The following criteria for the EWU General Education Program (GE) Courses were created in a series of brown bag meetings that all EWU faculty were invited to attend. Courses approved for the breadth areas listed below must address all of the area-specific criteria. Additionally, approved Breadth Area courses must address selected General Education Program Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs): Information Literacy, Analytical Thinking, Creative Thinking, Written Communication, and Quantitative Literacy. The GE SLOs will be used for assessing General Education, while the following criteria are geared toward course development and course approval. Each course in the following groups should address all of the criteria in that group.
GE at EWU is designed to be a strong, innovative, and cohesive program that engages students in disciplinary ways of thinking while learning content and theories. We recognize that students build these ways of thinking while learning from faculty who are experts and researchers in their fields, both in traditional disciplines and in interdisciplinary coursework.
Prerequisites
Prerequisites for Breadth Area Courses (BACRs) should be general in nature, such as pre-university required courses or GE courses in writing competency, writing proficiency, or quantitative literacy. General education courses may not require admission to a program as a requirement. In general, Diversity and Global Studies courses should only have competencies, proficiencies or BACRs as prerequisites. Diversity and Global Studies courses may not require admission to a program as a prerequisite.
Breadth Area Course Criteria
Courses in this area (100 to 200 level) prepare students to:
- Develop compelling interpretations of texts or artistic products that reflect the field of [insert the name of the discipline]’s interpretative conventions.
- Create a well-crafted text or artistic product as determined by the conventions of [insert the name of the discipline].
- Describe the historical or socio-cultural conditions that have shaped a given text or artistic product.
Lab-based courses* in this area (100 to 200 level) prepare students to:
- Describe one or more scientific processes used in the field of [insert the name of the discipline].
- Explain some aspect of the natural world using quantification.
- Distinguish between knowledge claims that are scientific and those that are not.
*A lab-based natural science course is one in which students regularly collect or use data based on observations of natural phenomena to support a scientific conclusion.
Courses in this area (100 to 200 level) prepare students to:
- Correctly define terms pertinent to [insert the name of the social science discipline].
- Apply discipline-specific concepts to explain an aspect of human behavior.
- Analyze a social phenomenon or problem using [insert the name of the discipline]’s conventions.
Additional Course Criteria
Courses in this area (200-300 level) prepare students to:
- Examine movements that shape or challenge systems of power, privilege, oppression, or colonization.
- Evaluate constructions of identities of underrepresented or marginalized groups created through social, cultural, or political practices.
- Communicate the ways in which power differentials operate, are experienced, or are reinforced at individual, group, community, or institutional levels.
- Critically examine their own attitudes about underrepresented or marginalized groups.
Courses in this area (200-300 level) prepare students to:
- Describe one or more contemporary international or global issues from the perspectives of multiple nation-states, peoples or cultures outside the U.S.
- Analyze multiple dimensions of contemporary international or global issues.
- Critically evaluate information about contemporary international or global issues.
- Synthesize multiple perspectives concerning contemporary international or global issues for the purpose of forming their own perspective.
Courses in this area (100 level) prepare students to::
- Frame problems in ways that would enable one to impose mathematical or axiomatic structures to them.
- Evaluate the appropriateness of a mathematical or axiomatic structure to a problem.
- Apply the mathematical or axiomatic structure to resolve problems.
- Evaluate the reasonableness of a solution to a given problem.
- Communicate the strategies used at a level suitable for an audience of their peers
