Recommended Readings on General Education

The following readings were provided to Task Force members in their packets:

Peter Ewell, General Education and the Assessment Reform Agenda. (AAC&U, 2004)

This paper reflects on the challenges of general education and assessment reform in the context of recent calls for accountability in higher education. The author argues that by focusing on abilities, alignment, assessment, and action, campuses can both improve general education programs and demonstrate student achievement of learning outcomes key to success in the 21st century.

Barbara E. Walvoord, Assessment Clear and Simple : A Practical Guide for Institutions, Departments, and General Education (Jossey-Bass, 2004)

Assessment Clear and Simple is "Assessment 101" in a book--a concise and step-by-step guide written for everyone who participates in the assessment process. This practical book helps to make assessment simple, cost-efficient, and useful to the institution, while at the same time meeting the requirements of accreditation agencies, legislatures, review boards, and others.

Strong Foundations: Twelve Principles for Effective General Education Programs, prologue by Jerry Gaff (AAC&U, 1994)

Recommends strategies and procedures for sustaining vitality and strength in general education. Twelve principles are drawn from practices at seventeen colleges and universities that have made a variety of improvements in general education curricula. Included are examples for strengthening general education that are appropriate to all types of colleges and universities as well as a list of project participants.

"Creating Shared Responsibility for General Education and Assessment," Peer Review themed issue (AAC&U, Fall 2004)

Challenging the widespread notion that general education is something to "get out of the way as soon as possible," this issue explores ways that campuses are now working to cultivate important outcomes across the curriculum and, given the growth in student transfer, across institutions. Sample articles include “Creating Learner-Centered Assessment: A Faculty-Driven Process” by Amy Driscoll and Swarup Wood; “Designing a Signature General Education Program” by Stephen L. Trainor; and “Creating Shared Student Responsibility for General Education” by Eric R. White and Jeremy Cohen.

Other Readings (available in the OID library)

Mary Taylor Huber and Pat Hutchings, Integrative Learning: Mapping the Terrain (AAC&U, 2005)

This paper explores the challenges to integrative learning today as well as its longer tradition and rationale within a vision of liberal education. In outlining promising directions for campus work, the authors draw on AAC&U's landmark report, Greater Expectations, as well as the Carnegie Foundation's long-standing initiative on the scholarship of teaching and learning. Readers will find a map of the terrain of integrative learning on which promising new developments in undergraduate education can be cultivated, learned from, and built upon.

Peggi Maki, Assessing for Learning: Building a Sustainable Commitment Across the Institution (Stylus, 2004)

Maki presents extensive examples of processes, strategies and campus practices, as well as key resources, guides, worksheets, and exercises -- to assist all stakeholders in the institution to develop and sustain assessment of student learning as an integral and systematic core institutional process. This book sets the assessment of learning within the twin contexts of: (1) the level of a program, department, division, or school within an institution; and (2) the level of an institution, based on its mission statement, educational philosophy, and educational objectives.

James L. Ratcliff (Editor), D. Kent Johnson, Jerry G. Gaff, Changing General Education: New Directions for Higher Education, No. 125 (Jossey-Bass, 2004)

This issue is about changing the general education curriculum--in big ways through significant reforms and, more frequently, incremental ways--to accomplish purposes better, connect with students better, and provide a more engaging and intellectually and emotionally compelling common collegiate experience. The chapter authors present the results of a recent national survey on changes in general education: four case studies of institutions that have undertaken change--how they did it, what the constraints were, and most important, what the results were: and discussions on achieving curricular coherence and the nature of change and how to bring it about.

Our Students' Best Work: AAC&U Board of Directors Statement (AAC&U, 2004)

Designed to help campuses respond to demands for greater accountability, this statement calls for assessments that measure higher-order learning aims such as critical thinking, integration of knowledge and ideas, and application of knowledge to real-world problems in different disciplinary domains. It sketches out five key educational outcomes, offers a set of principles for higher education accountability, and suggests a set of accountability questions every college or university should ask. Ideal for dialogues on assessment of student learning with campus leaders, trustees, or public officials.

Taking Responsibility for the Quality of the Baccalaureate Degree: A Report from the Greater Expectations Project on Accreditation and Assessment (AAC&U, 2004)

This short monograph describes the emerging consensus among accreditors and other educational leaders about liberal learning outcomes essential for all baccalaureate graduates. Authors discuss the necessary connections between general education and the major in achieving these key outcomes, while offering examples of their assessment in a variety of institutional settings. Implications for action are included.

Greater Expectations: A New Vision for Learning as a Nation Goes to College (AAC&U, 2002)

This Greater Expectations National Panel report calls for a new focus on excellence to better prepare students for the 21st century world. The report recommends the creation of a New Academy characterized by high expectations, a focus on learning, commitment to demonstrated achievement, intentional practices, and an engaged, practical liberal education for all students. Full text available on-line at http://www.greaterexpectations.org/

James L. Ratcliff, D. Kent Johnson, Steven M. La Nasa, and Jerry G. Gaff The Status of General Education in the Year 2000: Summary of a National Survey (AAC&U, 2001)

Summarizes the results of an extensive survey of undergraduate general education in a national sample of AAC&U-member colleges and universities, which was conducted by staff at AAC&U and at the Center for the Study of Higher Education at The Pennsylvania State University. It provides a snapshot of general education practice at the turn-of-the-century, information about significant changes in the past decade, and insight about the challenges of the future.

Jerry Gaff, General Education: The Changing Agenda (AAC&U, 1999)

An analysis of the changes in general education over the last two decades, since the reform of general education broke onto the scene in the late 1970s. Also focuses on several new challenges facing curriculum reformers today.