UNT 2011 Core Update

History State Engl Math Inst Discovery Capstone Intentionality Communication Assessment Misc

UNT’s 2011 Core CurriculumWilliam Cherry

Discover the Power of the Core

Advisor Development Day: October 22, 2010


Brief History and Background

The State of Texas mandates public institutions of highereducation to have a core curriculum, which must include:

state-mandated component areas (36 hours):

English (6 hours)US History (6 hours)Math (3 hours)Social/Behavioral science(3 hours)

Science (6 hours)Government (6 hours)Humanities (3 hours)Visual/Performing Arts(3 hours)

institutional option (6 hours)

A few years ago UNT was required to reduce its corecurriculum from 47 hours to 42 hours.

To do this, UNT reduced the number of hours in naturalscience courses for non-science majors and began re-thinkingits institutional option.


In UNT’s prior core, our institutional option consisted ofthree component areas:

communication diversity wellness.

The current core curriculum requirements were alwaysintended to be transitional – a way to buy us some time tocarefully consider what we wanted the institutional option ofour core curriculum to be. Courses in the prior areas werelumped together into “Understanding the HumanCommunity.”

In the Fall 2011 Core our institutional option will consist of:

Discovery (3 hours)Capstone (3 hours)

Notice that the new institutional option does not emphasize atype of knowledge for a student to acquire, but a type ofexperience for the student to have, experiences which could,in principle, be provided by courses in any discipline.


Don’t panic!

As the new core comes into effect next fall, an important messagewe as advisors need to get out to students is that most continuingstudents will be able to choose between working with the old corerequirements or moving forward to the new catalog to elect thenew core requirements.

Core curriculum requirements go with the catalog year thestudent’s degree plan is linked to. Students who do not moveforward to the new catalog will continue to work under the old(current) core curriculum requirements.

New in-state transfer students who indicate they planned theircommunity college courses according to a catalog in forcewhen they were in community college (as long as it wasn’t toofar back) MAY elect to continue working in the older catalog.

New freshmen and new out-of-state transfers (I think) will berequired to work from the new Fall 2011 requirements.


State mandated component areas

There will be no changes in the general intent of the statemandated portion of the core curriculum (English, Math,Science, US History, etc.).

HOWEVER, the change in the core was used as anopportunity to re-examine all the courses in each componentarea. Thus, although many of the courses we are familiar withmeeting a core requirement still do, there have been somechanges, and some courses have moved component areas. Forexample,

PHIL 2600 (Ethics in Science) is moving from Social andBehavioral Science to Humanities.HLTH 2200 (Family Life and Human Sexuality) moved fromthe soon-to-be-defunct Understanding the Human Communityto Social and Behavioral Sciences.


Where can I find out which courses meet whichrequirement?

The Registrar’s Office has created an “unofficial” website listingthe courses in each component area:

http: // essc. unt. edu/ registrar/ dars/ 2011CoreInProg. htm

Sometime over the next few weeks as the 2011 Catalog goes toprint this will become an official website that may be easier to find.

http://essc.unt.edu/registrar/dars/2011CoreInProg.htm


English

TECM 1700, Introduction to Professional, Science and TechnicalWriting, is a new alternative to ENGL 1310, College Writing I.


Mathematics

Math 1100 is changing its name from “College Algebra” tojust “Algebra” and will no longer count toward UNT’s corerequirement in mathematics. (DON’T PANIC)

If a student completes Math 1100 prior to Fall 2011, Math 1100 WILL still satisfy the math core

requirement, even if the student moves forward to a new catalog.

If an in-state transfer student takes college algebra at an institution that considers college algebra

to meet its mathematics core requirement, that course will automatically transfer meeting UNT’s

math core requirement.

For out-of-state transfer students, a reasonable policy would be that if college algebra completes

the math requirement at the institution the student is transferring from, it should also meet UNT’s

math requirement.

Basic Principle: Students who in good faith believe they have already completed their math

requirement prior to transfer should not have to take another math class just to satisfy university

core. [They may need another math class to satisfy a college-level or department-level degree

requirement.]


“College” Algebra (continued)

Math 1100 does not really provide students any knowledge orskills that they should not have already acquired in highschool.

Math 1100 was viewed as a significant obstacle by manystudents.

Math 1100 was never intended or designed as a terminalcourse. It was designed to prepare students for Pre-calculusand calculus.

We have other courses (Math 1580 and Math 1680) thatprovide non-technical students with a more meaningfulmathematics experience that gives them “added value”beyond what they were supposed to learn in high school andshould generally be less of an obstacle to student persistenceand graduation.


Good Math Advising is Now Trickier and More Important

Starting next fall, students should only be advised to enroll inMath 1100 if they are contemplating majors in math, science,engineering, or some programs in the College of Education.

The fact that Math 1100 is not in the core opens anopportunity to have a discussion with a student aboutwhether math, science, or engineering is really the right majorfor him or her.

Beginning in Fall 2011, we will bring back MATH 1180,College Math for Business, Economics, and Related Fields.Business and BA Economics students who would now takeMath 1100 should take Math 1180 instead. Math 1180 doessatisfy core.


Conceptual Framework for Institutional Option

DOORWAYS:

DISCOVERY is a doorway into academic life at UNT.

CAPSTONE experiences are intended to serve as a doorwayleading from UNT to a student’s life after graduation.


DISCOVERY

Discovery courses should:

be taken early in a student’s time at UNT,

help students acclimate themselves to an academicenvironment,

introduce students to UNT values, resources, andopportunities,

help students feel they are part of a community.

Types of Discovery courses

Some courses that were formerly part of “Understanding theHuman Community” have been reconfigured into Discoverycourses.

First year seminars

Introductory courses in various majors


DISCOVERY (continued)

Some Discovery courses are upper-level and intended primarilyfor new transfer students. For example

MGMT 3330, Communicating in BusinessCJUS 3700, Ethical Issues in Criminal Justice

Discovery courses will be judged, in part, based on how theyaffect things like freshmen-to-sophomore persistence.

Discovery courses are singled out to be held responsible forhelping new students feel as if they belong somewhere atUNT. (This is more important as UNT grows to be huge.)

They give UNT a mechanism to implement things such as“learning communities.”


CAPSTONE

Capstone courses are intended to:

be taken when students are juniors are seniors, havecompleted all other areas of the core, and are a good waythrough their majors; Many students will take capstoneexperiences their final semester at UNT.

help students synthesize the knowledge and learning they haveexperienced while at UNT;

prepare students to apply the various kinds of knowledge theyhave learned in a closer-to-real-world setting.


CAPSTONE (continued)

Types of Capstone experiences

Major Specific Capstones, such as:

Student teachingStudio Art

Senior RecitalHonors Thesis

General Interest Capstones such as:

MATH 3870, Inventing StatisticsPHIL 3700, Science, Technology, and SocietyPHIL 3900, Philosophy of Food


A side-benefit of Capstone & Discovery

Most majors which require a large amount of hours will havediscovery and capstone options which also count toward themajor. This will make it easier for some students to graduateon time.


Intentionality

How is the Core often viewed?

A series of hurdles to get through before a student is allowedto take courses they are interested in.

A series of boxes to check.

A series of courses somewhat haphazardly chosen from abroad menu of options.

How would we rather the Core function?

As a scaffolding which provides intellectual support enablingstudents to get the most out of the courses in their majorprogram.

Courses intentionally chosen to provide maximum support to astudent’s program and interests.


How can we help advisors help advance studentintentionality?

Look for programs to provide advisor “guidance” sheets indicatingcore courses that are particularly well-suited as support toparticular programs.

Does the major REQUIRE specific capstones?

Is there a course that is a major requirement and also meetsthe discovery core requirement?

If a particular discovery or capstone course is not required bythe major, are there some that the program prefers orrecommends?

Are there courses within the state-mandated component areasthat might be better choices than some other courses forcertain majors? For instance, for math majors, absent aparticular preference by the student, I like to recommendEconomics for social and behavioral science and philosphy forhumanities.


Improving Communication with Students about the Intentand Benefits of the Core

We would like to better communicate with students aboutwhy they are required to complete a core curriculum and whywe believe the core curriculum is a benefit to them.

We will better publicize the learning objectives associated witheach core component area.

We may use Discovery courses as an opportunity to bring inalumni to talk with students about the UNT community andabout how knowledge and skills they acquired in the corecurriculum has been useful to them in their post-UNT lives.


An opportunity for improved assessment of the core

Most students enrolled in capstone courses will havecompleted all the other core component areas.

As part of the process of being accepted as a capstone course,the course must agree to devote an hour of class time to auniversity-wide effort at assessing the core curriculum as acoherent whole.

This will give us an opportunity to do more sophisticatedassessments as to whether the core is working as intended andgive us a sense of whether some courses are doing better orworse jobs at meeting the goals of the core.


Courses in multiple component areas

In the Fall 2011 core, courses may apply to be part of multiplecomponent areas of the core.

examples

ART 1300, Art Appreciation, is both a Discovery andVisual/Performing Arts course.

AGER 2250, Images of Aging Through Film and Literature, isboth a Discovery and Social/Behavioral Science course.

When a course is in multiple areas of the core, a student may onlyuse the course to satisfy one area of the core, but he or she maychoose which one. Thus, some students may use ART 1300 tosatisfy their discovery requirement, whereas other students will useART 1300 to satisfy their visual and performing arts requirement.

UNT 2011 Core Update

Education

new core requirements

unts core requirement

core curriculum english

mathematics core requirement

old core requirements

new catalog

hours science

unts prior core