Week three found Jim Proctor, Greta Binford, John Holzworth, Jessie Starling, Robin Jarecki, Aaron Fellows and Jennifer Hubbert gathered again at Maggie’s contemplating a different location that provides a wider variety of beverages on Tuesday evenings.
Our conversation this evening revolved around issues of process and concerns that we aren’t reinventing the wheel each time we begin to rethink GE requirements. To help us think about the process, Jim posted “General Education Maps and Markers” (GEMS) on the web page under resources. This is a set of design principles for GE programs that will help us to think about what GE should do for the students.
We have realized early, thanks to the direction of our fearless Curriculum Committee leaders, that one of the most important parts of the process is to arrive at a set of goals for general education. But how does one do that? It’s not a straightforward or seamless process. We have some information at our disposable—surveys from our Groundhog Day excursions, the “leave it on the table” exercise, haikus that students and faculty created—and we brainstormed about how we might go out using these data as a hub for conversation. Are the data synthesizable? Are there patterns? Does it offer goals that are viable?
Another of our concerns is about how to make this process one of consolidation, autonomy and collaboration. That’s a tough combination. How do we open the process to and encourage collaboration while also attempting to narrow goals for GE into categories that can be instrumentalized? How do we encourage both student and faculty input? How do we achieve the goals once we figure out what they might be?
Some of this conversation was a real nuts and bolts conversation about Google groups, focus groups, or using class time to solicit information. We settled upon a first step. Next week we are going to sit around a big table with all the data thrown into the center of the table and see what we might do with it. Some of us need to see it related spatially. I myself prefer sticky notes. Aaron likes spread sheets. Jessie can’t stand them.