Author: Bridget Trogden

What is the current status of General Education re-envisioning?

Revised white paper – what you should do

The white paper on General Education was released May 2018, with a request for Clemson faculty colleagues to provide input through August 2018.

The white paper has been revised with regard to Parts I and II, based upon faculty input and feedback. This revised version is a draft with a number of questions that need to be addressed and answered over the coming weeks.

Colleagues are asked to review and continue to give feedback on this document, preferably by October 20, 2018, through the blog comments feature below, a new Qualtrics survey, or through feedback passed to your Department Chair, Undergraduate Coordinator, and/or College Representative(s) to the General Education Committee.

Revised white paper – what you should know

Although creating a new, coherent, 21st century General Education curriculum will take a while, there are some areas where we can make structured progress and revise in stages.

The original white paper showed how the values of the faculty can be arranged into three spheres of knowledge and skill: disciplinary areas (“Comprehend”), communication areas (“Communicate”), and interdisciplinary areas (“Connect”).  

We know that any future General Education curriculum must have courses from arts/humanities, social science, natural sciences, and mathematics. (SACSCOC Core Requirement; see Note 1 at the end). We also know from faculty input that communication skills are very important to instill in our Clemson students. Therefore, the General Education Committee is focused on revising student learning outcomes and assessment rubrics for the disciplinary and communication areas first.

The improved learning outcomes and assessment rubrics that we create now will be usable with these required areas regardless of how the General Education curriculum structure is ultimately revised. A proposal going to UCC this fall means that new learning outcomes could be published in the Undergraduate Catalog for academic year 19-20. This will allow us to gather meaningful assessment data and conduct meaningful faculty development as we continue to work toward a new curriculum.

What about the other areas of current general education – CCA, STS, distributed competencies – and Part III of the white paper?

We will be discussing Part III from the white paper and continuing conversations on a more comprehensive general education revision in Spring 2019.

What else is going on?

We now have a General Education Committee with faculty representation from each College and University Libraries. The Committee has been working on establishing priorities for tasks to be accomplished this year.

The General Education Committee has already made one proposal affecting the General Education curriculum to the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee: the removal of the 2 credit hours of Academic and Professional Development, a remaining vestige of the e-Portfolio program. This was passed in the September 2018 UCC meeting.

The General Education Committee looks forward to working with faculty to identify and work through tasks to support our students, our academic values, and our ClemsonForward strategic plan.

Note 1: SACSCOC general education guidelines, in brief

• Student learning outcomes are identified for collegiate-level General Education in undergraduate degree programs. Institution assesses the extent to which it achieves these outcomes and provides evidence of seeking improvement.
• General Education is based upon a coherent rationale.
• General Education for baccalaureate programs constitutes a minimum of 30 semester hours.
• General Education ensures breadth of knowledge. Credit hours include at least one course from: humanities/fine arts, social/behavioral sciences, and natural science/math. These courses do not narrowly focus on those skills, techniques, and procedures specific to a particular occupation or profession.

(See Principles of Accreditation documents for complete information. Standards for General Education are in Sections 8 and 9. http://www.sacscoc.org/principles.asp.)

The work of the General Education Task Force is finished!

In all, we had over 400 people (faculty, staff, students) providing input on the central idea of “What do we want our students to learn and do regardless of major?” Many open forums, discussions, featured weeks, department meetings, Senate meetings, and strategy sessions later, we have a white paper to consider.

Clemson stakeholders are invited to provide feedback on the white paper (link expired – contact Trogden@Clemson.edu for a copy), either via the comments feature below (public) or via a survey link (confidential, link expired – contact Trogden@Clemson.edu for a copy).

The official and inaugural General Education Committee will be considering all feedback and comments in August 2018, and will be organizing additional face-to-face discussions on both this document and the overall General Education re-envisioning process in the early fall 2018 semester.

The goal is to work toward shaping the white paper into an official proposal for the University Curriculum Committee.

We look forward to continued productive discussion.

Where did we get this idea? 

When Clemson faculty were asked in fall 2017 to consider the idea of what our students should be able to know and do regardless of major, a number of items emerged:

• collaboration as a life skill
• conflict resolution skills
• empathy
• entrepreneurship
• ethical decision-making
• exploration as a life skill
• health (mental & physical)
• leadership
• self-awareness
• self-management and life skills
• teamwork
• whole-person development

These were grouped by faculty in January 2018 and given terms such as “adulting,” “personal growth” and “life skills.” Ultimately, another colleague termed the group “Building Personal Intelligence,” which seems like a good phrase for guiding our discussion!

What does ‘Building Personal Intelligence” entail? Questions for in-person and virtual discussion:

1. Does the list above include terms or ideas that we find valuable for all Clemson students? What is missing?
2. Where – if anywhere – do we do this already in the curriculum?
3. What is valuable about learning in these areas? What is the benefit to the students?
4. What is the foundation we might wish for all students to have in general education?
5. How do we know they are successful: a.) in terms of general education, b.) in terms of the major?

Some resources and models to consider:

The Clemson Center for Career and Profession Development (CCPD) has developed a series of competencies for students to make transparent the skills and habits that our students should develop prior to starting their careers: https://career.sites.clemson.edu/core/

Colleges in the Texas system are part of a “LEAP” (Liberal Education and America’s Promise) initiative and developed a Texas Core Curriculum for Higher Education. They have common student learning outcomes across all Universities in the following areas: 1.) Critical Thinking Skills, 2.) Communication Skills, 3.) Empirical & Quantitative Skills, 4.) Teamwork, 5.) Personal Responsibility, and 6.) Social Responsibility. The Personal Responsibility student learning outcome is defined as: to include the ability to connect choices, actions and consequences to ethical decision-making. (http://leaptx.org/coreobjectives/personal-responsibility/)

The Association of American Colleges & Universities (AACU) embarked on a large project in the last decade to make transparent the aims and promise of undergraduate education. The creation of the VALUE (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education) rubrics provides Universities with a tool to think about undergraduate learning in a variety of fields – https://www.aacu.org/value-rubrics. Their rubrics for “Foundations and Skills for Lifelong Learning” and “Teamwork” address some of the areas raised by Clemson faculty. Link to rubrics: AACU_LL_Teams.

Please come to an in-person discussion and/or provide your responses and feedback and thoughts in the comments feature at the bottom of this page.

Key questions for in-person and virtual discussions:

• What is critical thinking?
• Clemson faculty indicated at our November open discussions that critical thinking is the number one priority for our students in general education. Where should it occur in the curriculum? When?
• How does it benefit students? How does it benefit faculty?
• How do we know our students have achieved success?
• In what ways is ethical thinking incorporated into critical thinking?

Some models and resources to consider:

1. The Association of American Colleges & Universities (AACU) embarked on a large project in the last decade to make transparent the aims and promise of undergraduate education. The creation of the VALUE (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education) rubrics provides Universities with a tool to think about undergraduate learning in a variety of fields – https://www.aacu.org/value-rubrics. They have created a rubric specific to Critical Thinking, and it uses the following indicators: Explanation of issues, Evidence, Influence of context and assumptions, Position, Conclusions and related outcomes. (Link to rubric: AACU_CriticalThinking)
2. The Clemson Thinks2 program has a number of ideas and resources related to critical thinking across many courses: http://www.clemson.edu/academics/programs/thinks2/index.html.

Please come to an in-person discussion and/or provide your responses and feedback and thoughts in the comments feature at the bottom of this page.

Key questions for in-person and virtual discussions:

• What should students be able to know and do regardless of major?
• What are our trouble areas with regard to communication in general education? How do we account for the wide differences in students’ skills upon entering Clemson?
• What is the foundation that we value for all Clemson undergraduates to develop in relation to communication? How do we know they are successful?
• How do we want to build on this foundation on later courses in the major or in other general education structures? WID (writing in the disciplines)? WAC (writing across the curriculum)?
• What would it mean to have digital literacy or multi-media communication as part of general education? What are the benefits to the students?

Some resources and models to consider:

1. The Association of American Colleges & Universities (AACU) embarked on a large project in the last decade to make transparent the aims and promise of undergraduate education. The creation of the VALUE (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education) rubrics provides Universities with a tool to think about undergraduate learning in a variety of fields – https://www.aacu.org/value-rubrics. They have created rubrics specifically for Oral Communication and Written Communication. Looking at the row headings helps us to think about what we want students to be able to know and do in these areas:
   • Organization, Language, Delivery, Supporting Material, Central Message (Oral)
   • Context of and Purpose, Content Development, Genre and Disciplinary Conventions, Sources and Evidence, Control of Syntax and Mechanics (Written)
   • Rubric link is here: AACU_Written_Oral
2. The National Communication Association has an excellent page all about the basic communication course and general education (https://www.natcom.org/academic-professional-resources/teaching-and-learning/basic-course-general-education). It includes information on how these courses fit into general education, sample learning outcomes, and assessment examples (including the AACU VALUE rubrics above).
3. The Council of Writing Program Administrators has adopted (and regularly updates) a statement on first-year college composition (http://wpacouncil.org/positions/outcomes.html). It primarily focuses on rhetorical knowledge, critical thinking, processes, and knowledge of conventions.
4. There are a number of resources on digital literacy. To get us started:
   1. Phillip Ventimiglia and George Pullman from Educause Review have an article explaining the idea of digital literacy (https://er.educause.edu/articles/2016/3/from-written-to-digital-the-new-literacy).
   2. The New Media Consortium (NMC) has a strategic brief explaining the field and providing ideas and exemplars (NMC_0817).

Please come to an in-person discussion and/or provide your responses and feedback and thoughts in the comments feature at the bottom of this page.

Resources and models on digital literacy, part 2

Our in-person discussions generated good discussion, especially around the idea of integrating communication domains. Some additional resources:

• Our colleague Travers Scott  provided a number of links about digital literacy. Contact Trogden@Clemson.edu for copies.
• Our colleagues Andrew Pyle, Ed Rock, and Megan Sheffield created a course-specific library guide that deals with many digtial literacy concepts.
• The University of Kentucky has integrated written, oral, and visual communication as part of their general education: http://www.uky.edu/registrar/sites/www.uky.edu.registrar/files/ukcore_4.pdf. Look especially at pages 1 and 5.
• Can we think carefully about the creation and consumption activities involved in digital literacy? Here is an example model:

Key questions for in-person and virtual discussions

• What does this mean for students? What does it mean in a course?
• What are the benefits to the students?
• Which of our students have access to now? Who do not? How to broaden?
• What curricula or approaches do we have already that fit with the idea of world learning?
• In what ways can world learning allow students to connect multiple disciplines? Multiple courses? Multiple intelligences?
• What are the benefits to the faculty?
• What are the cons?

Some models from other Universities, or resources to consider:

1. Clemson’s Global Learning Task Force last year created a framework of global competency outcomes. This is a tool for articulating language around global learning in many different areas of the University’s curriculum. (File: Clemson_Global_Competency_Outcomes)
2. Clemson’s definition of global learning: global learning is the education process (curricular, co-curricular, research, outreach, and learning) through which students acquire and apply global competency outcomes.
3. Virginia Tech has “Intercultural and Global Awareness” as an Integrative Outcome for all students as part of general education (https://www.pathways.prov.vt.edu/showcase.html). These courses use the following indicators of student learning:
   • Identify advantages and challenges of diversity and inclusion in communities and organizations.
   • Interpret an intercultural experience from both one’s own and another’s worldview.
   • Address significant global challenges and opportunities in the natural and human world.
4. The University of Kentucky has four student learning outcome areas, and one is: “Students will demonstrate an understanding of the complexities of citizenship and the process for making informed choices as engaged citizens in a diverse, multilingual world.” They take two courses in this area, including one in the area of “Global Dynamics.” (http://www.uky.edu/registrar/content/uk-core)
5. The U.S. Department of Education has created a framework for global and cultural competency. It covers different areas of learning from early childhood through post-secondary education and careers. The descriptions can serve as a guide for what we mean when we say global learning. (DeptEd_GlobalFramework)
6. The Association of American Colleges & Universities (AACU) embarked on a large project in the last decade to make transparent the aims and promise of undergraduate education. The creation of the VALUE (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education) rubrics provides Universities with a tool to think about undergraduate learning in a variety of fields – https://www.aacu.org/value-rubrics. Components that connect to the idea of global literacy:
   • Perspective taking, Cultural diversity, Understanding global systems, Applying knowledge to contemporary global contexts (from Global_VALUE rubric)
   • Knowledge of worldviews, Verbal and nonverbal communication  (from Intercul_Knowledge_VALUE rubric)
   • **Note: The VALUE rubrics are a good tool for assessment, but Clemson is not there yet! For now, please view these as a resource to see how learning is articulated in this broad area of global literacy.

Please come to an in-person discussion and/or provide your responses and feedback and thoughts in the comments feature at the bottom of this page.

Background: What is Undergraduate General Education?

Current statement from Clemson’s course catalog: Academic institutions exist for the transmission of  knowledge, the pursuit of truth, the intellectual and ethical development of students, and the general well-being of society. Undergraduate students must be broadly educated and technically skilled to be informed and productive citizens. As citizens, they need to be able to think critically about significant issues.

Requirements from SACSCOC (our accrediting body):

• One course from each of the following: Humanities/Fine Arts, Social/Behavioral Science, Natural Science/Mathematics
• “Coherent rationale”
• Minimum of 30 semester hours
• University identifies student learning outcomes, assesses them, provides evidence of improvement

Key questions for in-person and virtual discussions

1. What would “grand challenges” in undergraduate general education mean? Why is it an attractive idea?
2. What curricula or approaches do we have already that can fit with the idea of grand challenges?
3. In what ways can grand challenges (including issues or problem-driven approaches) allow students to connect multiple disciplines? Multiple courses? Multiple intelligences?
4. What might a student learning outcome for integrative learning look like? How
   do we know our students have achieved success?
5. What are the benefits to the students?
6. What are the benefits to the faculty?
7. What are the cons?

Some models from other Universities:

1. The University of Maryland includes an I-Series of courses in their general education. This I-Series exists to: speak to important issues, spark the imagination, demand intellect, inspiration, and innovation, and conclude where feasible with real-world implementation. https://gened-d8.umd.edu/students/four-categories/i-series
2. Worchester Polytechnic Institute uses project-based learning, and all students take both a Great Problems Seminar (https://www.wpi.edu/academics/undergraduate/great-problems-seminar) and conduct an Interactive Qualifying Project (https://www.wpi.edu/academics/undergraduate/interactive-qualifying-project).
3. The Association of American Colleges & Universities (AACU) embarked on a large project in the last decade to make transparent the aims and promise of undergraduate education. The creation of the VALUE (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education) rubrics provides Universities with a tool to think about undergraduate learning in a variety of fields – https://www.aacu.org/value-rubrics. Components that connect to the idea of grand challenges:
   • Solving Problems, Embracing Contradictions, Innovative Thinking, Connecting/Synthesizing/Transforming (from Creative Thinking rubric)
   • Define Problem, Identify Strategies, Propose Solutions/Hypotheses, Evaluate Potential Solutions, Implement Solutions, Evaluate Outcomes (from Problem Solving rubric)
   • **Note: The VALUE rubrics are a good tool for assessment, but Clemson is not there yet! For now, they are included as a resource to see how learning in this broad area of “grand challenges” is described and defined.

Please come to an in-person discussion and/or provide your responses and feedback and thoughts in the comments feature at the bottom of this page.

Overview for all featured weeks

Although we are thinking about content subject matter and skills, general education also involves a broader vision.

Clemson’s current arts & humanities competency statement

Demonstrate an ability to analyze and/or interpret the arts and humanities.

Clemson’s current rubric for assessing arts & humanities

Key questions for in-person and virtual discussions

• What is valuable for students to know and do in the domain of humanities?
• How do we know they have achieved it?
• What might a student learning outcome for humanities look like in the community? In an internship or co-op? Through student-faculty research?
• How can courses in this area help students with evidence-based civil discourse? With ethical thinking?

Resources and other models for this general education student learning outcome: 

Humanities_Examples

Humanities_AACU

Please come to an in-person discussion and/or provide your responses and feedback and thoughts in the comments feature at the bottom of this page.

Overview for all featured weeks

Although we are thinking about content subject matter and skills, general education also involves a broader vision.

Clemson’s current arts & humanities competency statement

Demonstrate an ability to analyze and/or interpret the arts and humanities.

Clemson’s current rubric for assessing arts & humanities

Key questions for in-person and virtual discussions

• What is valuable for students to know and do in this area?
• How do we know they have achieved it?
• What might a student learning outcome for arts look like in the community? In an internship or co-op? Through student-faculty research?
• How can courses in this area help students with evidence-based civil discourse? With ethical thinking?

Resources and other models for this general education student learning outcome: 

Arts_Examples

Arts_Example_MU – Separating study of arts from creation of arts.

Please come to an in-person discussion and/or provide your responses and feedback and thoughts in the comments feature of this post.

Overview for all featured weeks

Although we are thinking about content subject matter and skills, general education also involves a broader vision.

Please come to an in-person discussion and/or provide your responses and feedback and thoughts in the comments feature at the bottom of this page.

Key questions for in-person and virtual discussions

• What is valuable for students to know and do in the domain of mathematics?
• How do we know they have achieved it?
• How do the AAC&U Quantitative Literacy descriptions & rubric fit with what we do (or wish to do) at Clemson?

Resources and other models for this general education student learning outcome: 

AAC&U – Quantitative Literacy

Math_Examples

Clemson’s current mathematics competency statement

Demonstrate mathematical literacy through solving problems, communicating concepts, reasoning mathematically, and applying mathematical or statistical methods, using multiple representations where applicable.

Clemson’s current rubric for assessing mathematics

Math_Current