Curriculum Reform

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Curriculum Reform

• January 23, 2009

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Back to general education

• Why?

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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?

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General Education

• What should we know,
• to proceed wisely and well?

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General Education

• Principles of GS effectiveness
• Trends in GS priorities
• Models for organizing and articulating GS

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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.

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Principles of effective GS

• Strong general education programs . . .
  
  
• 1. explicitly answer the question, What is the
  point of general education?

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Principles of effective GS

• 2. . . . embody institutional mission

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Principles of effective GS

• 3. . . . strive for educational coherence

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Principles of effective GS

• 5. . . . attend carefully to student experience

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Principles of effective GS

• 6. . . . are designed to evolve

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Principles of effective GS

• 7. . . . require and foster academic community

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Principles of effective GS

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

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Principles of effective GS

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

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Principles of effective GS

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

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Principles of effective GS

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

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Conclusions

• Key words
• Purpose
• Mission Coherence
• Experience
• Community integration with co-curricular
• faculty development
• ROOM TO EVOLVE (self-)assessment
• Buy-in

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Trends in General Education

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

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Curriculum Trends in General Education

• Liberal arts and sciences made more prominent
• 2. Emphasis on fundamental skills writing,
  speaking, logical and critical thinking, foreign
  language, mathematics, computing

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Trends in GS, cont.

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

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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

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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

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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

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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)

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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

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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?

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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

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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)

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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

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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.)

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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.

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Communicative Model

• Focuses on the relationship between student and
  instructor and the connection between general and
  specialized education.
• Just emerging, little researched.
• We dont know what the heck it is.

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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

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Rearticulating the Task

• Seeking a more intentional curricular vision
  that answers both to VWC priorities and to
  constraints

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Some Guiding Parameters

• Identifying and Serving Ultimate Purposes
• B. Minding Constraints

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Guiding Parameters

• Identifying and Serving Ultimate Purposes
• Which GS model best expresses and supports VWC
  priorities?
• Under that model, what 3-4 objectives best bring
  coherence to the curriculum?
• What GS and major requirements together will most
  effectively realize those priorities and
  objectives?

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Guiding Parameters Ultimate Purposes Where
the CCR stands

• A variation of the effective citizen GS model
  could bring more meaningful coherence to VWCs
  curriculum

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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

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Guiding Parameters Ultimate Purposes Where
the CCR stands

• - 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

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Guiding Parameters

• B. Minding Constraints
• To move to a 4-course curriculum with 3-3 faculty
  course load, we must reduce the total number of
  courses offered
• To enable faculty to deliver major programs with
  reduced course loads, we must reduce GS
  requirements

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Guiding ParametersMinding Constraints Where
the CCR stands

• Do more with less Reduce GS requirements to as
  few as 8 (plus FL)
• Support 10-16 courses for majors
• Leverage ways in which GS and majors work
  together

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Process and Timeline

• Forums, Feb 3, Feb 24, Mar 10 at 1100 a.m. and
  430 p.m.
• February CCR meets with departments divisions
  talk
• March CCR meets with divisions
• April Hammering out a plan

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Forum Topics

• Feb 3 A GS model for discussion and debate.
  Division discussions follow
• Feb 24 TBA
• Mar 10 TBA

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