Theme 1: University Curriculum Committee

WASC Theme 1 Consultation session with UCC, 14 November 2006

facilitated by Rees Hughes, John Powell, Jená Burges, with help note taking from Sally Botzler. Transcribed by jwp

What of your own undergraduate education was striking or memorable?
Or, What has made you particularly proud of one of your students?
  • Experiences (toward end of education) synthesizing from different disciplines–capstone course-type experiences. (Others added that: these can be group projects as well as individual projects.)
  • Independent thinking
  • Critical Thinking skills--lead to ability to conceptualize and to take responsibility for one's own education as a process
  • Successful, insightful analysis that promotes / applies problem solving to real-world problems
  • Pursuing an individual interest, sustaining interest through to a conclusion, continued exploration of an intellectual area that sparks passion
  • Students who have come up with their own original questions and then have worked out answers
  • Developed Intellectual curiosity,
  • Developed ability to articulate arguments
  • Students who have taken responsibility for their education
  • My experience as part of a team was crucial
  • Developing insights that involve lateral thinking, apply novel insights to problems
  • Getting into obscure or not-commonly studied topics, developing expertise.
  • Appreciate, develop a passion for scholarship
  • An Honors Humanities Course, Great Books curriculum, combined with very heavy writing load
  • Intellectual Independence
  • Higher level demands (perhaps referring to Bloom’s Taxonomy), Academic, or, rather,intellectual rigor
  • Applied problem solving
  • Students develop Creativity (Without jettisoning the box outside of which they will think)
  • Writing: Be able to identify in each case (of reading and writing) the audience and the purpose.
What will our graduates know and be able to do?

(Think in terms of outcomes, action verbs, but don't worry about final wording)

  • Our graduates synthesize--can see from different perspectives
  • Illustrate / Illuminate connections and relationships among those perspectives
  • Distinguish descriptions/reports from arguments/advocacy
  • Are able to separate evidence from assertion (Objection to insistence that these goals and objectives must be couched in easily measurable terms. Such insistence is too narrow and is provincial. Understand and appreciate are too action verbs.)
  • Master content areas--not just major and general education--and connect them
  • Develops insights into other disciplines
  • Examines Self
  • Has Confidence that she can make a difference--sense of efficacy promoting active citizenship
  • Is aware of and can communicate with other ways of knowing, e.g. non-linear thinking
  • Possesses Informational literacy, math literacy, literacy in general and specifically--identify, find, evaluate relevant information to support arguments being developed
  • Our graduates contextualize their education in relation to the rest of their lives and in relation to the rest of education. They take their education seriously.
  • Our graduates commit to education's importance and relevance, understand and endorse its relation to prior knowledge--learning is based on prior knowledge.
  • Our graduates can articulate the criteria they use to appraise or judge, including judging arguments.
  • Our graduates can apply/synthesize/analyze knowledge in new contexts and bring it to bear with new problems.(higher level skills)
  • Has and shows respect for the complex identities of others, their histories and their cultures.
  • Know enough to be able to ask excellent questions.
(After reviewing the current draft from the WASC Theme 1 group), What's left out?
  • The word "Apply" is too low on Bloom's Taxonomy--analyze, synthesize, evaluate
  • (re: especially #3, but applies to whole list) Not enough mention of creativity--Creative, Independent Thinking is missing
  • Problem about measurability again, e.g. with number 1, "Actively working"
  • Number 1 and 2 go together--could they be merged? No. 2 seems embedded in 1
  • International aspects should be added, perhaps as "and world beyond" in #1
  • "Life-long learning" needs more emphasis
  • Number 3 not central or emphasized enough, should be divided into two goal/outcome items, put at top.
  • (As part of that divided #3) self-reflection / self-examination should be included Other forms of communication are left out in emphasis on writing (Discussion on this as an artifact of WASC process, original proposal and agreement with WASC to concentrate on writing) In present #1, psychological (i.e., individul) and family concerns for justice should have a place
  • In present #3, are we saying all students should have all, or just one of these? (response: all) If all, then lose the parenthesis and make the list more complete
  • Task Force should review GE categories, and work to specify outcomes for those--may be able to use same language
  • Like #5; vagueness of "competency" discussed, endorsed as leaving open to those in charge of majors how to specify criteria
  • Numbers 4 and 5 also go together. Merge 1 and 2, with some additional words, 4 and 5, put 1 and 2 at end, 3 (perhaps split into two) at top.
  • In Number 3, "decisions" may be too narrow.