General Education: Programmatic Student Learning Goals and Learning Outcomes

The university has established specific learning goals for each area of General Education. These learning goals have been approved by the university community through the Academic Senate and originate with its General Education Committee. It is expected that all instructors of GE courses implement these learning goals into their courses and include them as part of their syllabi.

To review the university's GE learning goals and the related expectation of GE instructors, see UPS 411.201PDF File

 

The Goals of General Education

Goal 1: Students will demonstrate and apply their understanding of fundamental concepts, methods, and theories in natural sciences.

Outcomes:

  1. Students will define, explain, and apply fundamental concepts.
  2. Students will demonstrate how a given theory is supported by fundamental concepts.
  3. Students will identify and explain the features of a particular method and explain how to utilize it.

 

Goal 2: Students will seek and acquire relevant information and apply analytical, qualitative, and quantitative reasoning to previously learned concepts, new situations, complex challenges, and everyday problems.

Outcomes:

  1. Students will analyze, interpret, and utilize verbal or numerical information.
  2. Students will formulate and explain how to implement a conclusion or plan of action by applying previously learned concepts.

 

Goal 3: Students will develop ideas and communicate them competently and ethically, verbally or nonverbally, both orally and writing in a variety of contexts.

Outcomes:

  1. Students will communicate ideas effectively and appropriately in a well-organized fashion, taking purpose, context, and audience into account.
  2. Students will present the ideas of others with integrity, providing appropriate attribution or academic citation.

 

Goal 4: Students will develop skills to collaborate effectively and ethically as leaders and team members.

Outcomes:

  1. Students will encourage and value the contributions of others.
  2. Students will collaborate effectively.
  3. Students will engage in civil discourse and provide constructive feedback.
  4. Students will demonstrate ethical reasoning.

 

Goal 5: Students will develop self-awareness, knowledge, intercultural skills, and critical reflection to participate ethically in local communities and global contexts.

Outcomes:

  1. Students will demonstrate a critical understanding of how the intersections of power, privilege, and oppression play out across a range of cultures and human experiences, including but not limited to their own experiences.
  2. Students will describe diverse cultures using fundamental concepts and terminology.
  3. Students will demonstrate awareness of appropriate intercultural skills.
  4. Students will describe and understand how to enact ethical and transformative frameworks and modes of exchange and communication that promote rights, social justice, equity, and inclusiveness.