II. General Education Course Description

The department should prepare a course description addressing the points A, B and C below.  General education courses should be broad survey courses, intended for a general audience.  General education courses should not have college-level prerequisites, except for other general education courses in multi-course sequence. A draft example for a general education course description is here.

A. Areas of Human Understanding and Intellectual Inquiry

Purpose: “Upon completion of the General Education program, students will have an introductory comprehension of certain fundamental areas of human understanding and intellectual inquiry; they will have been encouraged to develop a sense of how humanity's diverse pursuits relate to one another.” 

Each general education course addresses the objectives under one area of human understanding and intellectual inquiry. 

There are ten areas; the objectives for each area are linked to the area title below. 

·        American History and Government

·        Behavioral and Social Sciences

·        Fine Arts

·        Health Studies

·        Humanities

·        Mathematics

·        Natural Sciences

·        Oral Communication

·        World Cultural Traditions

·        Writing

 
Although some objectives may be addressed to a greater degree than other objectives, every general education course should address each objective under the chosen area. List each objective and follow with a brief description of how the course addresses the objective. For each objective the description should cover two items: what subject matter is covered and what sort of teaching and learning activities are used to address the objective and to evaluate student performance.

NOTE: If a department desires to make revisions to the objectives of an area, the department should meet with representatives from the other departments (if any), discuss proposed revisions, come to a consensus on the revisions, and submit a memo with the proposed revisions to the council.  The chairs of the effected department(s) should sign the memo.

B. Skill Areas

Overall purpose: “Upon completion of the general education program students will have increased their proficiency in important intellectual and practical skill areas.”

Each general education course addresses at least one skill area. The council encourages programs to elect to have their course(s) address more than one skill, but if all faculty teaching the course do not agree to address the additional skill it should not be included here.  (Faculty may address additional skills within their specific sections of general education courses at their discretion.)  

There are six skill areas; the objectives for each area are linked to the title area below.

·        Written Communication

·        Oral Communication

·        Critical Thinking

·        Quantitative Analysis

·        Research

·        Information and Computer Literacy

Although some objectives may be addressed to a greater degree than other objectives, every general education course should address each objective under the chosen skill area. List each objective and follow with a brief description of how the course addresses the objective.  For each objective the description should indicate what sort of teaching and learning activities are used to address the objective and to evaluate student performance. 

Focused Critical Thinking Courses: Faculty may also elect to teach their specific section(s) of a general education course as a focused critical thinking course.  If any faculty member wishes to do so, the department should submit a plan for the CT focus courses(s) using the instructions on this link: “Critical Thinking Area Course Guidelines.”

C. Attitudes and Values Area

Overall purpose: “Students will have had the opportunity and encouragement to develop thoughtful and responsible attitudes and values.”

Each general education course addresses the attitudes/values area of the program.

Any course that does not address this area should prepare a brief statement to the director of general education for the council of general education indicating why this omission is appropriate for the course.

There are two objectives for this area:

·        Diversity and Connectedness: “[Students] will have been exposed to and encouraged to explore both the cultural diversity that defines many human differences and the connections that suggest common human concerns.”

·        Values: “They will also have been encouraged to explore value-systems and to recognize the roles value-systems play in human life and in intellectual inquiry.”

 
List each objective and follow with a brief description of how the course addresses the objective.  For each objective the description should indicate how the course addresses each of the objectives of the attitudes/values area.