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General education is defined as a program that develops students’ general knowledge, literacy, skills, and competencies to equip them with the foundation for lifelong learning and advanced academic curricula, according to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. General education is usually taken first in a student’s academic career; thus, general education sets a core foundation for students as they move into courses in their program. Each institution has a set of general education competencies they want each student to have learned upon leaving the institution. These competencies are introduced in general education and then built upon in a student’s program coursework.
Below are the General Education Competencies.
Communicate: Students will communicate effectively.
Analyze, Synthesize, and Evaluate Information (Reseach): Students will apply research skills and tools, as well as analyze, synthesize, and evaluate information.
Think Critically: Students will think critically.
(be) Exposed to Different Perspectives: Students will be exposed to views different than their own.
A faculty-led assessment team evaluates student progress on these learning competencies (outcomes) common to most programs utilizing rubrics to address each. The different perspectives competency is assessed with our co-curricular assessment.
Student learning for communication, critical thinking, and “research” is assessed three times in a student life cycle.
- BASELINE CHECK: All students in ENG 111 (Composition I) write an essay on the first day prior to instruction taking place.
- FIRST CHECK: The final essay is assessed in ENG 111 (Composition I).
- FINAL CHECK: Program students will be assessed using an artifact in the “capstone course” in their program. Transfer students are assessed with the final essay in ENG 112 (Composition II).
In more detail, the current process for General Education isolates a writing exercise in the baseline and first checks and the final check can be a writing, presentation, project, etc., which is assessed independent of the course for which it was submitted by a trained, continually normed set of faculty.
The findings show students are learning.
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