10/23/00

General Education Objectives and Course Syllabi

At its most recent meeting the general education council passed the following:

“The general education council recommends that all general education courses indicate in the syllabus under course description and objectives 1) that they are part of the general education program, 2) that they fulfill objectives for a given area of general education, and 3) how the particular course aims to fulfill these objectives.”

These area objectives were developed in faculty forums during the 1998 – 1999 school year.  The objectives for the general education areas can be reviewed in the latest UCA Undergraduate Bulletin, pp. 15 - 19, or on this web site.

  The council makes this important recommendation for a number of reasons.

  1) Student awareness.  Student awareness and understanding of general education will be improved when they understand that they are in a course that is part of a larger program with overall educational objectives.

  2) Program coherence.  When individual syllabi address the objectives of a particular general education area, an increasing degree of program coherence is fostered. Just as a degree program has general objectives that the individual courses within that program strive to achieve, so too does the general education program.

  3) Assessment.  The NCA team has recommended that “a progress report be required in the spring of 2005 which addresses coordinated planning and the continued efforts to assess student learning.”  Our report will need to include an assessment of general education.  A syllabus is certainly not a complete measure of what occurs in a course, but it should be a reliable guide for the central aims and activities of the course.  Making the objectives explicit in the course syllabus keeps attention focused on the important purposes the course aims to achieve as a part of the general education program.

 4) Future program review.  In the near future the general education council will begin a program wide process of general education course review.  The previous general education task force reviewed all courses in 1996 - 1997, but the area objectives that faculty approved in 1998 - 1999 were not yet in place. One of the crucial elements of program review will be reviewing course offerings in light of these area objectives, as well as a specific set of skill and attitudinal objectives. (Work on the skill objectives will begin this year, with the attitudinal objectives to follow.)  All of us need to be thinking about how our general education courses address these area objectives, and aligning our courses with the appropriate area objectives.

Thank you for helping the general education council accomplish its goals.