The general education program has 12 outcomes that are classified into four categories – Knowledge Areas, Competencies, Responsibilities, and Integration – and one Grand Challenge overlay. When developing a course, you must select 2 of the 12 student-learning outcomes for your course. This is a department choice when the course is delivered in many sections by many faculty. All sections must have the same two outcomes.
General Education Outcomes
- A1 Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematical Disciplines (STEM)
- A2 Social & Behavioral Sciences
- A3 Humanites
- A4 Arts & Design
- B1 Write Effectively
- B2 Communicate Effectively
- B3 Mathematical, Statistical, or Computational Strategies (Mathematics)
- B4 Information Literacy
- C1 Civic Knowledge and Responsibilities
- C2 Global Responsibilities
- C3 Diversity & Inclusion
- D: Integrate & Apply
When choosing the outcomes, they can be combined in the following ways. For example, you may have a course with the Humanities and Writing outcomes, or a course with Writing and Information Literacy outcomes, but you may not have one with STEM and Humanities outcomes.
- A (Knowledge) + B (Competency)
- A (Knowledge) + C (Responsibility)
- B (Competency) + B (Competency)
- B (Competency) + C (Responsibility)
- B (Competency) + D (Integrative)
- C (Responsibility)+ D (Integrative)
Associated with each outcome are rubrics and templates. The rubrics capture the essential criteria for university-wide student learning outcomes . The elements in the rubrics articulate fundamental criteria for student proficiency for each outcome. Because URI is a large, diverse, and complex entity, there are multiple ways to satisfy the outcome, and all rubrics include a description of the available options. Each proposal must identify the specific subset of criteria used in a course. To help interpret these rubrics is the Anatomy of a Rubric.
Once the decision is made as to the criteria, a template must be completed to submit with the course proposal. Templates, developed by the Curriculum and Standards Committee, are where faculty specify the subset of criteria in their course, describe how students are provided opportunities to achieve the outcomes, and identify the means used to assess student performance. For each outcome there are also Sample Submissions that have been approved. The samples also include the course syllabi.
Next Step: Once you have determined what the two outcomes will be, you need to choose full or partial designation for the second outcome.