What Does It Mean to Be An Educated Person? February 18, 2005 Gail G. Evans Associate Dean Undergraduate Studies Director of General Education Annette.

What Does It Mean to Be An Educated Person?

February 18, 2005

Gail G. EvansAssociate Dean Undergraduate Studies

Director of General Education

Annette Nellen Chair, SJSU Academic Senate

Professor of Tax and Accounting

Emily H. Wughalter Director of MUSE ProgramProfessor of Kinesiology

San José State UniversitySan José, California

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Events Leading Our Campus to the Discussion of the Educated Person• 1998 revision of general education guidelines• Addition of embedded assessment into general

education guidelines• Addition of learning objectives into general education

guidelines• Increased interest and development of interdisciplinary

programs• Greater Expectations report (AAC&U)• New Provost interested in quality education/quality

programs• 2002 introduction of MUSE program into the curriculum

(SJSU first year experience)

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Metropolitan University Scholar’s Experience (MUSE)

• Spring 2001: a new Provost initiated a first year seminar program to improve the quality of our offerings for first year students and the quality of students entering the first year at SJSU

• Planning took approximately 1.5 years

• Program implemented in Fall 2002

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MUSE Seminars

• Designed specifically for first semester, first year students

• Open to all students admitted to the first year regardless of skill set

• Small seminars (n=17 maximum)• Specially designed MUSE seminar rooms • Enthusiastic and passionate professors teaching

interesting and hot topics• MUSE is not mandatory; it can be selected to satisfy

one of six areas of the required core general education package

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Class – Active Learning

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The MUSE goals are for students:

• To develop the foundations necessary to become university scholars; and

• To understand what it means to be a member of a metropolitan university community

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Fall 2002 Cohort of First Year StudentsPercentages of students within groups

retained after one year

MUSE No MUSE

No remedial 77% 79%

Both English and math remedial

75% 72%

English remedial 80% 79%

Math remedial 85% 75%

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Fall 2003 Cohort of First Year StudentsPercentages of Students Retained After One

Semester

N Enrolled

Fall 2003

N Enrolled

Spring 2004

% Remaining

MUSE 886 839 94.7%

No MUSE

1178 1073 91.1%

Total 2064 1929 93.46%

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Process for Answering “What Is An Educated Person?”

• Dialogue began in May 2003 with listserv and face-to-face discussion groups.

• Some of the questions we have posed:– What do we expect an educated person to be able to

do?– Is helping students to become educated persons an

appropriate goal for all majors at SJSU?– Broadly speaking, what is needed to help someone

become an educated person? What was the “most educational” course or experience you had that might be reproduced by others?

– Are we trying to help our students become educated citizens or persons?

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• What is the role of departments and colleges in helping their majors become educated persons?

• How do students know if they are educated persons?

• Should MUSE be the initial GE course with a capstone GE course to “pull it all together?”

• What are three key activities SJSU should undertake or improve upon to help us do a better job of helping our students become educated persons and to help them understand that that is a reason for pursuing a university education?

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• A review of our GE program began in S’04– 3 campus forums facilitated by the faculty-in-

residence for GE– 3 on-line surveys:

• Faculty who have taught GE over past 2 years• Department Chairs and School Directors• Deans

– MUSE will begin its 4th class of students in F’05– How do our GE and MUSE programs fit with our

campus definition of an educated person?– Information literacy conference– How will SJSU use this information in strategic

planning for the University?

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Plan for Today’s Session

• Brief discussion of our experiences at SJSU over the past 2 years

• Small-group discussions by participants to answer the same questions for their universities (organized by “like” institutions)

• Draw general concluding comments as to what constitutes an educated person.

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Educated Person Dialogue

• First – what is an “educated citizen/person?”– 17 factor list created– Term is too limiting – connotes completeness

rather than a process that never ends

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Educated Person Dialogue - 2

• Next – What should an Educated Person/Citizen be able to do?– 16 factor list

• Overlap with first list of 17 items

– Ties well to CA Education Code– Ties to a “university scholar” rubric used for

MUSE courses

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Problems ~ Challenges

• How to explain “educated person” to students?

• Do they need an understanding?– Pros and cons of trying to explain– How to explain

• How to be sure we are truly helping students to become educated persons?

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Critique of factors by students

• Intro to Liberal Studies course:– What is “real wisdom”?– Why are factors so fixated on political and economic

understanding? Why not religious or moral understandings?– To be educated, does one need to have certain personality

traits, such as leadership qualities?– What is analytical thinking versus critical thinking?– Is it always important to think creatively?– Why are students to search for meaning and purpose in their

own lives and what does that have to do with being educated?– What is a good citizen? Must (s)he be educated?– What about motivation?– How are educated persons changed?

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What we did next …

• Continued to discuss in person and via email• Heard from students – peer mentors in the frosh seminar

program + others• Discussed AAC&U Greater Expectations report• Compared our GE and MUSE objectives to how some

other colleges/universities described “educated person”• Discussed whether there was also core knowledge an

educated person needed• Discussed “person” versus “citizen”• Came up with ideas for how to help students to

understand their purpose at the university + possible changes to our GE program

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Some Dialogue Ideas• Faculty need to be better trained to help promote effective

discussion in the classroom– Workshop held in Fall 2004

• Faculty training on course design is needed• Each syllabus should include a chart/template of SJSU learning

objectives and how that course addresses particular ones• Frosh reading program• Socrates Café• More emphasis on values needed

– Senate committee working on “Spartan Standard”– SJSU working on institutional values– Learning objectives likely to be added to GE– Values week should be held once per semester (Academic Integrity

week held in 9/04)

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More Dialogue Ideas

• Create discussion scenarios for first year classes to help students better understand what should happen in a college classroom, their role in the learning process, benefits of informed discussion, need for being info competent and critical thinkers

• Have MUSE be required and have an upper division GE course be a capstone

• Require electronic portfolios to help students see how all of their studies and co-curricular activities and reflections fit together to help make them educated persons

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A Few More Dialogue Ideas

• Greater emphasis on active learning• Requirement that at least one GE course involve service

learning, or research with professor, or study abroad type experience

• Create a “theme” for the curriculum that helps students to see and build the interconnectedness of the learning in GE and the major– Ex: “SJSU helps students to become ethical, global, creative

problem solvers”

• Change name from “GE” to something that is a better descriptor and w/o the negative connotation that GE can have (e.g. SJSU Studies)

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And a few more …

• Need to spread discussion of Greater Expectations report across campus. How?

• Need to change culture of teaching to one of learning.– Look at hiring practices/announcements?– Should RTP process include professor statement on

philosophy of what they do to enhance student learning/students becoming educated persons?

– Look at wording of policies and campus literature.

• How can we help students before they come to SJSU?

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What do other universities do?

• Interesting examples:– Alverno College– IUPUI– Southwest Missouri State University– Southeast Missouri State University

• See chart in handout that compares SJSU GE and MUSE objectives to learning objectives of above three universities.

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Questions to consider• What should an educated person be able to do?• Is helping students to become educated persons an

appropriate goal for all majors?• What term should be used – educated citizens or educated

persons? Why?• How do students know they have become educated

persons? What role should the university play in helping them understand what it means to be educated?

• What are the primary activities of your institution that helps your students graduate as educated persons?

• To be educated does one need to have certain personality traits, such as leadership qualities?

• What if a student doesn’t seem to have an interest or inclination in being a lifelong learner – they just want the diploma so they can get a good job?

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The ideas presented in the following set of slides reflect the thinking of the participants

who engaged actively in the session in response to the questions on the previous

slide.

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Group Summary

• What does it mean to be an educated person?

• We need to reject the terminology of the “educated person” and shift the focus to “the goals of education”. Educated person puts too much emphasis on product.

• An educated person has the dispositions business leaders want in employees (e.g., creative thinkers, good hearts and minds, sensible ideas).

• An educated person means the individual has cultural literacy, writing skills, critical thinking, citizenship, service learning

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Group Summary

• Communicating to students why it is important for them to become educated persons is particularly important for first generation students

• Students are interested in getting the diploma; getting the job

• We need to model for our students what it means to be an educated person/citizen

• What does it mean to be a professional in our field? FYE seminars embody these principles.

• Does every campus need its own model of GE?

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Group Summary

• What activities are particularly good that are being used?– Writing enriched programs with oral presentations– Define six skill areas and each course must represent at least

three areas– Strength of connecting academic and student life services

• How to teach students how to create new knowledge?– In some cases knowledge is only created in the major not in GE– Junior/senior level capstone courses – “The Human Condition”

and “The Sustainable Planet”– Engage students in the research project with incentives for

faculty– Comprehensive exams and a senior project – These need good

assessment systems.

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Group Summary

• What does it mean to be an educated person?– Stakeholders – Survey alumni and dialog with employers– Motivation– Prior educational experience where students are expected to

solve problems– Lack of understanding that knowledge is portable– What about a concept being taught twice? Students think they

already had it or that it is cheating.– Strategies for active learning– Business model and career hook are too strong.– As an educated person how do you go home and talk to your

family. Parent and student concerns are important here.

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Group Summary

• Questions and problems– Student buy-in to becoming an educated person– Assessment – how is critical thinking assessed? Are

the FYE seminars working?– How, where, and when does liberal education

happen? Faculty autonomy versus guidelines– Are there disciplines that ignore liberal education

more than others? Faculty as well as students need to be convinced of the value of general education.

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Group Summary

• How does someone become an educated person?– When they look at problems and ideas they

think about them differently.– Is it different for different schools (CC,

Comprehensive, Research)?– We are truly educated when we become

lifelong learners.

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Group Summary

• What can an educated person know?– Need to balance what should an educated

person do and what should an educated person know

– If faculty are in their little boxes then how can students move beyond their boxes?

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Group Summary

• How are these ideas communicated in search processes - presidential, vice-presidential, faculty…?

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Next steps for SJSU

• Review and make enhancements to our GE program• Follow through on Educated Person projects/ideas• Strategic planning – how will it affect our programs for

effective student learning? Can we shift to culture of learning? Can we have a “theme” for our curriculum? Funds for electronic portfolios?

• Growing interest in interdisciplinary programs and courses– Can professors work to help ensure that each of their courses is

helping to create “intentional learners?” AND work together to take better ownership of the entire student learning experience? HOW?

• Convincing the campus that MUSE should be required and creating similar experience for transfer students.