Let's Redesign Curriculum: Gen Eds

[Wahoo Redux]

I'm all for required classes in History and basic science and so on. But math? As you can see, I think college classes in math, for those who don't use math in their fields, are pointless.

The same argument could be made for any other general education requirement though. As a mathematics professor, I have sat by more than my fair share of people on planes who will tell me the same thing you're saying, and I wonder to myself if I was an English professor, whether anyone would be quite so eager to tell me that they were functionally illiterate.

Following up on this, shouldn't anyone able to get into university have sufficient English proficiency to not need more of it?

Maybe in Phaeacia or Lothlórien, Marshy.

In the real world knowledge and ability take a lot of practice well into adulthood.

[Mobius]

My kids haven't taken any computer literacy courses. I took classes at a CC 15 years ago that required such a course to get an associate's degree. My work study gig was being a TA in the computer lab. Those students even had to learn Access along with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Just checked the catalog and that requirement was dropped.

Do you mean just Access or the whole lot?

The course.

[kaysixteen]

Random questions and comments:

1) WRT a college math req, what should that consist of?   IOW, what are the sorts of math skills that 1) are not taught in college-prep hs curricula and 2) are useful for college students who will not be STEM majors, or even social sci ones?   And, what exactly is 'college algebra', and how does it differ from the 'Algebra I/ II' courses regularly taught in those aforesaid college-prep hs curricula tracks?

2) Shouldn't a critical thinking and study skills/ media literacy class be standard?

3) WRT language reqs, I remain highly conflicted.   Dear alma mater cut them out decades before I got there, and it was the ancient and modern language faculties that consistently nuked any notion of bringing them back, even though it would have been in the students taught interests of these depts to get one reinstated.   DAM is of course a superelite slac, and its students could easily do the very very advanced 101-2 language classes normative there (which are far more accelerated than at most unis), but the language profs simply do not want the reluctant students, and feel it useless to make such students take a language at the college level.   Having taught 101 language classes at much less academically rigorous schools, I can see this thinking greatly, but there are nonetheless real advantages to such a requirement.   So that conflictedness remaineth...

[marshwiggle]

The same argument could be made for any other general education requirement though. As a mathematics professor, I have sat by more than my fair share of people on planes who will tell me the same thing you're saying, and I wonder to myself if I was an English professor, whether anyone would be quite so eager to tell me that they were functionally illiterate.

Following up on this, shouldn't anyone able to get into university have sufficient English proficiency to not need more of it?

Maybe in Phaeacia or Lothlórien, Marshy.

In the real world knowledge and ability take a lot of practice well into adulthood.

That could be said of anything, including driving, cooking, and doing your taxes.

The frustrating thing in these discussions is the "fight-club-esque" avoidance of admitting the underlying assumption in favour of the status quo.
Namely:

• disciplines which are now "in" (the academy, gen ed, etc.) get a free pass; the onus is on anyone wanting to remove them to justify it.
• disciplines which are now "out" (the academy, gen ed, etc.) are implicitly rejected; the onus is on anyone wanting to add them to justify it.

This is like a sport played with the home team providing all of the officials; the outcome is virtually predetermined.

[Ruralguy]

Well, this is why I have suggested a few times that we make no starting assumptions or start with any sacred cows. Just more or less state what we think students need. A responder could speak just for himself, his or her discipline, institutional type (SLAC, for instance) or a responder could list everything they think is needed for any discipline, or can say "nothing is needed for gen ed."

Of course, operationally, all schools, or at least most of them most of the time will take a defensive stance that is similar to the Fight Club-esque credo you state above.

[Wahoo Redux]

Well, this is why I have suggested a few times that we make no starting assumptions or start with any sacred cows. Just more or less state what we think students need. A responder could speak just for himself, his or her discipline, institutional type (SLAC, for instance) or a responder could list everything they think is needed for any discipline, or can say "nothing is needed for gen ed."

Of course, operationally, all schools, or at least most of them most of the time will take a defensive stance that is similar to the Fight Club-esque credo you state above.

This was my idea.

What I think we have had so far are examples of one-off, box-checking classes.

[Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert]

In the ideal world I would make non-major-relevant courses "pass/fail". It
- solves issue of students flocking to "easy A" courses to avoid damaging their GPA
- removes need to distinguish between A- and B-level work if both are passable
- allows to explicitly link course completion with students achieving desired level of proficiency in whatever is being taught

[Ruralguy]

Don't we really have to start with what we want all students to know? I would lean towards making this skills based, but not necessarily in discrete discipline specific courses.

For instance, I think there has been much said about knowledge of statistics, especially applied knowledge for interpreting natural and social scientific data.  This could be done through specific courses just on stats, or can be folded into a "Core Science Class" or even a broader "Undegraduate Skills" class.

I suppose the same could be done with writing. Make it discipline specific in terms of Comp I, Comp II type courses, or fold it in to some intro general sequence for everyone that also discusses what you'd use that writing for (I get that many modern comp classes do that already...I'm just throwing out ideas).

So, just going by skills (or maybe also general themes or concepts), Id' start with something write-y
and something   mathy-sciencey. Maybe a year of both (4 courses, but designed as a core---not just check box math and physics, chem, bio).

[mleok]

Well, this is why I have suggested a few times that we make no starting assumptions or start with any sacred cows. Just more or less state what we think students need. A responder could speak just for himself, his or her discipline, institutional type (SLAC, for instance) or a responder could list everything they think is needed for any discipline, or can say "nothing is needed for gen ed."

Of course, operationally, all schools, or at least most of them most of the time will take a defensive stance that is similar to the Fight Club-esque credo you state above.

This was my idea.

What I think we have had so far are examples of one-off, box-checking classes.

Honestly, you're part of the problem Ruralguy is alluding to.

[Ruralguy]

Especially at low teaching load schools (say, 2-2 or lower) there is more incentive to make the curriculum as siloed as possible with few gen eds or if there are gen eds they are taught by graduate students and adjuncts (save for an occasional example of a generous middle-aged professor presenting a showcase course). The professors can then devote their teaching to majors and in some cases, graduate students.
But if you want professors to care about a common curriculum, then you have to have a good number teaching in it, and teaching similar things.

[marshwiggle]

Well, this is why I have suggested a few times that we make no starting assumptions or start with any sacred cows. Just more or less state what we think students need. A responder could speak just for himself, his or her discipline, institutional type (SLAC, for instance) or a responder could list everything they think is needed for any discipline, or can say "nothing is needed for gen ed."

Of course, operationally, all schools, or at least most of them most of the time will take a defensive stance that is similar to the Fight Club-esque credo you state above.

This was my idea.

What I think we have had so far are examples of one-off, box-checking classes.

Honestly, you're part of the problem Ruralguy is alluding to.

This is what I thought also. From  your post to begin this topic:

a) be included from your area-of-expertise in gen eds and, most importantly, what should these classes entail, and/or...

b) be included to help students who are majoring in your area-of-expertise.  And...

c) maybe we could include classes / disciplines which are being attenuated or even dropped but should still maintain a place in gen eds.


I'll start, in reverse order:

c) Attenuated but Necessary: Philosophy and foreign languages (in some non-siloed form).  I understand that there are not a lot of corporate jobs for "philosophers" and that 18 months at 3 hours a week of language instruction does not teach one to speak Italian or whatever, but I believe both classes are fantastic for challenging the brain and actually teaching students new ways of thinking.

History is absolutely necessary for English majors.  I would suggest it should be front-and-center for ALL majors, particularly given what we have seen in the last 5 years.

b) Classes Your Majors Need: English(writing & literature) majors learn a great deal from the above classes, and history, film studies (if not already English), art-history, sociology and psychology (all non-siloed) provide important non-major-curriculum ideas. 

a) Should Be Included to Annoy Anti-Gen-Ed-ers: writing courses, obviously.  First semester: academic conventions (research, databases, citation styles, grammar, argumentation & basic academic research paper formats).   Second semester: major specific writing (business, science, close-reading literature, history-specific, etc.).  Intro to journalism might be an option for 2nd semester for all students since journalism can teach many of these skills.

Maybe I'm missing your implications, but these sound very much like "off the shelf" existing courses, rather than courses specifically designed for the purpose.

What would you do with history, philosophy, and foreign language courses that would be different from existing offerings but that would be good for all non-majors?

[Wahoo Redux]

Maybe I'm missing your implications, but these sound very much like "off the shelf" existing courses, rather than courses specifically designed for the purpose.

What would you do with history, philosophy, and foreign language courses that would be different from existing offerings but that would be good for all non-majors?

We already have a "History of the English Language" class which is taught in English departments, so I suppose we could have either a "History of Literacy Class" or "English history in the context of literature" which links literary genres to specific historical contexts required of all English majors (ex. The Epic is initially a compendium of religious texts assembled in Babylonia which morphs into a story of warrior ethos in ancient Greece and so the class would cover history of the Furtile Crescent and Greek city states and an overview of the genre etc.).  Probably the class would need to be team-taught...and I am not sure anyone wants to pay for something like that.

But here you have pointed out one of the problems of redesign.  I will admit that I am dubious that we can redesign a curriculum that is better than the "box-checking / one-off" status quo----and this thread seems to suggest this so far.

For instance, to understand A Tale of Two Cities we would need to have a basic understanding of The French Revolution; The Turn of the Screw a basic understanding of Victorian class society; The Things They Carried a history of the Vietnam War and so on...

Certainly one could read A Tale of Two Cities and then study the history of the Revolution, but most lit teachers incorporate that history into a discussion of the text.  So I am not sure that a class such as this one would do any better than a "Victorian Novel" class and a "History of Western Civ II" class taught seperately.

Honestly, that question was why I started this thread.  How would we redesign?

My "implication" is that no matter what, gen eds are going to be gen eds.  I miss a magical solution to the quandary unless the solution is to do away with gen eds altogether.   

[mleok]

There is also a fundamental issue of the kind of institution we're talking about. Too many times, I get the sense that general education is justified by assuming the kind of inadequate K-12 preparation one might expect from an open enrollment college, but with the lofty aspirations of developing a well-rounded individual that one might hope to have come out of an elite college.

[Wahoo Redux]

Honestly, you're part of the problem Ruralguy is alluding to.

Snark?  Okay.

Never used math more complicated than a decimal point in my life.

I'm not alone.

What good is math for anyone not an engineer?

[Wahoo Redux]

There is also a fundamental issue of the kind of institution we're talking about. Too many times, I get the sense that general education is justified by assuming the kind of inadequate K-12 preparation one might expect from an open enrollment college, but with the lofty aspirations of developing a well-rounded individual that one might hope to have come out of an elite college.

Bit busy.

But I have been looking at international educational outcomes.

Not sure the idea of "inadequate" anything holds water.