General Education is at the core of the undergraduate experience, building essential critical thinking and communication skills, understanding of diverse social and cultural contexts, and defining a university-educated citizen. General education supports life-planning and provides a foundation for success and growth at the university as well as for careers, society, and culture. General education also prepares students with a foundation for growth and flexibility after graduation; as professions become more dynamic and career paths less predictable, the ability to place information into context through critical thinking, develop solutions to complex problems, and make ethical decisions become essential skills for a resilient society. Well-designed general education programs are also recruiting and retention tools that convey to students and faculty the coherence and value of the many possible degree and career paths at the university.
To those ends, general education courses should strive toward four basic goals:
- Build a Strong, Broad Foundation of knowledge and skill needed to lead fulfilled, productive, and ethical lives.
- Facilitate Transformative Exploration and widen learning to foster intellectual curiosity, critical and creative thinking, and cultural understanding.
- Support Integrative and Connected Learning to synthesize and adapt knowledge from different perspectives and branches of learning.
- Develop Adaptive Strategies, Practices, and Abilities for solving problems and addressing issues affecting society in the present and future.
To meet these goals, UWM general education courses should meet the following criteria. GER courses must:
- Align with the learning outcomes of the relevant Area of Inquiry. Those outcomes further align with UW System shared learning goals.
- Fit within the overall array of the Area of Inquiry. Each Area of Inquiry, coordinated by the APCC, should offer the appropriate capacity to meet student demand and programmatic needs without creating excess capacity across campus. This stabilizes the schedule of classes and helps departments plan assignments and course sequences.
- Be Assessed. Instructors establish measures of learning outcomes; these measures are built into the course and are easily extracted for analysis and preparation of course assessments (not linked to individual students). These assessments document course activities that prepare students to meet learning outcomes, which are general measures of thinking, communication, and comprehension that define college-educated citizens.
- Align capacity with pedagogical goals. Optimal course size should be driven by course content, primary activities, and pedagogy. Courses should identify and explain why they are best suited for small (25 or less), medium (up to 50), or large (>50) classes. This aids in schedule development and setting departmental and campus priorities.
- Include high-impact practice quality elements. Transparent and recognizable presence of at least four of the eight High Impact Practice Quality Elements should be utilized throughout the syllabus. The eight elements include requirements for sustained effort, public demonstrations of competence, higher level complexity, frequent feedback, integration and reflection, diverse encounters, interaction, and real-world applications.
- Incorporate accessibility, inclusivity, and equity-mindedness. Course design, syllabus and policies, messaging, and assignment design embrace universal design practices, accommodating the needs of all learners and helping all students learn how to learn.
- Provide support beyond the classroom. Student success data strongly suggests that students who engage with activities like tutoring and supplemental instruction are more successful, even when accounting for prior preparation. Each course proposal should include a plan for how students can receive additional support; this can serve to help students succeed in the course and to build habits for future courses.
- Provide a plan for sustainability. How will the course maintain quality and improvement across time and multiple instructors?
All courses should incorporate an introduction to relevant systems and technologies in use at UWM, encourage student engagement and belongingness, build community, and connect with student support offices.