Required MyUI Description and Syllabus for General Education Courses

A General Education course must have a description on the syllabus and on MyUI that reinforces and includes the GE status of the course. There should be a brief indication of how the course design and assignments encourage the development of essential outcomes of the GE Program, thus helping students to understand the importance of a liberal arts and science education.

Please visit this link to learn more about the CLAS General Education Program and about how to propose General Education status for a course. The College is especially seeking new GE proposal for the new Diversity and Inclusion category requirement.

Other Requirements for General Education Courses

Shared Attributes of GE Courses

GE courses share attributes that help to provide support for the GE goals and for student’s achievement of the comprehensive and specific learning outcomes:

• GE courses assume no prior student knowledge in the course content.
• GE courses build from simple and/or informal assignments to more complex and/or formal ones, giving the student the opportunity to develop and master skills that are needed for success in the course.
• GE courses offer early and frequent evaluation of student work, helping to define and motivate students to achieve academic excellence.
• GE courses use models and/or rubrics to define academic expectations so that students understand the standards of the course and the student’s own performance in relation to these standards.
• GE courses use a variety of teaching and assessment strategies throughout the semester in order to reach the wide range of students with various needs and learning styles in the course.
• GE courses integrate the instructor’s research within the course when feasible, thus reflecting the dual mission of the College while helping the students to understand the tools of inquiry as they operate in “real life.”
• GE courses encourage students to learn from each other whenever possible, particularly through large and small group discussions, student organized study groups, and by the use of peer mentors, supplemental instruction, and writing fellows, thus widening the process for students “learning how to learn.”
• GE courses use technology as a supplemental tool to support learning when feasible, encouraging students to pursue the topic in more depth outside the classroom.
• GE courses discuss academic integrity from the position of community obligation, trust, and learning while also reminding students of the course and CLAS consequences for academic misconduct.

Comprehensive Learning Outcomes

General Education courses enable the student’s growth in the specific areas below, with the responsibility for reaching these outcomes shared by students, instructors, and CLAS administration.

1. Students become more aware of the learning process since GE courses discuss what students are learning, why, and how it is being learned, the various ways it relates to other knowledge presented in the course, and resources students might want to use.
2. Students have a better understanding of the ways that learning can transform the individual and motivate change within society.
3. Students practice the following specific skills, methods, and modes of inquiry:

• Students use the skills, methods, and modes of inquiry central to the area of study represented by the course and by its GE status area within the GE program.
• Students think critically, using analysis, deduction, inference and/or other analytical strategies to complete assignments and other course activities.
• Students write and speak informally and/or formally about matters related to the course, while also using other methods of communication appropriate to the course content.

GE Area Learning Outcomes

Please visit this link to learn about the GE Area requirements and their specific learning outcomes.