"It's time to prioritize what students want and need over what we want to teach"

[Caracal]

So it is the federal government that really establishes the requirement for gen ed. I didn't realize that.

I'm normally dismissive of libertarianism, but occasionally something tugs me in a libertarian direction. This does.

Well, not exactly. The accrediting agencies do. Those are non-profit NGOs. But accreditation is linked to various sorts of federal funding.

[Hibush]

So it is the federal government that really establishes the requirement for gen ed. I didn't realize that.

I'm normally dismissive of libertarianism, but occasionally something tugs me in a libertarian direction. This does.

Well, not exactly. The accrediting agencies do. Those are non-profit NGOs. But accreditation is linked to various sorts of federal funding.

Leadership at the Federal Education Department right now would prefer to have as few requirements as possible so that schools are minimally constrained in what they provide students in return for the tuition money students borrowed.

[Wahoo Redux]

And, as I did with Polly, I will point out that there are schools which essentially do away with pesky gen eds...Be a Phoenix? 

Phoenix is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission and is subject to the same rules as all four-year institutions including standard general education credit requirements.  Phoenix is hemorrhaging students and money because they are expensive for what they do that is the same 4-year schooling as everyone else who now is also online.  The national decrease in percent of adjuncts as faculty is generally attributed to Phoenix and similar institutions shedding faculty as they shrink or close.

A better example of eliminating general education requirements would be the competency-based models like Western Governor's University, which has 110k students enrolled.  Another example is the tightly structured minimal general education requirements in many nursing and engineering programs.  Those are generally not 30-40 credits of exploration, but are instead mandatory courses that meet needs with a tiny bit of flexibility depending on the specific term a student has a slot marked "humanities/social science elective" and what fits into the rest of the regulated schedule. 


In addition, the European higher ed system seems to function fine without US-style general education requirements.  Again, the implication that one is getting a welding certificate or dental hygienist training if one doesn't have general education is not the reality on the ground.

The calls in some areas for three-year bachelor's degrees that rely heavily on entering students having already completed many gen eds elsewhere are not going away, especially for the institutions serving the well-prepared students.  Again, the conclusion appears to be that people who have a good K-12 education can focus on their majors to speed through college, while those who had inadequate K-12 education probably need support for 6 or 8 years of undergraduate study.

As for downer's question regarding general education, much restructuring is going on.  For example, the University of Virginia is rolling out a new general education program that includes quantitative and computational fluency requirements.  With business and other non-liberal-arts majors now the popular degrees, the push-back on many campuses against a liberal-arts-lite-humanities-heavy smorgasbord will continue to increase.  After all, we keep hearing about how those poor adjuncts are being exploited to cover the requirements and it's not at all clear what those checkbox requirements being taught by overworked and underpaid adjuncts are providing in terms of a solid education.

You know, I actually considered applying for work at WGU before getting a FT gig.

This is all fine and good as long as we don't pretend that there are not noted limitations and criticism to the "competency" approach to education.  It is not, in other words, a proven better option, nor is everyone convinced of its viability.  It may be the wave of the future (who can say?), but the approach still has to prove itself.  And we have to note, again, that WGU is consistently referred to as "job preparation" firstly, as if "education" is the afterthought.  Everything I see regarding WGU, like Phoenix and Capella, is simply a money-value comparison to traditional education and/or an "employment rate" after graduation statement.  I sometimes think we forget that there are many reasons, good and bad, that people choose to go to college.  Not everyone is obsessed with employment, although I suspect a good many are.

This is one example of a critique: 
http://www.nea.org/archive/53413.htm

"Liberal arts education is much different than what WGU offers. College education can be compared to learning to drive. We all know what it takes to pass a driving test, and we all know how we do it: we cram a bunch of stuff into short-term memory, and then pass a competency-based exam. We also know that becoming a driver is a much different process; it requires guidance and repeated practice (or seat time). WGU's approach may help students pass licensing exams, but it does not help them become drivers.

Similarly, one could argue that the Boy Scouts has a "competency approach" because scouts are asked to earn merit badges. But of course, the Boy Scouts' mission is to offer "a program for young people that builds character, trains them in the responsibilities of participating citizenship, and develops personal fitness."7 Thus, scouts camp together, learn together, and work together under the guidance of masters who teach knowledge and model the scouts' values. Abstracted from this broader culture of scouting, the merit badges would lose their meaning and value.

Had the competency approach been able to achieve the goals of liberal arts education, it would have done so long ago. Not only have we long had correspondence courses, but textbook producers also have long packaged their products with assignments and assessment tools. Despite their efforts, the core learning experience has continued to take place in interactions between teachers and students, and between students themselves—the stuff that happens beyond the textbook. WGU's online modules may be better than correspondence courses, but they are variations on a theme, and suffer from the same limitations.

Although commentators embrace WGU's model because it offers easily assessable outcomes, this may also be its problem; too often we conflate easily assessed outcomes with accountability."

And:

"Liberal arts education is experiential learning for the mind. It's about grappling with tough stuff. The assessments (or competencies)—tests, papers, labs— are only part of the picture; equally important is what happens while students are in class and, more generally, on campus: the discussions, questions, conversations; the exposure to new ideas and different perspectives. A college graduate should become an interpretive being, capable of not just answering but asking sophisticated questions; of not just knowing facts, but making sense of them; of not just understanding what's in a book or lesson, but offering original ideas based on their learning. Developing this deep understanding depends, as Socrates recognized, on conversations between teacher and student. Cognitive science confirms what the ancients knew.11 As philosopher Michael Oakeshott has written about liberal education, "in every 'ability' there is an ingredient of knowledge which cannot be resolved into information" given that "'abilities' do not exist in the abstract but in individual examples." As a result, gaining fluency in the liberal arts is like learning a new language. One must master basic rules but "until one can speak the language in a manner not expressly provided for in the rules, one can make no significance utterance in it."

Now I'm not saying that this opinion is the be-all / end-all of the debate, but it points out what a lot of us have been saying about this subject.

I suspect, but will not state it as an absolute, that society will either turn away from "competency" based education or we will have two distinct paths to education----and at some point the "competency" style of education will be regarded as second rate.  Actually, if we factor in the current reputation of for-profit / employment based schools, we see this already.  "Competency" will be education for the people not smart enough for "real" college.  Maybe I'll be proven wrong, but knowing human nature, I bet this is the next stage of ed-evolution.

[downer]

Since accreditation agencies are so hot on outcomes assessment, I assume that they have evidence from outcomes assessment that gen ed programs accomplish what they are meant to.

Just kidding.

[marshwiggle]

Since accreditation agencies are so hot on outcomes assessment, I assume that they have evidence from outcomes assessment that gen ed programs accomplish what they are meant to.

That would certainly be worth seeing, in terms of the metrics they use and the results.

[tuxthepenguin]

Are there stats on what proportion of schools require gen ed in the US and what the trends are?

I don't think such stats would be helpful. "Gen ed" can mean speech and composition classes, which provide skills needed for any job, or art history, which provides no job skills. These discussions, as I've seen them, are primarily focused on elimination of humanities requirements, which in many universities would allow students to finish a semester earlier.

Doesn't it depend on how the stats are presented, and whether they are transparent or obfuscating?

You'd need to report by type of class and how many classes for it to be meaningful. Even then you'd have a composition class under "humanities" if it's taught by an English department, so I don't know that there are any stats you'd ever hope to find that can identify the "no job skills" classes, which is the argument against "general education" requirements.

[downer]

Are there stats on what proportion of schools require gen ed in the US and what the trends are?

I don't think such stats would be helpful. "Gen ed" can mean speech and composition classes, which provide skills needed for any job, or art history, which provides no job skills. These discussions, as I've seen them, are primarily focused on elimination of humanities requirements, which in many universities would allow students to finish a semester earlier.

Doesn't it depend on how the stats are presented, and whether they are transparent or obfuscating?

You'd need to report by type of class and how many classes for it to be meaningful. Even then you'd have a composition class under "humanities" if it's taught by an English department, so I don't know that there are any stats you'd ever hope to find that can identify the "no job skills" classes, which is the argument against "general education" requirements.

I am not sure that any one has attempted to get stats on this stuff anyway, so it's probably a moot point.

I'm skeptical about dividng up the "job skills" classes from the "no job skills" classes even in principle. After all, we often have organizational skills, time keeping skills, critical thinking skills, presentation skills, and more generalizable skills in all classes. (There's also the important skill of being able to look like you know about a topic when you have spent very little time on it.) On the other hand, a class that might looks like a "job skills" class like "Critical Thinking" may turn out to have rather little generalizability to the work world.

[spork]

UVA's "new" gen ed requirements: https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/just-visiting/enthused-about-uvas-new-approach-gen-ed.

"oriented around what students should be able to do, rather than simply what they should 'know'" -- while I applaud this approach, I'm very curious if gen ed courses will be assessed in a valid way to find out whether students are actually acquiring these skills. If not, it's just an exercise in relabeling course designations.

[marshwiggle]

UVA's "new" gen ed requirements: https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/just-visiting/enthused-about-uvas-new-approach-gen-ed.

"oriented around what students should be able to do, rather than simply what they should 'know'" -- while I applaud this approach, I'm very curious if gen ed courses will be assessed in a valid way to find out whether students are actually acquiring these skills. If not, it's just an exercise in relabeling course designations.

This doesn't look promising:

The Quantification, Computation, and Data Analysis literacy enables students to apply mathematical skills to understand and solve real world problems. Students fulfill this requirement by completing two 3- or 4-credit courses that include some or all of the following:

• Theoretical concepts and structures of mathematics and statistics including (but not limited to) pure mathematics, logic, and theoretical statistics.
• Manipulation and interpretation of mathematical expressions.
• Application of computational and analytical methods in order to manipulate, organize, summarize, and evaluate quantitative information and experience.
• Theoretical and/or practical interpretation and communication of data in order to solve real-world problems

Note: this is not a Calculus requirement. Instead, students in the New College Curriculum can fulfill this requirement in courses across the College of Arts & Sciences (including courses in Anthropology, Math, Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology, Statistics, and more).

All of those qualifications suggest to me that there will be options with nary a number in sight.

[ciao_yall]

This doesn't look promising:

The Quantification, Computation, and Data Analysis literacy enables students to apply mathematical skills to understand and solve real world problems. Students fulfill this requirement by completing two 3- or 4-credit courses that include some or all of the following:

• Theoretical concepts and structures of mathematics and statistics including (but not limited to) pure mathematics, logic, and theoretical statistics.
• Manipulation and interpretation of mathematical expressions.
• Application of computational and analytical methods in order to manipulate, organize, summarize, and evaluate quantitative information and experience.
• Theoretical and/or practical interpretation and communication of data in order to solve real-world problems

Note: this is not a Calculus requirement. Instead, students in the New College Curriculum can fulfill this requirement in courses across the College of Arts & Sciences (including courses in Anthropology, Math, Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology, Statistics, and more).

All of those qualifications suggest to me that there will be options with nary a number in sight.

Have you ever taken a math class? "Manipulate" is a fancy word for "solve problems."

• Theoretical and/or practical interpretation and communication of data in order to solve real-world problems

Is just a fancy term for "word problems."

[marshwiggle]

• Theoretical and/or practical interpretation and communication of data in order to solve real-world problems

Is just a fancy term for "word problems."

But since it only need to include "some" of these, that could potentially mean
"Theoretical... communication of data" would suffice, whatever that means. To me, that could mean students are told about results of research, and they simply have to re-word it for a different audience. In that case, they wouldn't have to have any ability to determine whether the data support the interpretations; all they'd have to do is explain the interpretations.

There are a lot of weasel-words there that perhaps could be met without students actually having to do anything quantitative themselves.

[ciao_yall]

• Theoretical and/or practical interpretation and communication of data in order to solve real-world problems

Is just a fancy term for "word problems."

But since it only need to include "some" of these, that could potentially mean
"Theoretical... communication of data" would suffice, whatever that means. To me, that could mean students are told about results of research, and they simply have to re-word it for a different audience. In that case, they wouldn't have to have any ability to determine whether the data support the interpretations; all they'd have to do is explain the interpretations.

There are a lot of weasel-words there that perhaps could be met without students actually having to do anything quantitative themselves.

Dude. You're seriously breaking your crayons over this.

[spork]

Unless there is a common, university-wide test on "quantification skill," the whole exercise is meaningless.

[Caracal]

Unless there is a common, university-wide test on "quantification skill," the whole exercise is meaningless.

Huh? It isn't trying to establish some set list of skills. If that was the idea it would just be a required class. The point of having a number of courses to choose from is that you want students to learn how to engage with data but you want them to be able to choose courses based on their interests.

[marshwiggle]

Unless there is a common, university-wide test on "quantification skill," the whole exercise is meaningless.

Huh? It isn't trying to establish some set list of skills. If that was the idea it would just be a required class. The point of having a number of courses to choose from is that you want students to learn how to engage with data but you want them to be able to choose courses based on their interests.

But that's just it; the amount of leeway in the choices makes the definition of "engagement" with the data basically meaningless.