Core curriculum or core learning outcomes

As we go through some very extensive discussions on campus, they are prompting me to wonder aloud (right here!) about the Writing Across the Curriculum model, where instead of having, say, two required writing courses, core learning outcomes are attained by infusing writing in a vigorous way throughout the curriculum. The implication is to get away from the idea that the only way to have a core is to have a curriculum with 100% compliance- all students must check all the boxes- and instead have a core that does not pretend to promise to deliver "the 18 things you will (must) master" but rather hybridizes somewhat by delivering university resources to ensuring outcomes rather than ensuring checked boxes. This involves asking a realistic and honest question: What would make us comfortable as a faculty? Having a system of 100% "exposure" (we have evidence that every student has checked every box by obtaining a passing grade- a D!- in the core requirements) versus having a system of 93% success (we have evidence that for some core learning outcomes 100% of students passed the course, while for other core learning outcomes we have evidence through assessment that 93% of students attain satisfactory mastery of core learning objectives, while 5% attain less than satisfactory though still improved mastery, and 2% regress ;-)? In a sense most universities do this, of course, by requiring not just passing grades in each course but also an overall GPA above some level. So the idea has always been that you can compensate on your less than adequate core learning in some courses by better than adequate learning elsewhere (in majors, electives, or other core courses). One key core learning outcome of many core curricula across the country's universities is that students learn to "tolerate ambiguity." Mightn't a core curriculum do the same?

PS: University of South Indiana has a nice page full of links to assessment issues and practices.

Terrific set of links

A great website created some time ago with links to lots of useful documents on reforming general education requirements was created by Wichita State University, and is available here.

Two links of interest to Santa Clara University faculty

Eric Hanson has a nice reflection on his experience as director of the Core, and academic issues thereof, at:
http://www.sju.edu/academics/cr/docs/Hanson.pdf

Also extremely useful I think to peruse is the self-study done in 1999 by the university- the best statement of current core learning outcomes I have seen.
http://www.scu.edu/strategicplan/selfstudy/

Oddly, I may be blogging more while I am here in Rumbek, South Sudan, for a week-long course. Sponsored by the Rift Valley Institute, the students are 30 diplomats and aid officials, while the teachers are people like me, who have been writing about Sudan for several decades now. The course starts tomorrow. Rumbek is now very well-developed, with a large tent camp and, guess what, an internet center....