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General Education Committee

Application for New General Education Course Within a Pathway

This form must be completed for new General Education courses that are to be included in a Pathway. Existing General Education courses that are to be included in a new Pathway do NOT need this application form. Be sure the course is either already in the catalog or is in the curricular approval process for a new course.

The General Education Committee (GEC) requests that faculty who teach the course complete this form. Each application must include the identification of two of NIU’s eight SLOs (http://www.niu.edu/gened/overview/outcomes/index.shtml) the level of proficiency at which the course addresses these SLOs, and a signature assignment(s) that will be used to measure student proficiency in obtaining the SLOs. A signature assignment is an assignment, task, activity, project or exam purposefully created or modified to collect evidence for a specific Student Learning Outcomes (SLO’s).

Please note: The three proficiency levels (beginning, developing and proficient) do not represent a value scale. That is, individual courses, by their design and intent, will address particular SLOs at different levels. The level of proficiency indicated in no way reflects on the quality of the course.

Complete course designator, number, and title:
College:
Department:
Pathway:

Please indicate the proposed area of study for this course to reside in. A course may reside in a single Knowledge Domain:

Creativity & Critical Analysis / Nature & Technology / Society & Culture
Date of College Curriculum Committee Approval:
Date of Pathway Coordinator Approval:
Department Chair Signature:

Course Rationale

Please provide an appropriate rationale regarding how the selected Knowledge Domain best fits this course. Use the Domain description and criteria below to guide your rationale:

Creativity & Critical Analysis

Courses in Creativity & Critical Analysis will challenge students to develop the skills involved in critical reflection and creative expression. Students will: (1) become acquainted with methods for analyzing primary sources and critically evaluating the ideas, events, traditions, and belief systems that have shaped human experience and expression; (2) explore fundamental modes of aesthetic and creative expression; and (3) understand and evaluate the diversity of humanity’s most notable cultural achievements from artistic, historical, linguistic, literary, and philosophical perspectives.

Nature & Technology

Courses in Nature & Technology will develop a student’s understanding of the role of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and their relevance to societal issues. This domain encompasses human activities through which we observe, measure, model, and interpret the natural world and physical universe. Courses will explore the process of scientific discovery and how the resulting knowledge is applied to understand technological and societal change. Students will: (1) be able to articulate society’s connections to, and responsibility towards, the natural world; and (2) learn to apply the scientific method, including assessing empirical data, investigating the predictions of existing theories, and developing experimentally testable hypotheses.

Society & Culture

Courses in Society & Culture will develop understanding of the methods of inquiry used to study humanity, from individual behavior to how people organize and govern nations, societies, and cultures. Student will: (1) learn the role, principles, and methods of social and behavioral science in understanding individual and collective behavior in society; (2) hone the reasoning skills required to understand theories of human behavior and social phenomena; and (3) develop the ability to understand and evaluate the communication of results in the social and behavioral sciences.

Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs)

Identify two (2) of the SLOs listed below. Also indicate the level of proficiency (beginning, developing, proficient) at which the course addresses the SLOs, and a signature assignment for each SLO that will be used to measure student proficiency. To guide you further, please see the rubrics for the SLOs that are listed below.

SLOs (check two) Indicate Level of Proficiency with respective letter:

Beginning (B), Developing (D), or Proficient (P)

Global Connections
Intercultural Competencies
Human Connections with the Natural World
Critical Thinking
Written Communication
Oral Communication
Collaboration
Quantitative/Qualitative Reasoning
Synthesis

Identify and describe a signature assignment(s) given in this course that will be used to measure student proficiency in the two SLOs you have indicated above. A signature assignment is an assignment, task, activity, project or exam purposefully created or modified to collect evidence for a specific Student Learning Outcomes (SLO’s).

Identify and describe a collaborative learning activity that will be a part of the course.

Briefly (no more than 100 words) describe how your course addresses the Pathway theme and which of the large Pathway questions your course will primarily address.

Provide the catalog description of the course here. If the course is not in the catalog yet, you may provide the proposed catalog description.

Following are the rubrics (as of August 2017) for each of the baccalaureate student learning outcomes. There are eight learning outcomes, two of which are parsed out into two categories (Written & Oral Communication, Qualitative & Quantitative Reasoning)

These rubrics may be shared with students to communicate the levels of proficiency expected for each student learning outcome, and may be easily adapted and expanded to suit the needs of individual courses or departments. They are intended as a guide in the student evaluation process.

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General Education Committee

Application for New General Education Course Within a Pathway

Student Learning Outcome #1: Integrate knowledge of global interconnections and interdependencies

FRAMING LANGUAGE

Northern Illinois University (NIU) has grown into a world-class university that attracts students and faculty from around the globe. In response to this, it is imperative to integrate global perspectives and competence into the core of our education. This calls for the capacity for students and the overall campus community to engage in global issues meaningfully, to recognize the role of a changing socio-political and socio-economic world, and to put international issues at the core of transformative learning. This rubric is designed to measure how NIU instills its students with global perspective and knowledge, through cultural self-awareness and to compare and contrast them with others. It also measures how students identify themselves as part of a larger international community as well as how they develop an understanding of the interdependencies of this larger, complex world.

Criteria / Accomplished / Proficient Developing / Beginning
Global Knowledge / Reflects comparatively and in depth on one’s own country and a second country. / Analyzes two countries including their enculturation processes, worldviews, and economic, social and political patterns. / Compares and contrasts distinct behavioral characteristics of student’s own and one other country. / Describes, with examples, the world’s global diversity.
Global Intellectual Skills / Assesses the complexities and contradictions in one of the world’s systems based on information about one or more of the relevant issues currently facing the world’s population. / Develops a mental map of the interrelatedness of global institutions, issues, and systems using examples. / Analyzes evidence about a current topic related to a world issue. / Explains, with examples, the origins of today’s world, its trends, and its systemic interdependence.
Global Perspectives / Articulates the basic assumptions of two worldviews/perspectives and applies them in formulating alternative responses to one of the world’s major issues. / Demonstrates understanding of the complexity of elements important to members of another country in relation to its history, values, politics, communication styles, economy, or beliefs and practices. / Evaluates the potential effectiveness of two relevant contrasting responses to one general world issue. / Describes the world’s economic, environmental, and political systems.
Global Self-awareness / Demonstrates potential for distinctive leadership in a global community. / Assesses own perspective and locates it amid world philosophical, religious, ideological, and/or intellectual frameworks. / Explains a relationship between a global issue and student’s own personal commitments and vocational choices. / Explains basic awareness of student’s own home country rules and biases.

Student Learning Outcome #2: Intercultural Competencies

FRAMING LANGUAGE

Exhibit intercultural competencies with people of diverse backgrounds and perspectives. Intercultural competency challenges students to develop a sophisticated understanding of the values and belief systems of their own culture and those of another culture, how these values and belief systems have been developed, how they have been contested and interpreted over time, and how they are manifested in actual practice. Where intercultural competency is integrated into education, students develop appreciation for and an understanding of the rich complexity of the human experience and demonstrate knowledge of, respect for, and ability to communicate with people of diverse backgrounds and perspectives. This rubric identifies six of key components of intercultural competency. However, it is important to understand that intercultural competency is more complex than this rubric reflects.

Criteria / Accomplished / Proficient / Developing / Beginning
Cultural self- awareness / Articulates insights into own cultural rules and biases. / Recognizes new perspectives about own cultural rules and biases. / Identifies own cultural rules and biases. / Shows minimal awareness of own cultural rules and biases.
Knowledge of cultural worldview frameworks / Demonstrates sophisticated understanding of the complexity of other cultures in relation to history, politics, communication styles, economy, or values, beliefs and practices. / Evinces a high level of knowledge of the complexity of other cultures in relation to history, politics, communication styles, economy, or values, beliefs and practices. / Possesses some knowledge of the complexity of other cultures in relation to history, politics, communication styles, economy, or values, beliefs and practices. / Shows minimal awareness of the complexity of other cultures in relation to history, politics, communication styles, economy, or values, beliefs and practices.
Empathy / Interprets intercultural experience multiple perspectives and demonstrates ability to act in a supportive manner that recognizes the feelings of another cultural group. / Recognizes intellectual and emotional dimensions of more than one perspective and sometimes uses more than one perspective in interactions. / Identifies components of other cultural perspectives but responds with own perspective. / Views the experience of others but does so through own cultural perspective.
Verbal and nonverbal communication / Articulates a complex understanding of cultural differences in verbal and nonverbal communication / Recognizes and participates in cultural differences in verbal and nonverbal communication. / Identifies some cultural differences in verbal and nonverbal communication and is aware that misunderstandings can occur based on those differences. / Has a minimal level of understanding of cultural differences in verbal and nonverbal communication.
Curiosity / Asks complex questions about other cultures, seeks out and articulates answers to these questions that reflect multiple cultural perspectives. / Asks deeper questions about other cultures and seeks out answers to these questions. / Asks simple or surface questions about other cultures. / States minimal interest in learning more about other cultures.
Openness and Tolerance / Initiates and develops interactions with culturally different others. Suspends stereotyping in valuing
interactions with culturally different others. / Begins to initiate and develop interactions with culturally different others. Begins to challenge stereotyping in valuing interactions with culturally different others. / Expresses openness to most if not all interactions with culturally different others. Has difficulty avoiding stereotyping in interactions with culturally different others, is aware of own tendency of stereotyping, and expresses a willingness to change. / Receptive to interacting with culturally different others. Has difficulty recognizing stereotyping in interactions with culturally different others..

Student Learning Outcome #3: Analyze issues that interconnect human life and the natural world

Environmental literacy incorporates one of the NIU Baccalaureate learning outcomes, specifically the ability to “analyze issues that interconnect human life and the natural world”. Environmental literacy means understanding the impact of one’s actions, as an individual and as a part of a community, on both local, regional, and global environments. This learning outcome emphasizes knowledge of humanity’s dependence on the environment, understanding the ways in which humans modify and alter the natural environment, and an appreciation for potential social, political, economic, behavioral, technological, and ecological solutions to environmental problems.

The objective of this rubric is to illustrate the outcomes of a global environmental perspective in students. The rubric outlines the dimensions of knowledge, skill, student work and characteristics that demonstrate these outcomes. A student with an environmental perspective has working knowledge in the form of experience with varying physical environments as well as political, economic, ecological, biological and philosophical education on global environments. These dimensions of interaction with environmental studies should incorporate:

• awareness of the environment’s role in human life • problem solving of large‐scale environmental issues

• knowledge of human and natural systems • skills relating to working with physical environments

• attitudes of appreciation for the environment

Criteria / Accomplished / Proficient Developing / Beginning
Knowledge
Of Environmental
Impact / Has the knowledge to track or predict effects of own and others’ actions on local and global environments. / Has some knowledge of the effects of own and others’ actions on local and global environments. / Has some knowledge of the effects of own actions on local environments or but without knowledge of their effects on a larger, global scale. / Has little knowledge or concern for the effects of individual actions on local and global environments.
Knowledge of
Life Systems / Knows ecological, political, economic, philosophical and biological (etc.) frameworks for understanding the diversity of human and natural environmental systems. / Knows few or several frameworks for understanding human and natural environmental systems. / Has little or one‐dimensional
knowledge of human and natural
systems / Has little or no knowledge of human and natural environmental systems.
Application of
Knowledge to
Environmental
Issues / Effectively synthesizes frameworks of knowledge to apply them to large‐scale environmental issues to create working solutions. / Applies frameworks of knowledge to large‐scale environmental issues but does not have enough knowledge or experience to produce solutions. / Has concept of large‐scale environmental issues but cannot effectively apply frameworks of knowledge to environmental problems in order to produce solutions. / Has little or no concept of large‐scale environmental issues and cannot effectively apply frameworks knowledge to environmental problems in order to produce a solution
Attitudes
Concerning
Integrity of
Global
Environments / Has concern for long-term integrity of local and global environments, seeks information about threats to global environments and has concern for their reversal. / Has concern for long‐term threats to local and global environments and for their reversal. / Has a concept of threats to local and global environments but has a short term perspective on environmental issues. / Has little or no concern for local or global environmental integrity and a short‐term perspective on environmental issues.

Student Learning Outcome #4 Critical Thinking