Characteristics of all General Education Courses

1. General Education courses offer introductions to the central topics of disciplines and interdisciplinary fields.
2. General Education courses offer explicit rather than tacit understandings of the procedures, practices, methodology and fundamental assumptions of disciplines and interdisciplinary fields.
3. General Education courses recognize multiple perspectives on the subject matter.
4. General Education courses emphasize active learning in an engaged environment that enables students to be producers as well as consumers of knowledge.
5. General Education courses promote critical inquiry into the assumptions, goals, and methods of various fields of academic study; they aim to develop the interpretive, analytic, and evaluative competencies characteristic of critical thinking.

Learning Objectives for Oral Discourse Courses

1. communicate ideas (creative, expressive, intuitive, intellectual) according to a specific set of criteria;
2. establish and maintain an appropriate performer/audience relationship in a given oral exercise, and actively engage with listeners/audience;
3. respond to and, where appropriate, incorporate listener's comments and questions;
4. critique, orally or in writing, an oral performance.

Learning Objectives for Writing Intensive Courses

1. produce coherent texts within common college-level written forms;
2. demonstrate the ability to revise and improve such texts;
3. research a topic, develop an argument, and organize supporting details.

Last Modified 27 September 2007

Economics Department | University at Albany