General Education Course Development Guidelines

Curriculum Committee and Academic Council have approved the student learning outcomes (SLOs) and other requirements for the general education curriculum credit-bearing components.

Click on the link to jump to each component or scroll down.

Freshman Seminar

SLOs:

Seminar Goal: Students will join a community of learners and actively engage in academic and co-curricular exploration. As they do so, they will develop critical thinking skills necessary to become successful students and lifelong learners by meaningfully confronting questions of social justice through the course materials and co-curricular experiences.

To achieve this goal, students will:

  1. Develop an emerging awareness of assumptions by engaging a variety of perspectives.
  2. Interpret and then evaluate issues/evidence/sources central to course content.
  3. Communicate effectively about multiple perspectives explored during the course.
  4. Reflect on and apply knowledge developed in the classroom and co-curricular experiences.

Bulletin-Related Requirements:

Freshmen should be required to pass this course. (Note from GERC: at first glance, this may seem like an unnecessary. However, there is a loophole in the current Freshman Studies that means that students do NOT have to pass it. If they fail, they fulfill the requirement with an elective. This RDC committee is proposing to close this loophole and make sure that students who fail have to then retake the course. The committee notes that Freshman Seminars can be offered in the fall and spring semesters.)

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Quantitative Reasoning

SLOs:

The student will:

  1. intepret quantitative information
  2. use quantitative methods to solve problems
  3. make conclusions based on quantitative analysis.

Other Course Content Requirements:

  • Students must use mathematical, statistical, and/or computational methods to analyze and solve problems involving quantitative information to make and communicate conclusions based on such analyses. Simply learning how to use new technologies, software, or computer applications is not sufficient.

Bulletin-Related Requirements:

  • The mathematics, statistics, and/or computation in any course fulfilling this requirement should be at the level of MATH 1312 or higher; therefore, the prerequisite for any course fulfilling this requirement should be the same as that for MATH 1312 or higher.

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Modern Language

SLOs:

  1. Interpretive competence (reading, listening/viewing in the target language): Students will be able to interpret information in authentic messages and informational texts using listening, reading and viewing strategies.
  2. Interpersonal competence (speaking, listening/viewing, reading and writing in the target language): Students will be able to interact with others using culturally appropriate language and gestures to make requests, negotiate meaning through clarifications and implement conversation strategies on familiar and some unfamiliar topics.
  3. Presentational competence (speaking, writing in the target language): Students will be able to present meaningful information, concepts and viewpoints on familiar and some unfamiliar topics from across disciplines using writing processes and presentation strategies.
  4. Cultural Competence (reading, listening/viewing, writing, speaking in the target language): Students will demonstrate a basic understanding of cultural behaviors within a global context. They will compare social practices from their own culture relative to those from another culture.

Bulletin-Related Requirements:

  • Students are encouraged to complete their Modern Language requirements in their first year.
  • Students who take the modern language placement test in French, Spanish, Chinese and German during orientation will enroll in the course level indicated by the placement test result. There is no formal placement test for Arabic and Japanese. However, students enrolled in these courses will be placed in them by their instructor by way of an exam.

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Oral Communication

SLOs:

Organization and Message

The student will employ a professional speech structure that reinforces the central message of the presentation with assistance from a well-constructed outline

Language

The student will communicate the central message effectively through insightful word choice and creative selection of appropriate rhetorical devices.

Delivery

The student will deploy a variety of appropriate delivery tools to engage the audience.

Supporting Material

The student will offer varied and relevant evidence to support and reinforce his or her credibility.

 

 

Other Course Content Requirements:

  • Every class must require at least 3 major presentations.

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Writing 1

SLOs: 

  1. Students will be able to read and use texts to support their writing goals. This outcome can be achieved through any of the following pathways:
    • The student will reflect on useful strategies for reading difficult texts.
    • The student will reflect on the ethical choices inherent in the relationship between reading and writing.
    • The student will identify and explain the rhetorical moves common to texts.
    • The student will reference research-based texts in strategic ways (including the use of summary, paraphrases, or quotes).
  2. Students will adapt their writing and their writing practices for various writing contexts to respond to varied rhetorical situations. This outcome can be achieved through any of the following pathways:
    • The student will analyze writing processes using a vocabulary that includes terms like audience, purpose, rhetorical situation, reflection, and revision.
    • The student will demonstrate awareness of their own position within the rhetorical situation.
    • The student will experiment with various heuristics for composing.
    • The student will demonstrate how social, rhetorical, and technological contexts shape writing conceptions, processes, rules, and conventions.
  3. Students will demonstrate substantial and successful revision by creating successive drafts that show global improvement and an ability to respond to substantive issues raised by instructor and peer feedback. This outcome can be achieved through the following pathway:
    •  The student will demonstrate awareness that choices about conventions and genre expectations are shaped by the rhetorical situation: by the particular purpose of a text, its occasion, and the audience.

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Writing 2

SLOs: 

  1. Students will build on and expand their use of resources to support research-based writing goals. This outcome can be achieved through any of the following pathways:
    • The student will analyze and assess genre, discourse conventions, rhetorical situation, and argument strategy in complex texts.
    • The student will find, analyze, and evaluate research- and evidence-based sources for appropriateness, timeliness, and validity within writing context.
    • The student will examine the ethical choices associated with being a member of various discourse communities.
  2. Students will adapt their research practices according to varied rhetorical situations. This outcome can be achieved through any of the following pathways:
    • The student will use acquired vocabulary to talk about research and writing processes, continuing work with audience, purpose, and rhetorical situation in light of discourse community and genre.
    • The student will demonstrate awareness of their own position within the rhetorical situation as a member of a targeted discourse community.
    • The student will experiment with various heuristics for researching and writing long-term, research-driven projects.
    • The student will produce research-based writing relevant to ongoing conversations.
    • The student will choose genre and conventions appropriate for purpose and audience.
  3. Students will demonstrate substantial and successful revision by creating successive drafts that show global improvement and an ability to respond to substantive issues raised by instructor and peer feedback. This outcome can be achieved through the following pathway:
    • The student will choose genre and conventions appropriate for purpose and audience.

Bulletin-Related Requirements:

  • Writing 1 is a prerequisite for Writing 2.

Other Course Content Requirements

  • The survey of faculty and key staff on the proposed SLOs suggested there is still some confusion regarding Writing 2. Writing 2 is a writing course, taught by instructors with qualifications to teach writing as a college-level course. However, these courses will also focus on preparing students to write in their disciplines.

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Natural Sciences

Goal: Students will engage in science and understand their role in society.

SLOs:

Specifically, students will be able to

  1. explain the process of science and its role in society;
  2. apply scientific principles to explain the natural world;
  3. engage in science by applying its principles through experiential learning; and
  4. communicate science in an evidence-based way verbally and in writing.

Notes, Thoughts, and Examples Related to the Requirement SLOs:

  1. Emphasize the open-ended nature of scientific inquiry. Understand the centrality of the scientific method. Sources may include scientific textbooks, peer-reviewed literature, and/or popular press. (Cognitive level: comprehension).
  2. Understanding their world through the lens of science. Differentiate between scientific and non-scientific questions and investigations as reported in available literature. Distinguish effectively among conflicting claims allegedly based on scientific investigation. (Cognitive level: analysis).
  3. Doing science! Ultimately students should see themselves as active participants in science. Demonstrate the ability to suggest and/or test possible solutions and evaluate the outcomes of those solutions to authentic, real-world problems through scientific investigations in the classroom, laboratory, or field.  Embedded activities such as case and problem-based studies, guided inquiry, simulations, experiments or other experiential learning opportunities should be used to frame this component.  (Cognitive level: analysis).
  4. Written reports and/or oral or poster presentations of science they have done. (Cognitive level: comprehension).

Other Course Content Requirements:

  • Experiential learning is any learning that supports students in applying their knowledge and conceptual understanding to real-world problems or situations where the instructor directs and facilitates learning. The classroom, laboratory, or field can serve as a setting for experiential learning through embedded activities such as case and problem-based studies, guided inquiry, simulations, or experiments (definition adapted from Wurdinger & Carlson, 2010).

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Diverse American Perspectives

SLOs:

The student will:

  1.  describe the various factors that contribute to the construction of social identities in American society.
  2.  analyze struggles over freedom, equality, equity, justice, and power within American society.
  3.  critically examine the historical context of significant issues and events in America.

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Global Perspectives

SLOs: 

Through the study of a combination of cultural, political, historical, societal, technological and/or economic legacies, the student will:

  1. Demonstrate knowledge about an area of the world, country, or region within a country and place it within a global context involving individual, societal, cultural, economic and/or political relationships (Knowledge);
  2. Demonstrate the ability to compare, analyze and evaluate diverse perspectives, including their own, to experiences and legacies within a global context outside of their own society (Perspective and Comparison);
  3. Demonstrate the ability to identify issues of global concern and then apply critical, moral and ethical analyses drawing on multiple perspectives such as inequality, economic status, identity, gender, class, ideology, ethnicity, and power relations (Application).

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Exploring Artistic Works

Students will analyze significant theatrical, visual, literary, and/or performative works, focusing on artistic form as well as content. Students will learn the characteristics of disciplinary genres relevant to the subject matter and become familiar with cultural and historical factors that shape artistic works. They will apply concepts of critical analysis and draw connections between artistic works and relevant cultural issues.

SLOs:

The student will:

  1. analyze works of artistic production (theatrical, visual, literary, and/or performative) through inquiry-driven critical interpretation.
  2. recognize and interrogate the relation between an artistic work and its historical and cultural context.
  3. articulate, engage with, and evaluate multiple points of view relating to an artistic work.
  4. apply the critical vocabulary of relevant disciplines, and use appropriate discipline-specific frameworks to analyze artistic works.

 

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Creativity and Making

SLOs:

The student will:

  1. Develop a tool kit within the specified creative discipline, including craft vocabulary techniques, and ways of experimenting with the invention of forms, processes, actions, or ideas.
  2. Make a body of original creative output by applying appropriate discipline-specific techniques and strategies.
  3. Articulate conceptual understanding of creative practices via reflection on a body of creative output produced throughout the course.
  4. Analyze and evaluate their own work and the work of peers and professionals through the application of discipline-specific vocabulary in written and/or oral analysis and critique.

Other Course Content Requirements:

  1. More than 50% of coursework must be devoted to the production of a body of creative work. While the creative process may require the viewing, interpretation or analysis of existing works, course activity must be weighted towards students participating in producing original creative work within the discipline they are studying. A significant amount of class time should be devoted to workshopping, critique, studio time, practice, or creative exercises
  2. Assignments must emphasize the creative process in an iterative manner via the creation, attempts at improvement, and reflection on multiple versions of an artifact or technique. Coursework must reinforce the foundational process of iteration, recognizing that professional creative work is derived from recursive methods and not singular transactions. This may manifest in multiple ways, for example: a major assignment that requires the formal submission of two or more drafts/versions of an artifact; small exercises designed to contribute to refining a technique/process to be applied in a major assignment; one complex artifact/project broken up into multiple smaller stages or components over the course of the semester.
  3. Coursework or course discussion must encourage students to make connections between the creative process in this discipline and other facets of the students’ education and vocation. As a general education requirement, instructors should recognize that students in the course will likely not pursue the creative discipline as a vocation. Therefore, to make the coursework truly valuable, instructors must be vigilant about explicitly aiding students in identifying opportunities where the creative process learned in this course might transfer to activity in their respective majors.
  4. Students must participate in the local creative community via attending one or more events related to the discipline being studied. Co-curricular programming allows students to enrich their creative process by experiencing professional examples within the discipline they are studying, and provides opportunities for critique, comparison, and analysis in the classroom. These may include,: attending a performance, lecture, reading, exhibition, etc.

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Ethics

SLOs:

The student will:

  1. demonstrate working knowledge of contemporary or historical philosophical ethical theories and ideas
  2. critically analyze, compare, and contrast philosophical ethical theories and ideas.
  3. articulate how ethical reasoning informs their moral beliefs, decision making, and values.

Other Course Content Requirements:

  • Courses that satisfy the Ethics requirement are philosophical ethics courses. Philosophical ethics can be described as the attempt to think clearly and deeply about fundamental moral questions that arise for us as humans. Ethics is concerned with evaluating appropriate action, proper character, the characteristics of the good life, and what is involved in acting rightly. To study historical and contemporary philosophical theories is to explore the most enduring positions that these concerns have addressed.

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Studies in Theology and Religion

SLOs:

The student will:

  1. demonstrate an understanding of the historical and cultural development of ideas and beliefs as expressed within a religious tradition or traditions.
  2. critically analyze expressions of a religious tradition or traditions using key disciplinary categories and interpretative methods of theology and religious studies.
  3.  demonstrate an ability to integrate their study of a religious tradition or traditions with societal or personal questions of significance.

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Culminating Experience

SLOs:

The student will:

  1. Investigate an open-ended question to be answered or problem to be solved using discipline-appropriate processes.
  2. Synthesize and apply skills and knowledge gained from the curriculum and co-curriculum to produce a discipline specific product (e.g. research project, practicum, internship, performance, creative work, community engagement).
  3. Evaluate the results of the inquiry process.
  4. Communicate project outcomes in discipline-appropriate ways.

Bulletin-Related Requirements

  • Students may complete a Culminating Experience (CE) project in a course outside of the major or department (as part of an honors course, for instance). This course would only fulfill a major requirement if approved by the department.
  • CE project may be developed over a series of courses in the major, but to be truly a culminating experience, the CE project should typically be attempted after the student has completed at least 75% of their curriculum in the major.
  • A student must be junior-level or higher to enroll in a CE course.
  • Students completing a double major will complete two CE projects if required to do so by the departments. Double majors may complete a single interdisciplinary CE project if the two departments approve.
  • Students must complete Writing 1 and Writing 2 before enrolling in their CE project. Unless the departmental Culminating Experience takes the form of a series of courses, students must also complete one Writing-rich course before enrolling in the CE course.
  • In place of a course in the major, in cases approved by the departments, students may take an independent study course or an interdisciplinary CE project course (perhaps offered in the summer) if they
    • are pursuing a double-major, with permission of both majors
    • miss or fail a CE course in the major that is offered only rarely
    • belong to majors which are unable to provide a CE course or course sequence that accommodates all students

Other Course Content Requirements:

  • The Culminating Experience is a senior-level course or series of courses in the major or the department that must include a substantial, discipline-appropriate project or work of creative. The Culminating Experience course demonstrates and integrates key learning outcomes in the major discipline and general education curriculum, encompassing the student’s entire career at St. Edward’s.
  • The CE project may consist of a discipline-based academic research project, practicum, internship, performance, creative work, or community engagement or any combination of these. To complete a CE project, a student
    • engages in problem-solving, interpreted broadly
    • critically analyzes and evaluates project outcomes
    • may work collaboratively with peers at discretion of the department
    • communicates project process and outcomes in a discipline-appropriate way (e.g., traditional academic research paper, seminar presentation, poster presentation, exhibition, performance, project portfolio).
  • The CE course (or course sequence) must include a reflection component in which the student reflects on the project as the culmination of his/her SEU experience and/or connection with any part of the SEU mission. Reflection must be written and contribute substantially to the course grade.

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