Community Feedback on Draft SLOs & Requirements for Curriculum Elements

In February 2017 GERC surveyed all faculty and key staff on draft student learning outcomes (SLOs) and other requirements for the Foundations, Content and Contexts, and Culminating Experience portions of the new general education curriculum.  The survey results can be found  here: requirements.survey.results.Report-1ynzxya.

St. Edward’s University is in its third year of a four-year general education curriculum revision.  In April 2016 we passed a general education curriculum framework.  In the Fall of 2016 over 80 faculty and key staff worked in Requirement Development Committees to draft the student learning outcomes (SLOs) and other requirements of each element of the curriculum.  In addition to direct SEU community feedback via survey, GERC also gathered input from deans representing the views of their respective schools.  The proposed SLOs and other requirements will be revised according to all of this feedback, then will be brought to Curriculum Committee and Academic Council.

Preliminary Results: Critical, Creative, Collaborative thinking, and Problem solving?

Students will use critical, creative, and collaborative thinking to solve problems and achieve common goals.

Question 1.  What demonstrable qualities of this outcome should a SEU graduate possess?

Themes/Suggestions:

  • Ability to work in teams/work collaboratively
  • Ability to synthesize, summarize, and critically assess and communicate material and information
  • Students should be able to complete increasingly complex work that requires critical thinking
  • Ability to write sustained, thoughtful and topically relevant narratives about a range of subjects using clear, standard English usage
  • To listen to many stakeholders and find the most agreeable solutions.

 

Question 2. Please provide your views on how this outcome can best be achieved in general education and co-curricular programming.

Themes/Suggestions:

  • Stress more group projects
  • Collaborate with Career and Professional Develop so that students take a strength based inventory which helps to guide their learning
  • Case studies, project based learning, writing
  • Problem solving applied to concrete and current events
  • Develop research guides for specific classes and have guided research class sessions by reference librarians
  • Scaffold projects and approaches to problem solving that require and model multi-disciplinary problem solving.

Critical, Creative, Collaborative thinking, and Problem solving

Sanzio_01_Plato_AristotleOur next question of the week survey addresses the outcome, “Students will use critical, creative, and collaborative thinking to solve problems and achieve common goals.” Share your input on our brief survey here,  https://sites.stedwards.edu/seugened/fall-faculty-feedback-schedule/ and/or join us for a live discussion on Friday, November 21, 3:30-5 pm in Fleck 305.

Please note that you can take this survey and all others at any point during Fall 2014, by visiting the Surveys and Events page of this website: https://sites.stedwards.edu/seugened/fall-faculty-feedback-schedule/

Preliminary Results: Spiritual and Cultural Perspectives?

Students will identify and analyze one’s own spiritual and cultural perspectives and demonstrate respect for other’s views and values.

Question 1.  What demonstrable qualities of this outcome should a SEU graduate possess?

Themes/Suggestions:

  • Faith based on action (service to others)
  • Ability to articulate experiences in the classroom and community
  • Ability to listen without prejudice
  • Understanding of, open-ness to various historical, spiritual/religious, traditions/beliefs, cultures
  • Ability to articulate one’s own spirituality while being respectful, appreciative, and knowledgeable of other religions and cultures


Question 2. Please provide your views on how this outcome can best be achieved in general education and co-curricular programming.

Themes/Suggestions:

  • Academic classes in religious traditions, values, ethics, and practices
  • Workshops/programs on diversity, respect, dignity
  • Events on campus such as mass, devotions, ecumenical services, Christian, Jewish, Muslim…
  • Service hour quota satisfied by study abroad or community outreach
  • Contemporary approaches that consider the effects of the blurring of boundaries and borders due to globalization
  • Deliberate collaboration between first year courses and Campus Ministry
  • Required courses in Theology; components of each course that touch on spirituality/religion and culture

Spiritual and Cultural Perspectives

Rosary

Our next question of the week survey addresses the outcome, “Students will identify and analyze one’s own spiritual and cultural perspectives and demonstrate respect for other’s views and values.” Share your input on our brief survey here,  http://stedwards.co1.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_9Gr71p55wbmS7CB and/or join us for a live discussion on Friday, November 14, 2-3:30 pm in Fleck 314.

Please note that you can take this survey and all others at any point during Fall 2014, by visiting the Surveys and Events page of this website: https://sites.stedwards.edu/seugened/fall-faculty-feedback-schedule/

Preliminary Results: Communication (oral, written, visual)?

Students will communicate effectively through oral, written, and visual forms.

Question 1. What demonstrable qualities of this outcome should a SEU graduate possess?

Themes/Suggestions: 

  • Write with correct grammar along with decorum, style, and audience awareness
  • Create a resume and cover letter; business oriented reports
  • Learn MLA format
  • Growth in effective speaking, writing clearly, and creativity
  • Ability to convey a narrative visually and in multiple modes
  • Demonstration of competence of these skills in foreign language for majors
  • Support researched arguments
  • Write and speak fluently and persuasively in a variety of contexts

Question 2. Please provide your views on how this outcome can best be achieved in general education and co-curricular programming.

Themes/Suggestions:

  • Papers, journal assignments, resumes, mock interviews
  • Required General Education first-semester course/First Year writing program
  • Scaffold, sequenced, and cumulative assignments across the 4-year curriculum with shared rubrics and outcomes
  • 15-20 student maximum in these courses
  • An oral communication center
  • Cross-over with the majors

Preliminary Results: Information, Quantitative, and Visual Literacies?

Students will demonstrate information, quantitative, and visual literacies in a variety of contexts.

Question 1.  What demonstrable qualities of this outcome should a SEU graduate possess?

Themes/Suggestions:

  • Thoughtfully separate the “wheat from the chaff”
  • Informed consumers of information to distinguish science and pseudo-science
  • Discover, assess, and discriminate “big data” information
  • Evaluate credibility of research source
  • Interpret and translate quantitative data to functional and attractive visual designs
  • Understand complex messages in visual design
  • Articulate views with appropriate references, clarity, and confidence

Question 2. Please provide your views on how this outcome can best be achieved in general education and co-curricular programming.

Themes/Suggestions:

  • Embedding opportunities in critical visual and information analysis across courses
  • Within Capstone
  • Research projects across the curriculum
  • Visual Art classes
  • Numerical and Information Literacy within Math and Science courses
  • Portfolio
  • Combination of off-campus resources, on-campus professors and student research

Preliminary Results: Global/Moral Reasoning/Social Justice?

Students will integrate global perspectives and moral reasoning to make personal and professional decisions in pursuit of social justice.

Question 1. What demonstrable qualities of this outcome should a SEU graduate possess?

Themes/Suggestions: 

  • Second language proficiency
  • Ability to apply ethical analyses to resolve value conflicts through a multi-cultural lens
  • Study abroad service experience
  • Unbiased, informed, evidence-based critical analysis of all sides of an issue
  • Ability to evaluate the global impact of one’s own and others’ specific local actions on the natural and human world
  • Ability to analyze substantial connections between the world views, power structures, and experiences of multiple cultures historically or in contemporary contexts, incorporating respectful interactions with other cultures

Question 2. Please provide your views on how this outcome can best be achieved in general education and co-curricular programming.

Themes/Suggestions:

  • More civic engagement courses/opportunities
  • Change ethics course to “Moral Reasoning and Social Justice”
  • Mandatory study abroad requirement of all students
  • Co-teach courses with faculty from other disciplines
  • Study abroad with a service component
  • Project based/ experiential learning
  • Undergraduate research
  • Explicitly scaffold elements within curricular and co-curricular programming

 

Global and Moral Reasoning and Social Justice Input Sought

global_map_sept_2013Our question of the week for October 6-10 focuses on Global and Moral Reasoning and Social Justice.  The specific UELO is: “The Learner will integrate global perspectives and moral reasoning to make personal and professional decisions in pursuit of social justice.”

Share your input on our brief survey here, http://stedwards.co1.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_1LBaKL1UrK3bg4R, and/or join us for a live discussion on Friday, October 10, 2-3:30 pm in Mabee B.