Understanding Ourselves, Engaging Our World: Curriculum Reform for 21 st Century Learners

       Our general goal is to develop a General Education curriculum that is meaningful for students, serves as a basis for advanced study in the major, and is unique to SIUE. Our plan is to draw on models of student learning, assessment and instruction as well as on existing strengths of the current program such as freshman seminar, interdisciplinary courses and the senior project in advancing a new model for the university. Specifically, we seek to promote a greater degree of student investment in education at SIUE, increased self-knowledge, and “ownership” of oneself as a respected and valued citizen of the global community. In order to provide direction, clarity and accountability, we advance the following objectives:

1. Students will become active participants and constructors of learning as a lifelong process.
2. Students will engage in the academic community as marked by integrated coursework, opportunities for application, and a full range of communication.
3. Students will develop a broad-based skill repertoire as a foundation for advanced study in the major.
4. Students will develop keen awareness of themselves as authors of their own learning, and as change agents in an increasingly complex and vulnerable world.
5. Students will develop competence in various modes of literacy as key to effective communication: written, oral, informational, quantitative and visual.
6. Students will develop appreciation for the full range of individual and cultural differences as key to fostering personal and social development.

        Integral to our curriculum is the concept of community, which we see as both a privilege and an obligation. Groups of students will take many of their General Education courses together and have a common advisor. General academic skills will be introduced in the first semester in all their classes, and each semester new skills will be introduced that build on that foundation—a spiral curriculum. Professors will work together to build connections via establishing common themes and projects across classes so that skills are taught consistently and thoroughly, and connections are made clear. Summative and formative assessments will serve to support learning and teaching processes.

        Students will be encouraged to apply learning through various service learning activities, and to bring learning from the field to the classroom. Service opportunities will include both on campus and in the nearby community options. Service activities might be documented via a learning portfolio to include both application and reflection artifacts.

       A critical component of our curriculum is an excellent and well-informed faculty. To achieve that goal we support training opportunities, collaboration, travel, research and scholarship of teaching as keys to faculty development.

       Finally, we favor a streamlined General Education--one that is seamless, easy to facilitate and highly accessible for students and faculty. In order to inform decision making, it will be important to connect with all constituencies of the campus—students, faculty and administration to provide ongoing feedback and suggestions.

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