Tips for General Education Courses:

Tips for Writing Rationales for General Education Courses

The General Education Rationale should appear on the syllabus of your course clearly marked. For example, just as you have the heading “Course Description” on the syllabus, you should have the heading “General Education Rationale: Knowledge of the Disciplines—Humanities,” or something similar.

The rationale should clearly state the category of the General Education program for which the course counts. It should also be written in such a way that it can be understood by a student (or other person) with no knowledge of your field.

We are trying to ensure that students understand the General Education program and its justification. The purpose of the rationale on a particular course syllabus is to explain to students why they are taking your course as part of their education at EMU. The rationale should establish, clearly, that the course meets the relevant general education category. Therefore, a sentence of the form, “PHYxxx meets the Natural Sciences requirement for Knowledge of the Disciplines because…” is very useful.

We all know that if something is too long (and this is probably reaching that limit), people won’t read it. Therefore, your rationale should be succinct.

Tips for Explaining How Your Course Meets the Outcomes

Explaining how your course meets the General Education outcomes is a lot like writing an answer to an essay question. You know how you get responses to essay questions that don’t hit all of the items in the question, or that answer a question other than the one asked? It is very easy to do either or both of these with regard to the outcomes.

The best way to form your explanations is to keep your eye on the outcome and incorporate the language of the outcome into your explanation. We are looking for the link between what you are saying and what is said in the outcome, and this is much easier if you make that link explicit. Also, use examples! We are trying to imagine your course. Examples are very useful to us in getting a conception of the course and how it will unfold in the classroom.

If the outcome asks you to “Explore the causes and consequences of social intolerance in the U.S.,” then your explanation of how your course meets this outcome should identify the type(s) of social intolerance your course addresses and provide an example of how the course explores a cause and how it explores a consequence of one of those types of social intolerance.

Tips for Explaining How Your Methods of Evaluation Address the Outcomes

In order to find out whether the courses taught in each area of the General Education curriculum are meeting the outcomes, you need to have a way of determining whether what you are doing in the course to meet the outcome is being learned by the students. For example, if you say, in response to the outcome for U.S. Diversity above, that your course examines the effect of racial intolerance in the U.S. on standard of living, you should have some assignment in the course that tests whether students have understood this examination. If it is an essay examination, you should give an example of a question that might be asked on the exam that addresses this outcome.

Tips for Syllabi

As I said above, the syllabus should include the rationale, well marked as a General Education rationale (as opposed to a rationale for the course in general). It should also clearly include, in the list of topics, the items mentioned in your explanation of how the course meets the outcomes. For example, if you say that you are examining how racial intolerance affects standard of living, it should be clear where that topic is addressed in the course. Then, in your description of the course requirements, activities and assignments, the methods of evaluation mentioned in (b) of the inclusion form should be apparent.

Thus, the way that we are considering the course proposals is as a series of links:

- (a) explanation of how the course meets the outcomes

- (b) explanation of how it is determined that (a) is reaching the students as you intend

- syllabus: includes rationale and incorporates both (a) and (b)