Principles for General Education Revision

 

Educational Principles

 

Principle 1:   Create a learning environment in which students discover their interests, talents, and sense of vocation that will enable them to navigate their present and future lives.

 

A.         Include courses specifically calling for student reflection on vocation.

B.         Allow students to explore possible majors, either through the inclusion of major courses in the general education program or by creating room for students to take elective courses, especially within the first several semesters.

C.         Create room for students to take electives by requiring approximately 2-4 fewer courses than the present program.

D.         Design a curriculum that fits developmentally with students by:

            1.         Respecting their intellectual development.

            2.         Respecting their emotional and social development.

3.         Meeting the needs of the day, weekend, and transfer populations.

E.         Pay deliberate attention to transformative education by emphasizing the connection between study and experience.

F*.        Address “the whole student” by:

            1.         Retaining the purposes of AugSem

2.         Including courses or experiences in which students explore the relationship between body and mind, e.g. lifetime sports, health education, etc.

*          See Addendum

 

Principle 2: Build a learning community with students,   faculty, and staff.

                     

A.         Include some common educational experiences for all students

 

B.         Encourage teaching and learning practices that connect students to each other (e.g. collaborative learning,)

C.         Build student/faculty relationships by minimizing the use of adjunct faculty in first-year courses.

D.         Build a teaching community.

1.         Provide a structure for connecting general education faculty to each other.

2.         Encourage collaboration in designing, teaching, and revising courses.

 

 

Principle 3 Create opportunities for students to become leaders

and servants in society by exploring multiple ways of knowing the world through the liberal arts tradition and discovering connections among diverse ways to truth and meaning.

 

A.         Include courses that span the full range of the liberal arts tradition.

B.         Provide an opportunity for students to integrate general education with their major.

C.         Incorporate Augsburg’s commitment to both the contemplative and active (liberal and practical) tradition of the liberal arts.

 

 

 

Principle 4:   Create a learning environment in which students explore the traditions of western society and the Christian faith and help students develop their individual intellectual, ethical, and spiritual commitments.

 

A.         In keeping with the identity and mission of Augsburg College, include courses in Christian faith traditions.

B.         Address spiritual, religious, and ethical questions not only in religion courses, but throughout the general education curriculum so that students see how these issues may affect all aspects of human activity.

 

 

Principle 5:   Provide opportunities for students to become leaders and citizens in the city and in a complex, interconnected, and diverse global community.

 

A.         Include courses and/or experiences in which students experience the city and reflect on urban issues and opportunities as they explore the practice of civic engagement.

 

B.         Include courses and/or experiences in which students reflect on the nature of human differences: cultural, religious, sexual (gender and orientation), racial, etc.

                       

C.         Include courses and/or experiences in which students explore the theme of global citizenship.

 

 

Principle 6:   Establish and maintain a learning community in which students develop the intellectual skills and habits of thinking and learning that will help them adapt to and flourish in a changing workplace.

 

A.         Incorporate the best practices of teaching and learning into the curriculum to encourage students’ commitment to lifelong learning.

 

1.         Attend to best practices of learning (e.g., experiential education)

2.         Include a strong faculty development component within the general education curriculum.

3.         Encourage good teaching by building a program on faculty’s expertise and passions.

 

B.         Include courses that help students develop essential skills that will help them succeed both in college and beyond.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Addendum

 

During the open hearings we heard the following suggestions for revision of the principles:

 

1.         Add Principle 7:

Develop opportunities to address the holistic concerns of students as embodied persons, to foster physical as well as mental health and growth. (Would replaces 1 F.B)

A.        Include courses in health and physical education that provide a basis

for understanding and constructing lifetime habits related to health and

wellness.

 

2. Include definitions of vocation and transformation.

 

Discussions of vocation (pp8-9) and transformative education (pp.13- 22) occur in Augsburg 2004. Briefly, however:

 

Vocation: "One does not seek education for either self-advancement or as

a way to reach salvation. Its proper role is in helping persons determine

and develop their abilities in preparation for investigating and

celebrating God's creation, for probing the mysteries of the human

condition, and ultimately for furthering the well-being of society" (9).

 

Transformation is characterized by four themes:

1) An understanding of the liberal arts that transforms theory into action and unites the liberal with the practical: expressed, perhaps by the seven principles on pp. 16-17.

2) "a classroom in the city and the world" - emphasizing leadership as well as service

3) emphasis on a community of learners, relational modes of teaching, pedagogical models that emphasize collegial relationships and collaboration between professor and student, awareness of "the whole student" and recognition of the part that the entire college plays in educating students

4) community and diversity: engagement with heterogeneous community