GE Curriculum Review Questions

For the Recertification of Existing General Education Courses. These review questions are also used when a department wants the General Education committee to consider an approved course for possible inclusion in the GE program.

  • NEED. Why is the proposed course important to the General Education program? That is, why is it needed or appropriate in GE?

  • AUDIENCE. What is the intended General Education student audience for the course to be developed or revised? How is the course appropriate for this audience?

  • LEARNING GOALS. What should students know and/or be able to do as a result of what they learn in this course? Explain how the course will achieve each goal in the General Education category for which it is proposed, including any “overall goals” for that category. (If a specific General Education learning goal does not apply to the proposed course, state “Does not apply.”) In demonstrating how the course will achieve specific goals, refer to relevant portions of the current course syllabus.

  • COHERENCE and INTEGRATION. What is the relation of the course to the overall GE curriculum? How is the course intended to increase coherence and integration in the GE program? What impact might the course have on other GE courses?

  • WRITING. How will this course meet the General Education writing requirement? “. . . General Education courses will include student writing assignments appropriate to the course. Writing assignments in General Education courses should involve the organization and expression of complex data or ideas and careful and timely evaluations of writing so that deficiencies are identified and suggestions for improvement and/or for means of remediation are offered” (UPS 411.201, p. 1).

  • GRADING. Explain how the evaluation of writing skills will be included as a basis for assigning grades. “Assessments of the student’s writing competence shall be used in determining the final course grade” (UPS 411.201, p. 1).

  • ASSESSMENT. How will the course assess students’ progress toward the goals for student learning specified for the appropriate GE category?

  • PREREQUISITES. Does the course have appropriate prerequisites? Courses in categories III.A.3, Implications and Explorations in Mathematics and Natural Sciences, III.B.3, Implications, Explorations, and Participatory Experience in the Arts and Humanities, and III.C.2, Implications, Explorations, and Participatory Experience in the Social Sciences, require completion of appropriate courses in the corresponding introductory categories as prerequisites to enrollment.

  • SCHEDULING. Are the program/department and school committed to offering the course regularly so that it is available to students, and on days of the week and at times of the day and evening that meet student needs?

Proposing courses 10-12-98

/9 quest-GE course prop