Resources

Association of American Colleges & Universities (AACU) articles

• General Education: A Self-Study Guide for Review and Assessment
• Colleges Must Revive General Education
• Design Principles for General Education
• The Dollars and Sense Behind General Education Reform
• Revising General Education — and Avoiding the Potholes
• Creating a 21st Century General Education (February 2019 Conference)
• What Should Be Included in a Guided Learning Pathway?

Inside Higher Education Articles

• Transforming General Education
• Colleges Share How They Made Their General Education Programs More Than A Laundry List of Requirements
• Higher Education Needs to Redesign Gen Ed for the Real World
• How Some Universities Made General Education More Than A “Laundry List”

Other Articles

• Boston University’s “Cross College Challenge”
• How Three Institutions Clustered Courses Around Interdisciplinary Themes

General Education Reform Charge Examples

• Wayne State University
• Southern Methodist University, Indiana University – Bloomington, University of Buffalo, University of Las Vegas, University of Wisconsin – Green Bay, University of Las Vegas, University of Missouri – Kansas City, Rhode Island College

UNC Charlotte Undergraduate Catalog

• General Education Program and Advising Worksheet (updated Spring 2018)
• General Education Program (2020-2021 Undergraduate Catalog)
• General Education Program (University College website)

General Education Revision

Research-Based Teaching Practices
Any general education revision must consider not only student learning outcomes and course content, but also effective, research-based teaching practices. One option for revising UNC Charlotte’s general education curriculum with this goal in mind is to identify effective teaching practices currently in place across the disciplines here. Another option is to identify resources that describe current research-based teaching practices, which might be implemented by faculty in general education. To teach most effectively, faculty across the disciplines need to understand how learning works.

Resources

• Adler-Kassner, L., Majewski, J., & Koshnick, D. (2012). The value of troublesome knowledge: Transfer and threshold concepts in writing and history. Composition Forum, 26.
• Ambrose, S. A., Bridges, M. W., DiPietro, M., Lovett, M. C., & Norman, M. K. (2010). How learning works: Seven research-based principles for smart teaching. John Wiley & Sons.
• Bean, J. C. (2011). Engaging ideas: The professor’s guide to integrating writing, critical thinking, and active learning in the classroom. John Wiley & Sons.
• Johansson, C., & Felten, P. (2014). Transforming students: Fulfilling the promise of higher education. JHU Press.
• Kirschner, P. A., & Hendrick, C. (2020). How learning happens: Seminal works in educational psychology and what they mean in practice. Routledge.
• Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge university press.
• Meyer, J., & Land, R. (2006). Overcoming barriers to student understanding: Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge. Routledge.
• Middendorf, J., & Pace, D. (2004). Decoding the disciplines: A model for helping students learn disciplinary ways of thinking. New directions for teaching and learning, 2004(98), 1-12.
• National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2018). How people learn II: Learners, contexts, and cultures. National Academies Press.
• Perkins, D. N., & Salomon, G. (1992). Transfer of learning. International encyclopedia of education, 2, 6452-6457.
• Prince, M. (2004). Does active learning work? A review of the research. Journal of engineering education, 93(3), 223-231.
• Weinstein, Y., Sumeracki, M., & Caviglioli, O. (2018). Understanding how we learn: A visual guide. Routledge.