General Education Essentials: A Guide for College Faculty

Foreword xi

About the Author xv

Acknowledgments xvii

Introduction 1

PART ONE: THE BIG PICTURE 9

1 Structuring General Education 11

2 Some Examples of Integrative Curricular Models 25

PART TWO: GENERAL EDUCATION AT THE COURSE LEVEL 43

3 Designing Effective General Education Courses 45

4 How the Purposes of General Education Can Reshape a Course: Case Studies 54

PART THREE: GENERAL EDUCATION AT THE ASSIGNMENT AND ASSESSMENT LEVEL 73

5 Designing Appropriate Assignments for General Education 75

6 The Chapter You May Want to Skip: Institutional Assessment and General Education 94

Conclusion 107

Appendix A: Syllabus for Artistic and Literary Responses to Science and Technology 109

Appendix B: Syllabus for The Way Things Work: Sky Diving and Deep Sea Diving 117

Appendix C: Syllabus for Traveling Without Leaving: Global Sociology 125

Appendix D: Syllabus for Elite Deviance: Crime in the Suites 137

Appendix E: Syllabus for Does Gun Control Save Lives? 145

Appendix F: Syllabus for Statistics and Botany 151

References 157

Index 161