnecting generations and cultures
• Integrating spirituality, science, and arts
• Fostering learning communities worldwide
The philosophy of the Club of Budapest is based on the conviction that the
enormous challenges that humanity is currently facing can only be overcome
through the development of a global cultural consciousness. The view of the Club
of Budapest is focused on a cultural consciousness with a global perspective. Like
Greenpeace fights for ecological issues, UNICEF for children, and Amnesty
International for human rights, the Club of Budapest stands for global
consciousness. The Club perceives itself as a builder of bridges between science
and art, ethics and economy, between cognition and action, between old and
young, as well as between the different cultures of the world.
10. TUTORING
Student tutoring will be delivered in two formats:
Local tutorship – provided by the closest Associate Licensee. The contact
information you will find it in the general information tab for each course.
Any query related to the general subjects of the course, such as methodology,
instructions and navigational processes will be solved by this local tutoring option.
More specialized queries in academic or administrative matters will be directed to
the “Master Tutors”, specialized subject experts for each school, who will be based
in Washington.
