Frequently Asked Questions

1.) What is the Core Curriculum?

      The Core Curriculum is defined in House Bill 2183 of the Texas Legislature as “the curriculum in the liberal arts, humanities, sciences, and political, social, and cultural history that all undergraduates of a particular institution of higher education are required to complete before receiving an associate or baccalaureate degree.” The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) is responsible for ensuring that each state-supported college and university has a Core Curriculum. ACC requires students seeking an Associate of Arts or Associate of Science to complete the college’s Core Curriculum of 42 credit hours. The purpose of the Core Curriculum is to provide the skills, knowledge, and perspectives that help define the educated person. Courses that are included in the Core Curriculum contribute to the acquisition of these skills, perspectives, and to a basic core of knowledge. Educational outcomes have been written so the college can assess the effectiveness of the Core Curriculum.

A complete list of the Core Curriculum courses is given in the ACC catalog.  To fulfill the Core Curriculum, students are required to take the following semester credit hours (SCH) taken from the approved list:

6 SCH in English Rhetoric/Composition

3 SCH in Communications

3 SCH in Mathematics

6 SCH in Natural Sciences,

6 SCH in Humanities

3 SCH in Visual and Performing Arts

6 SCH in History

6 SCH in Government

3 SCH in Other Social and Behavioral Sciences.

2.) What are General Education courses?

 

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) requires colleges and universities to incorporate into each degree plan 15 hours in general education courses. At ACC, the coursework consists of the following semester credit hours (SCH) taken from the approved list of general education courses:

3 SCH in Written Communication (English)

3 SCH in Oral Communication

3 SCH in Computational Skills (math)

3 SCH in Social and Behavioral Sciences

3 SCH in Humanities/Fine Arts

Following SACS guidelines, ACC selected general education courses are designed to prepare associate degree graduates with the knowledge and skills to prepare for a career, further their educational study, and contribute to society.

 

The courses fulfilling the General Education course requirements are the same as those listed in the Core Curriculum, and these General Education requirements are subsumed within the Core Curriculum requirements.  As such, ensuring that the General Education requirements are met is primarily of concern to those pursing workforce degrees.  Students completing the 42 credit hours of the Core Curriculum for transfer will have thus fulfilled these General Education requirements.

3.) Why must this course assessment be done?

The quick answer is that such assessment is required by both SACS and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.  The better answer is that such assessment, if done in a meaningful way, can help us to improve instruction and increase student learning.  Ideally, the assessment instrument will be embedded within the instruction, and therefore will not involve any significant additional work on the part of the instructor or department chair.

 

4.) What kind of course assessment is required?

How a course is evaluated is up to the individual department.  That bears repeating.  No one is going to tell any program how they are going to assess their students’ learning.  This is a vital pillar of academic freedom, and no one at this institution wants to impose a rigid, standardized format on the diversity and variety of instructional programs we offer. 

The assessment instrument chosen by the department’s faculty will, however, have to be explicitly tied to “exemplary educational objectives” (EEO’s) as defined by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.  These, in turn, are linked to fundamental “intellectual competencies” such as reading, writing, computer literacy, etc.  The EEO’s and intellectual competencies are further described below.

The data must be reported to the Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Assessment, but the actual manner of assessment for each course is left to the appropriate department.  Some possible options include:

 

1. common questions on a final exam performance on licensure exams
2. standardized tests
3. essays
4. oral presentations
5. laboratory reports
6. case studies
7. clinical evaluations
8. student interviews
9. using student response systems in lecture (such as iClickers)

Departments are encouraged to develop their own measures if they wish, and different courses do not need to be assessed in the same way.  Ideally, the measure used will be embedded in the normal coursework.  It is also important to note that although the data will be collected from individual sections, it will be lumped together for each course and cannot therefore be used in a punitive fashion against individual instructors.

5.) What is done with the assessment data?

Once the department decides how to do its assessment for each Core Curriculum/General Education course, the department chair enters this information into the Assessment Database (also known as ULEAD), which is maintained by the Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Assessment .  Any and all instructors involved in the given course assessment report their results to the appropriate person within their department (usually the department chair).  The compiled results from across the college are likewise entered into the database.  The department faculty should then review these results and decide upon a course of action to improve student learning.  What course of is decided upon should also be entered into the database, and the (ideally improved) results followed up on in the ensuing semesters.

6.) What is the timeline?

The most recent timeline is posted at:

http://www.austincc.edu/acadprog/assessment/index.php.

7.) What happens if a course is not assessed?

Assessment of Core Curriculum and General Education courses is required by both SACS and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.  These courses therefore need to be assessed on a regular basis, this information needs to be used to try to improve student learning, and the success of these efforts then needs to be evaluated. 

This process is mandated by law and required for ACC to keep its accreditation.  To put it bluntly, any course that is not appropriately assessed will have to be removed from the Core Curriculum/General Education list.

8.) What are intellectual competencies?

Each Core Curriculum and General Education course is required to identify the specific intellectual competencies that are taught in that course.  These basic competencies are skills that any college-educated individual in modern society is expected to possess.  As described by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, these include:

READING: Reading at the college level means the ability to analyze and interpret a variety of printed materials - books, articles, and documents.  A core curriculum should offer students the opportunity to master both general methods of analyzing printed materials and specific methods for analyzing the subject matter of individual disciplines.

WRITING: Competency in writing is the ability to produce clear, correct, and coherent prose adapted to purpose, occasion, and audience.  Although correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation are each a sine qua non in any composition, they do not automatically ensure that the composition itself makes sense or that the writer has much of anything to say.  Students need to be familiar with the writing process including how to discover a topic and how to develop and organize it, how to phrase it effectively for their audience.  These abilities can be acquired only through practice and reflection.

SPEAKING: Competence in speaking is the ability to communicate orally in clear, coherent, and persuasive language appropriate to purpose, occasion, and audience. Developing this competency includes acquiring poise and developing control of the language through experience in making presentations to small groups, to large groups, and through the media.

LISTENING: Listening at the college level means the ability to analyze and interpret various forms of spoken communication.

CRITICAL THINKING: Critical thinking embraces methods for applying both qualitative and quantitative skills analytically and creatively to subject matter in order to evaluate arguments and to construct alternative strategies.  Problem solving is one of the applications of critical thinking, used to address an identified task.

COMPUTER LITERACY: Computer literacy at the college level means the ability to use computer-based technology in communicating, solving problems, and acquiring information.  Core-educated students should have an understanding of the limits, problems, and possibilities associated with the use of technology, and should have the tools necessary to evaluate and learn new technologies as they become available.”

Obviously, no single course will address every single competency, but after completing the 42 hour Core Curriculum, or even just the 15-hour General Education sequence, students should have demonstrable college-level proficiency in communication and reading, computational and critical thinking skills, and a the basic use of computers.

9.) What are exemplary educational objectives (EEO’s)?

 

After completing the Core Curriculum or General Education requirements, students are expected to possess the intellectual competencies described above.  Demonstration of these skills is shown by student achievement of exemplary educational objectives, or EEO’s.  The EEO’s have been defined by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, and are specific to different component areas of the Core Curriculum, such as Mathematics, Natural Sciences, Humanities, etc.

Each Core Curriculum and General Education course is required to identify which educational objectives are taught and how these are tied to the intellectual competencies.  For example, geology Core Curriculum courses are evaluated to determine if students “recognize scientific and quantitative methods and the differences between these approaches and other methods of inquiry and to communicate findings, analyses, and interpretation both orally and in writing.”  This is an EEO (as written by the Coordinating Board), but it is directly related to the intellectual competencies of critical thinking and writing, and to some extent, oral communication as well.

The assessment instrument used by the program should evaluate whether one or more exemplary educational objectives is being achieved, and, in this manner, evaluate whether the relevant intellectual competency is being achieved.  The results of the assessment should then be used to develop strategies for further improving student learning.

10.) Where can I find more information?

An excellent source for additional information, including more detailed descriptions of what “assessment” can mean, may be found at the assessment link for the University of Texas at Austin located at:

http://www.utsystem.edu/aca/initiatives/assessment/FAQ.htm

 

 You should also feel free to contact the Chair of the General Education/Core Curriculum Committee, Prof. Ron Johns, at 512-223-6002 or rjohns@austincc.edu