Minutes GES

Friday, February 08, 2008

10:00 AM

 

Attending: Margit Codispoti, Linda Hite,  Mark Masters,  John Hrehov, Brenda Lundy, Jonathan Tankel, Erin Frew (visitor)

  Unable to attend:  Ali Rassuli, Carlos Pomalaza-Raez

Discussed area 2 courses for science majors and how various introductory courses are tagged as General Education for those majors.  This then carries over if the students switch majors. 

Response: It is A&S's issue.  Letter of  the Law is that the students need to take it.  But checking is A&S’s problem.  Is this a large issue?

We requested data on variable topic Gen Ed courses so that we can know how many there are.

Discussion on rubrics for assessment

Margit provided us with a start for information literacy

"Gather, evaluate, select, organize and synthesize material in order to complete a research or creative project"

In order to show that one has gathered, evaluated, selected and synthesized material one must have done a literature review to find existing information on the topic of the project. questions that could show this include:

Is there a bibliography or works cited or consulted page?

Do the works listed show a diversity and number of citations that are appropriate to the topic?

Do the sources appear to be credible and have a reasonable number of primary, secondary and scholarly sources appropriate to the topic been consulted?

Are the sources identified accurately so that the source document can be located by others (author, title, journal, volume, date and page numbers or publisher and date of book or web address for online source)?

Is the textual use of sources and quotes documented and are all source materials represented in the works cited page?

The committee was unsure if a bibliography was always required so will add  "where applicable"

The conclusion was that we were going to look at the following three questions:

Is there a bibliography when appropriate?

Is there a multiplicity of credible sources?

Are the sources correctly identified?

 Meeting 2-29-08

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GES 1-18-08

Friday, January 18, 2008

9:54 AM

Minutes

Attending: Margit Codispoti, Linda Hite,  Mark Masters,  Ali Rassuli, John Hrehov, Carlos Pomalaza-Raez, Brenda Lundy, Erin Frew (visitor)

 

Unable to attend:  Jonathan Tankel,

 

We discussed that whether a student can have credit for a Gen Ed Area VI course that is not already an approved area VI course.  We decided that we cannot approve course.

 

We discussed the need to have a published list or our rulings on various issues so that there is some committee consistency.

 

We also discussed that there should be mention in bulletin about testing out of all (with the exception of Area VI) General Education Courses.

 

Erin told us that we had collected 300 artifacts and that she had randomly chosen 50

 

We had discussions about whether we should use this type of random sampling or to use Systematic Randomization so that we look at each school or discipline.  We decided to keep sampling as it is.

 

Further discussed Rubrics

 

Talked about pt scale & num. of reviewers

 

Decided to use a 5 point scale

 

Discussed types of rubrics Analytic (w/ detailed descriptions in each cell), Holistic has empty cells.

 

Erin pointed out that  Analytic rubrics are easier with multiple disciplines.

 

We discussed forms of  Analytic rubrics: ones with only max & min values and no explicit description for each value of points

 

We have decided: 5 pt analytic rubric.

 

next meeting Feb 8, @ 10

 

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GES 12-4-07

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

1:30 PM

Minutes

 

Attending: Margit Codispoti, Linda Hite,  Mark Masters, Jonathan Tankel, Ali Rassuli, Erin Frew (visitor)

 

Unable to attend:  John Hrehov, Carlos Pomalaza-Raez, Brenda Lundy

 

Lessons learned in Area VI document requests: We need to be earlier in our distribution of the requests and we need to copy department chairs,

 

After the distribution of the request that all General Education Courses include the general education learning outcomes, the issue came up about whether high school based courses need to include these as well.  After some discussion, the consensus was that school based courses are not of concern to this issue.

 

We discussed the issue that some non-general education courses were getting noted as general education courses such as CHM 115 which is NOT GE.  Linda will query Patrick and Bill Baden.

 

Assessment

 

We talked about the method of assessment.  Ali argued for a 5pt scale: strongly agree to strongly disagree in answer to a specific question rather than a descriptive rubric. 

 

There was discussion about assessing all of the general education outcomes as opposed to a single outcome such as writing.  Consensus was on whole program assessment.

 

We discussed whether we should use a 5 point or a 2 point scale in assessment.  Erin was in favor of a 2 point system while Ali was in favor of a 5 point system. 

 

 

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Minutes

GES 11-15-07

Thursday, November 15, 2007

9:36 AM

 

Attending:  Linda Hite, Brenda Lundy, Mark Masters, Jonathan Tankel, Ali Rassuli, Erin Frew (visitor)

 

Unable to attend: John Hrehov, Carlos Pomalaza-Raez, Margit Codispoti

 

Minutes approved

 

The General Education Learning Outcomes are:

 

General Education Learning Outcomes

 

1.      To be familiar with the important modes of human thought that are the foundations of science, philosophy, art and social behavior.

 

1.      To possess effective foundation skills:

a.      Read, write, and speak with comprehension, clarity, and precision.   

b.      Identify substantive knowledge and disciplinary methods.

c.Develop information literacy skills.

d.      Reason quantitatively (as means of gaining and creating knowledge and drawing reliable conclusions)

 

2.      To demonstrate the ability to think critically and to solve problems using the foundation skills:                               

a.      Evaluate their ideas and the ideas of others based upon disciplined reasoning.

b.      Understand the traditions that have formed one’s own and other cultures.

c.Be able to articulate their ideas in appropriate media.

 

3.      To complete a research/creative project outside the student’s major discipline that requires synthesizing knowledge and applying skills gained.

 

We discussed rubrics for assessing the learning outcomes.  We talked about how we will set some criteria with a scale.  Each statement of the rubric looks at a single variable.

 

 

We discussed possible assessment procedures:

 

One goal is to attempt to have the overall rubric on a single page for the entire program. 

 

Much of the discussion was about who to involve in the process.  The first position seems to be detail-oriented and involve the responsible department (such as English) early.  The alternate is we attempt to take a more global approach.

 

Committee consensus was on the global approach.

 

The first general education "learning outcome" is difficult.  We have to operationalize it to make it more specific. 

 

Jonathan is developing initial table of topics

 

Ali is working on No. 1

 

Next meeting is Dec. 4 1:30

 

 

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Minutes for the General Education Subcommittee

10-11-07

 

Attending: Margit Codispoti, Linda Hite, Brenda Lundy, Mark Masters, Jonathan Tankel

  Unable to attend: John Hrehov, Carlos Pomalaza-Raez, Ali Rassuli

 

Actions

Minutes approved

 

We evaluated course proposals for S425 and S410. 

S410 is a variable title course and we cannot approve that as a General Education Course.

S425 needs some revisions. 

 

We found that the General Education Proposal Forms need to be changed to require objectives to be listed on syllabi and to explain how the course meets the General Education Objectives. 

 

We decided that a memo needs to be sent to all faculty before Thanksgiving break for faculty to include the General Education learning objectives on the syllabi of General Education courses. 

 

We discussed assessment and decided that we should collect artifacts this year (to be sent to Erin Frew) and we can develop the Rubrics for a trial run.  A memo to all area VI faculty regarding the collection of artifacts will have to be done fairly soon.

 

Next meeting set for Thursday November 1 at 1:30

 

 

 

General Education Subcommittee Meeting

9/6/07

 

Attending: Margit Codispoti, Linda Hite, John Hrehov, Brenda Lundy, Mark Masters, Carlos Pomalaza-Raez, Ali Rassuli

 

Unable to attend: Jonathan Tankel

 

Mark Masters was elected chair.

 

We discussed assessment plans of the general education program.

 

In particular, the plan developed last year was to collect final project artifacts.

 

A memo needs to be written and sent to all faculty teaching Area VI courses requesting that they collect the artifacts and forward them to the GES.

 

We need to develop the rubrics for analysis of the artifacts.