CRITERIA FOR GER COURSES 3-5-99 (revised by Academic Senate 9-13-01)

In addition to criteria listed for each area below, please note that the General Education Model has already adopted the following criteria that apply to certain categories:

The General Education Committee recommends that the following criteria apply to all sections of the Model:
DOMAINS
  1. BASIC SKILLS
WRITING

As already established by the GER model approved by the YSU Academic Senate, Writing I and II will incorporate goals 1, 2, and 3

CRITERIA FOR WRITING COURSES

Writing I or Writing II each must:

( i.e., effective writing and speaking; ability to acquire, process and present information effectively and coherently, especially in a persuasive manner; and critical reasoning) In particular Writing I should: In particular Writing II should: CRITERIA FOR WRITING INTENSIVE COURSES

Writing Intensive courses will:

ORAL COMMUNICATION

As already established by the GER model approved by the YSU Academic Senate, the oral communication course will incorporate goals 1, 2, and 3.
 
 

CRITERIA FOR ORAL COMMUNICATION COURSES

The oral communication courses must help students become more effective communicators in their interpersonal, group, and presentational communication situations. Students will be required to:

1) apply skills for effective listening and interviewing. Students will practice skills of effective listening when communicating with others, and prepare and participate in an effective one-on-one interview.

2) practice effective conflict management skills wen participating in decision making groups. Students will have opportunities to demonstrate effective leadership and appropriate member skills in decision-making groups during several meetings.

3) prepare and deliver a seven to nine minute informative presentation. The preparation process includes using the analysis of listeners in formulating informative strategies, organizing information gathered through systematic research, developing an appropriate introduction and conclusion for informative presentations. The delivery process includes practicing effective verbal and nonverbal communications skills, when presenting the information, including the use of visual aids.

5) write assignments that may include several drafts of presentation outlines, analysis papers reflecting on personal skill development especially after the two presentational assignments, a report based on group meetings, and/or an evaluation of the decision-making strategies used during the group meetings.

6) use critical thinking during their communication; use critical selection in their analysis of listeners to evaluate the utility and credibility of available information; to develop an effective strategy to collate information into effective messages in the interpersonal, group, and presentational settings; and to adhere to the accepted conventions of oral communication grammar and style.
 
 

CRITERIA FOR ORAL COMMUNICATION INTENSIVE COURSES

Oral communication courses will:

    1. attempt to integrate goals 2 and 3 in addition to goal 1 whenever possible, as research, preparation, and critical thinking are vital parts of effective oral communication..
    2. demonstrate oral communication as an integral part of the course.
    3. Include instruction on the oral communication process – the sequential activities of planning, communicating, and self-evaluation.
    4. Reinforce appropriate interpersonal, group, and /or presentational competencies introduced in the oral communication course.
    5. Reflect the strategies for evaluating interpersonal, group, and/or presentational competencies introduced in the oral communication course.
    6. Allocate at least 30% of the course grade to oral communication assignments of various kinds (interpersonal, group, and/or presentations).
    7. Require students to participate in at least 15 minutes of graded oral communication assignments, that might include interpersonal, group, and/or presentational activities.
    8. Teach students to use oral communication skills as a way of learning and thinking critically in a discipline.

 
 

CRITICAL THINKING INTENSIVE COURSES

The model, as adopted by the Academic Senate, has the following to say about critical thinking intensive courses:

To meet Goal 3, students must take at least two critical thinking courses. Any course may qualify as critical thinking intensive course, whether it is a GER course or not, as long as it has been certified as critical thinking intensive. To be certified as critical thinking intensive, a course should allocate a substantial portion (30%) of the course grade to critical thinking assignments of various kinds. The kinds of critical thinking can and should vary with the discipline. In addition to imparting information, critical thinking intensive courses should strengthen the critical thinking abilities of students

(e. g., defining terms, solving problems, generating and organizing ideas or hypotheses, developing and evaluating evidence and arguments, detecting errors, biases, and fallacies, exploring issues from multiple perspectives, identifying and questioning assumptions, applying knowledge to new situations, etc.) by engaging students in learning and evaluating the definitions, concepts, methods, knowledge, and goals of the discipline and/or the course. Critical thinking coordinators will offer assistance to faculty in developing critical thinking intensive courses and teaching methods.
 
 

CRITERIA FOR CRITICAL THINKING INTENSIVE COURSES

MATHEMATICS COURSE

CRITERIA FOR GOAL 5

A numerically literate student should be able to apply mathematical methods to the solution of real world problems. Therefore, the essential skills mathematics course should enable a student to:

It is expected that an essential skills mathematics course should be motivated by applications to real-world problems and must address each of the six objectives above. Mathematics courses that satisfy these six objectives will address Goal 5 and integrate Goals 1-3.


B. NATURAL SCIENCE

CRITERIA FOR GOAL 13

The course must:

CRITERIA FOR GOAL 6

The course must:

CRITERIA FOR GOAL 7

The course must:


 
 
 
   

C. ARTISTIC AND LITERARY PERSPECTIVES

CRITERIA FOR GOAL 8

Courses meeting this goal must provide students with the opportunity to:

D. SOCIETIES AND INSTITUTIONS
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CRITERIA FOR GOALS 10, 11 AND 12

A course submitted for the Societies and Institutions category of the General Education Requirement must:

  In addition, the course must either Introduce students to the concept of diversity and its relationship to human societies and institutions in the United States, or

Provide an understanding of human societies and institutions throughout the world and their relationship to western society.
 
 

E. PERSONAL AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

CRITERIA FOR GOAL 4

The courses must:

CRITERIA FOR GOAL 9

The course must:

F. SELECTED TOPICS AND ELECTIVES

CRITERIA FOR COURSES THAT COMBINE GOALS

A multiple-goal course must:

    1. identify clearly the goals from which questions, concepts, examples and/or methods will be drawn.
    2. integrate the goals utilized.
    3. include a clear statement of pedagogical approaches and objectives.
    4. demonstrate that faculty have appropriate qualifications.
    5. encourage, but not require, team teaching. Team teaching requires the involvement of more than one faculty member from the inception of the project, including conceptualization of the course, building of the syllabus, and actual classroom presentations.
    6. require students to demonstrate (and faculty to assess) the integration of goals.
CAPSTONE COURSE
Students must take one upper division capstone course in the major or from another area that satisfies general education criteria. Capstone courses are expected to incorporate writing, oral communication, and reasoning critically as appropriate in each discipline.