Liberal Education and America's Promise
The Principles in Practice: Campus Examples
The LEAP Report, College Learning for the New Global
Century (pdf), highlights 16 schools or educational systems whose innovative educational practices and programs embody the report's recommendations and Principles of Excellence. Below are the Principles in Practice examples (edited for brevity) from the LEAP Report, as well as a more in-depth article about the campus from AAC&U News if applicable. But the schools in the report are not the only examples of "excellent" educational practices in higher education -- also included below are more examples of the principles in practice on campuses featured in AAC&U News.
Aim High -- and Make Excellence Inclusive
From the LEAP Report
The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) has identified a set of competencies that all students should achieve from their college studies. The competencies are similar to the “intellectual and practical skills” that the LEAP National Leadership Council defines as “essential"...
Faculty at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) have agreed to six Principles of Undergraduate Learning that define important learning outcomes for each IUPUI student. These include communication and quantitative skills; critical thinking; intellectual depth, breadth, and adaptiveness; integration and application of knowledge; understanding society and culture; and values and ethics...
Also read "IUPUI Uses Electronic Portfolios to Assess Diversity Learning Gains" in AAC&U News to learn about another way IUPUI is aiming high.
In 2006, Miami Dade College organized student focus groups to better understand college learning goals from students’ perspectives. The questions posed in these groups, adapted from a focus group discussion guide used in AAC&U’s student research for LEAP, asked students their reasons for attending college, what college outcomes would lead to a successful life, and how their education helps them achieve these outcomes. The responses of the focus group students indicate that liberal education is valued and that students view college as more than accrued vocational benefits...
Also read "Miami Dade College Puts Learning First on the Agenda" to learn about another innovation from Miami Dade.
More Examples from AAC&U News
"Wheaton
College Builds 'Inclusive Excellence' through Curricular
Infusion"
"New
Programs at University of Virginia Target Underserved Populations"
Give Students a Compass
From the LEAP Report
The California State University system has begun educating high school students about the essential skills they are expected to bring to college. For the last six years, it has produced a “How to Get to College” poster and distributed it to middle and high schools in California...With sections such as “What Classes
Should I Take in High School?” and “Why Are These Classes Important?”
the poster clarifies important skills and their significance in college...
The curriculum at Bard College is designed to encourage students to play an active and intentional role in shaping their education. Rather than selecting from traditional departmental majors, students at Bard major in programs that cross disciplinary boundaries. This program-based approach is combined with core curricular experiences that develop broad capacities and allow for milestone assessments of learning...
Also read "A Distinctive Curriculum Fosters Intentional and Integrative Learning at Bard College" in AAC&U News.
More Examples from AAC&U News
"At Grinnell, a Student Retreat Focuses Attention on the Value of the Liberal Arts"
"Innovations
at LaGuardia Community College Help Students Integrate Their
Learning"
" A First-Year Program Fosters Academic Engagement and Intentionality
at Washington and Jefferson"
Teach the Arts of Inquiry and Innovation
From the LEAP Report
The University of Rochester is striving to make entrepreneurship—and the skills that accompany it such as problem solving, continuous learning, and innovation—a basic component of undergraduate education by infusing it into all academic disciplines. The University of Rochester has created the Center for Entrepreneurship (CFE), which brings together faculty, students, and community members from a variety of academic disciplines to encourage and enhance the culture of entrepreneurship at the university and within the Rochester community...
More Examples from AAC&U News
"At
the University of Washington, 'Discovery Seminars' Open
Doors to College-Level Inquiry"
"JMU
Advances Integrative and Engaged Learning through Summer
Research Programs in the Sciences"
Engage the Big Questions
From the LEAP Report
In addition to core general education requirements, San Jose State University
(SJSU) has implemented SJSU Studies, which are intended to foster students’ advanced, integrative learning as citizens and thoughtful people. Each SJSU undergraduate must take one upper-level class in each of four topic areas—Earth and Environment; Self, Society, and Equality in the United
States; Culture, Civilization, and Global Understanding; and Written Communication. These courses connect the curriculum to larger, complex issues in society as a way of preparing students to become better global citizens and educated adults...
Richland College's several academic enrichment programs reinforce the
college’s emphasis on educating students to build sustainable communities,
both at home and abroad. The Global Studies program, for example, challenges
students to search for solutions to issues such as “peace, ecological balance, social and economic justice, intercultural understanding, democratic participation, and the impact of technology.” By design, Global Studies intersects
with other academic enrichment programs, including Richland’s campuswide service-learning program, learning communities,...peace studies, and several ethnic studies programs.
More Examples from AAC&U News
"Sustainability
Initiative Transforms Emory's Curriculum, One Course at
a Time"
"Drury
University's Core Curriculum Gives Every Student a Global
Perspective"
Connect Knowledge with Choices and Action
From the LEAP Report
The “practical liberal arts” are deeply embedded in Wagner College’s prizewinning college curriculum. The Wagner Plan requires students to complete issue-centered integrative learning communities (LCs) during the first year, the intermediate years, and the senior year. The LCs are organized around a big theme or problem and include experiential as well as academic learning. In the first year, students take two courses from different disciplines related to the overarching theme and complete an experiential field placement related to
the LC theme in the New York metropolitan area...
Also read "Community Service Deepens Student Learning and Civic Engagement at Wagner College" in AAC&U News.
Long a pioneer in education for women, Smith College has recently become
a pioneer once again in integrating engineering education within a liberal arts education. Smith College’s Picker Engineering Program encourages students to set their engineering studies in a larger social and global context. It also teaches the social, ethical, and professional responsibilities essential to successful practice in the field...
Also read "Engineering a Liberal Education" in AAC&U News.
More Examples from AAC&U News
"Outcomes-Based
Curriculum Fosters Civic Engagement and Social Awareness
at Monterey Bay"
"At College of San Mateo, Learning Community Gives Students
'Tools for Thought'"
Foster Civic, Intercultural, and Ethical Learning
From the LEAP Report
Portland State University faculty adopted University Studies, a four-year general education program for all students. The program is organized around four broad goals: inquiry and critical thinking, communication, the diversity of human experience, and ethics and social responsibility. The culminating senior experience is a community-based learning course designed to provide interdisciplinary teams of students with the opportunity to apply what they have
learned in their major and in their other University Studies courses to a real
challenge emanating from the metropolitan community...
Also read "At Portland State University, Assessments Target Critical Thinking" in AAC&U News.
Bowling Green State University places strong emphasis on educating graduates who demonstrate ethical integrity, reflective thinking, and social responsibility. To introduce these goals, the university has developed the BGeXperience, a program designed to ease the transition from high school to college while, at the same time, engaging first year students with the core values that inform the university’s vision statement. BGeX begins with a three-day orientation and continues into the first semester with a “values” course—a class that provides conventional instruction in a discipline and also encourages students to reflect upon values questions in that field...
Also read "Bowling Green Brings 'Values' Focus to the First Year of College" in AAC&U News.
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Tulane University has taken service learning and civic engagement to another level. Tulane requires all students to make public service an integral part of their college studies, both in the core curriculum and in their advanced studies. To meet the public service graduation requirement, students must take one service-learning class during their first two years. During this time, students also create and maintain an e-portfolio that charts their progress and reflects on their service learning. In their later college years, students choose a second public service experience.
More Examples from AAC&U News
"Tufts
University Lays Foundation for Lifelong Civic Engagement"
"Goucher
College Internationalizes the Undergraduate Experience"
Assess Students' Ability to Apply Learning to Complex Problems
From the LEAP Report
Pace University has made a comprehensive commitment to assessment as a way of strengthening both teaching and learning. Pace works to provide evidence of students’ actual learning over time as a counter to rankings that look mainly at
reputation and resources. One strand in its approach is a strong emphasis on
senior capstone courses and projects designed to integrate and evaluate students’ learning in the major...
Every student at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville completes a senior
assignment in the major. The projects vary across different academic fields, but each is designed to ensure that all students have mastered the skills required for their discipline as well as key liberal education outcomes—such as critical thinking, effective writing, and problem solving—that all graduates should possess...
Also read "Evaluating Students' Best Work: SIUE Embeds Assessment in Capstone Learning Projects" in AAC&U News.
Carleton College uses writing portfolios to ensure that undergraduates can write
competently in a range of styles and contexts. By encouraging students to reflect on—and revise—their writing, the portfolios themselves constitute an important educational experience. To meet the portfolio requirement, students at the end of their sophomore year must submit three to five papers demonstrating their ability to write effectively in different rhetorical and disciplinary contexts; each portfolio must represent at least two of the college’s four curricular divisions...and must include at least one paper from the “writing requirement” course...
Also read "Portfolios Transform Writing Assessment at Carleton College" in AAC&U News.
More Examples from AAC&U News
"King's
College Takes a Multitiered Approach to Information Literacy
Assessment"
"Wellesley
College Advances Quantitative Reasoning through Curricular
Innovations and Assessment"
|
