Curriculum Reform

January 23, 2009

Back to general education

Why?

Because general educationentails . . .

• Questions of ultimate purpose:

– What should VWC education accomplish?

• Questions of feasibility:

– Given resource constraints, what is most essential to strong GS?

– With reduced course offerings, what parameters will allow the best balance of GS and major programs?

General Education

What should we know,

to proceed wisely and well?

General Education

• Principles of GS effectiveness

• Trends in GS priorities

• Models for organizing and articulating GS

Twelve Principles of Effective General Education Programs

Prepared by Jerry Gaff, for Metro State, drawn from Project on Strong Foundations for General Education. Strong Foundations: Twelve Principles of Effective General Education Programs. Washington, D.C.: Association of American Colleges, 1994.

Principles of effective GS

Strong general education programs . . .

1. explicitly answer the question, “What is the point of general education?”

Principles of effective GS

2. . . . embody institutional mission

Principles of effective GS

3. . . . strive for educational coherence

Principles of effective GS

5. . . . attend carefully to student experience

Principles of effective GS

6. . . . are designed to evolve

Principles of effective GS

7. . . . require and foster academic community

Principles of effective GS

8. . . . cultivate substantial and enduring support from multiple constituencies

Principles of effective GS

10. . . . ensure continuing support for faculty, especially as they engage in dialogues across disciplines

Principles of effective GS

11. . . . reach beyond the classroom to student co-curricular experiences

Principles of effective GS

12. . . . assess and monitor progress toward an evolving vision through ongoing self-reflection

Conclusions:Key words:

Purpose

Mission CoherenceExperience

Community integration with co-curricular

faculty developmentROOM TO EVOLVE

(self-)assessment

Buy-in

Trends in General Education

From handout prepared by AACU consultant Jerry G. Gaff, for Metropolitan State University of Denver, April 4-5, 2007

Curriculum Trends in General Education

1. Liberal arts and sciences made more prominent

2. Emphasis on fundamental skills: writing, speaking, logical and critical thinking, foreign language, mathematics, computing

Trends in GS, cont.

3. Higher standards

4. More purposeful curriculum structure (a limited set of purposeful courses that meet specific criteria)

Trends in GS, cont.

5. The freshman year: freshman seminars, extended orientation, stronger advising, attn to intellectual and personal development of students

6. The senior year: capstone experiences

Trends in GS, cont.

7. Global Studies: study of other peoples, West and non-West

8. Cultural Pluralism: race, class, gender in American and Western Traditions

Trends in GS, cont.

9. Integration of Knowledge: Thematic, interdisciplinary and topical courses; learning communities; collaborative learning.

10. Moral Reflection: professional ethics, social problems, implications of developments in science and technology

GS Trends, cont.

11. Extension through all four years advanced and capstone courses; integration of GS and major

12. Active and Collaborative Learning especially in core courses (and also typically in skills courses and in freshman and senior seminars)

GS Trends, cont.

13. Assessment programmatic and student self-reflection

14. Faculty Development seminars, workshops, retreats, travel, support for developing new knowledge and new courses with innovative approaches

GS Trends, cont.

15. Administration Leadership for curricular initiatives

16. Academic Community Agreement on shared principles: What constitutes an educated person? What curriculum cultivates those qualities? What common educational experiences reflect and develop community?

Conclusions:

• Hard to argue with the merit of these trends

• Challenges: – pursuing these aims with our limited resources – pursuing them in an effective way – prioritizing

Four Basic Modelsof General Education

(reflecting priorities)

Taken from Metro State GS Information Home, Excerpted from “General Education Reform as Organizational Change: Integrating Cultural and Structural Change” (2005)

Great Books Model

• Classic works, fundamental questions of human existence, in-depth historical review of the works of world-changing thinkers

• Flaws: Can lack currency, diversity, clear relevance

Scholarly Discipline Model

• Student is novice practitioner of discipline: key scholarly concepts and methods of inquiry.

• Flaws: Can be fragmented, lack relevance of discipline to students and society; can focus on what is taught rather than what is learned.

(Dominant liberal arts model.)

Effective Citizen Model

• Student becomes familiar with important ideas and discoveries of disciplines in context of understanding their relationship to and implications for society. Relevancy is pivotal. Values and skills in addition to knowledge.

• Flaws: Can be implemented poorly, teaching about the disciplines rather than teaching the substance of the disciplines; “values” can be abused; skills and applied knowledge is seen as suspect by some.

Communicative Model

• Focuses on the relationship between student and instructor and the connection between general and specialized education.

• Just emerging, little researched.

• We don’t know what the heck it is.

Conclusions

VWC emphasizes the “scholarly discipline” model (symptom: as written, purpose of SIE is to understand and integrate disciplinary perspectives rather than, e.g., to apply perspectives or solve problems)

The CCR found the “effective citizen” model compelling, for its respect of disciplinary scholarship combined with its insistence on social and personal relevancy

Rearticulating the Task

Seeking a more intentional curricular vision that answers both to VWC

priorities and to constraints

Some Guiding Parameters

A. Identifying and Serving Ultimate Purposes

B. Minding Constraints

Guiding Parameters

A. Identifying and Serving Ultimate Purposes

1. Which GS model best expresses and supports VWC priorities?2. Under that model, what 3-4 objectives best bring coherence to

the curriculum?3. What GS and major requirements together will most effectively

realize those priorities and objectives?

Guiding Parameters Ultimate Purposes:

Where the CCR stands

1. A variation of the effective citizen GS model could bring more meaningful coherence to VWC’s curriculum

Guiding Parameters Ultimate Purposes:

Where the CCR stands

2. More specific learning outcomes and related requirements could cohere around the broad objectives of

- developing critical inquiry skills, - gaining diverse perspectives, and- connecting classroom to community

Guiding Parameters Ultimate Purposes:

Where the CCR stands

3. - A core of GS courses could partner with courses in majors to deliver, more efficiently and effectively, critical inquiry and writing skills

- A modification of our distribution requirements could better deliver refined GS goals while maximizing our resources

Guiding Parameters

B. Minding Constraints

1. To move to a 4-course curriculum with 3-3 faculty course load, we must reduce the total number of courses offered

2. To enable faculty to deliver major programs with reduced course loads, we must reduce GS requirements

Guiding ParametersMinding Constraints:

Where the CCR stands

1. Do more with less: Reduce GS requirements to as few

as 8 (plus FL)

2. Support 10-16 courses for majors

3. Leverage ways in which GS and majors work together

Process and Timeline

• Forums, Feb 3, Feb 24, Mar 10 at 11:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.

• February: CCR meets with departments; divisions talk

• March: CCR meets with divisions

• April: Hammering out a plan

Forum Topics

• Feb 3: A GS model for discussion and debate. [Division discussions follow]

• Feb 24: TBA

• Mar 10: TBA