APPROVED MINUTES OF THE COMPETENCY-BASED GENERAL EDUCATION
COMMITTEE
April 11, 2000
Present: Greg Aldrete, Lucy Arendt, Greg Davis, Dick Logan, Illene Noppe, Brian Sutton,
Sherri Urcavich.
Minutes The minutes of the meeting of April 4, 2000 were approved as submitted.
Gen Ed Survey Lucy Arendt distributed copies of the General Education Learning
Outcomes Survey to the members of the committee for discussion.
Discussion Points
1. The committee discussed possible ways to facilitate interaction among the various
Learning Experience committees. A number of different methods were debated. Among
them were:
-Members of each committee could occasionally attend meetings of the other
committees.
-Committee chairs could give reports to the other committees.
-There could be one large meeting of all committees combined.
Whatever method or combination of methods is employed, there was consensus that there
should be communication among committees throughout the process and that it would be
useful for each committee to consider what their relationship to the whole is.
2. Since the General Education competencies may well play an important role in the
plans of the other committees, it was felt that we should try to work quickly to formulate
them so as to be able to present the other committees with a written document of our
conception of the competencies.
In this document, we should try to answer the questions "What should every graduate
know and be able to do?," "How should these competencies be assessed?," "What level of
mastery of the competencies is acceptable?," "What should the penalties be for failure to
obtain this mastery?," and "How should evaluation of the competencies overlap with grading
in the courses?"
3. Different methods for assessing competencies were debated. Some suggestions,
either alone or in combination, included a checklist of courses which have been identified as
fulfilling various competencies, a senior project (either within or outside a major),
comprehensive exams, and portfolios.
4. Some possibilities for additional competencies that emerged from discussion
were: to know how to continue learning, to know how to be an effective researcher and to be
able to evaluate sources of information critically, to have the ability to find information, and
to understand how to use and evaluate statistics.
5. Ideally, each course would explicitly teach certain clearly identified competencies,
as would each major.
6. A final focal point of discussion centered around the various General Education
Learning Outcomes listed on the survey form. It was decided that the committee should go
through the list one by one. One obvious problem was that many of the outcomes had
multiple parts and would need to be separated out and that benchmarks for assessing
performance for each need to be established.
It was noted that it might be useful to collect syllabi from General Education courses
in order to see how instructors are attempting to teach the various competencies.
Plan for Next Meeting:
The next meeting will be held on Tuesday, April†18, 2000, from 9:45 - 10:45 a.m. in
the ES 301 Conference Room. At this meeting the committee plans to discuss in detail the
list of learning outcomes. In preparation for this meeting, the various learning outcomes
were divided up among the committee members. Each member should brainstorm before the
next meeting about his or her outcomes, how to clarify them, how they might be assessed,
and how students might demonstrate their mastery of them. In this process, it might well be
useful to do research on how other institutions have dealt with these issues.
At the meeting of April 18, each member will report on his or her thoughts and
findings.
Respectfully submitted
Gregory S. Aldrete
Department of Humanistic Studies
Univ. of Wisconsin-Green Bay
2420 Nicolet Dr., Theatre Hall 331
Green Bay, WI 54311
(920) 465-2467 phone
(920) 465-2890 fax
aldreteg@uwgb.edu