General Education Course Review

General Education Course Coordinator's Handbook

Updated August 28, 2023

Principles and Purpose for Course Review

Find this year's report process below on this page.

In 2013–2014, CGEIP reviewed, discussed, and developed an annual report and four-year periodic review processes. This assessment plan was later voted on and adopted by Faculty Senate in March 2015.

The Assessment Plan was revised and approved by Faculty Senate in February 2018 and again in May 2022. Below are principles and purpose for the review of courses in General Education at Missouri State University.

Courses in the General Education Program may be exempt from course review if prerequisite/corequisite is a general education course in that same area of study. Exempt courses have all been approved by CGEIP and Faculty Senate.

Principles for Course Review

General education assessment should be meaningful and useful to those teaching the course.
General education assessment should be ongoing and cyclical.
General education assessment is collaborative and should not fall on the shoulders of one faculty member or department head but should promote conversations about student learning.
General education courses submitted an assessment plan with the course proposal. The council understands that assessment plans may need to be modified and streamlined to promote the use and efficacy of the process.
Assessment of student learning is broadly defined to include both qualitative and quantitative, and both direct and indirect measures of student learning.

Purpose of Course Review

Assess the course on the basis of General Goal(s).
Find out if students are providing evidence that they have met our approved General Goal(s).
Provide useful and meaningful information for the instructors of a general education course.
Offer evidence that student learning has been looked at in a thoughtful way.
Share successes of student learning, areas for improvement, and document the process of assessment changes.

General Education Course Reports General Scheudle

Biennial reports are due the first Monday in December (December 4, 2023). Courses in Foundations and Human Cultures provide reports in even years and courses in the Natural World and Public Affairs areas provide reports in odd years. In the spring, CGEIP will provide feedback to course coordinators and report to Faculty Senate on the current state of General Education at MSU.

Information that will be included in your report

A general education course coordinator, with assistance from faculty who teach the course, will prepare a report that includes:

Identification of faculty who participated in the course review.
A list of the General Goals in the course’s focus area (checklist provided in the report form).
A description to connections between the course’s learning goals and the selected General Goals (from the list of general education goals corresponding to the courses’ focus).
An explanation of how students’ success at meeting those goals was evaluated, e.g., evaluation of common exam questions, assignments, projects, etc., that tie into the goals).
Note that the focus is now on the General Goal(s), not on the Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) in the Senate-approved guidelines for assessments.
This is intended to give course coordinators and faculty much flexibility to decide how to evaluate their courses and to select assessment points to best fit the course’s discipline.
An assessment of student learning, i.e., a description of students’ performance relative to the general education learning goals. Documentation of student learning with respect to the course’s General Goal(s) is the key point of the report!
A reflection on the course’s success at meeting the General Goal(s). Where was the course most successful? Were there any areas of weakness?
What are the plans for the course going forward? What should remain the same? What might be adjusted to improve student learning?
A representative syllabus from the course.
Optional responses:
If applicable, a description of ways that diversity content is included in the course (assignments, projects, etc., that tie into the goals).
A description of any assessment methods (e.g., rubrics) that might be applicable to other courses and that you would be willing to share.
Information about general education content in dual credit courses.

Mechanics of the reporting process

This year’s reports are due on December 6, 2021.
Reports are due only for Natural World and Public Affairs courses.
No reports will be required this year for Natural World and Public Affairs courses.
Accessing the report form:
The report form resides within Office 365. When you click on the link below, you will need to log into Office 365, and for that you will need to enter your USERNAME@MissouriState.edu, NOT your regular campus email address. Your password will be the normal one used for other campus logins.
Link for report form: General Education Course Report
Filling in the report:
Note: The form may receive some “cosmetic” changes, e.g., changing “Annual Report” to “Biennial Report”, etc. The body of those reports will be identical, so do not be concerned if you have been working with a report form that has a few items labeled differently.
The report form does not allow you to save a partially completed form and return to it later. It would be best if you initially enter your responses into a Word document and then cut and paste those into the form when you are ready.
Alternately, you can right-click on the report and use Save As to save the webpage form to a folder, and enter your answers into that. You will still need to copy and paste your responses to the form in Office 365. The saved file appears identical to the one in Office 365, but it does not allow you to submit the report.
Report examples
CHM 107
CIS 200
COM 260
Submitting the report.
There is a Submit button at the end of the report form.

Review Process FAQs

1. I am a coordinator for a general education course. What is my role in the assessment and reporting process?

General education course coordinators should not do all of the assessment work – as the title implies, their role is to coordinate. Each general education course should have some common goals addressed in all sections, and the coordinator should communicate with section instructors what the shared goals are and what information instructors will need to provide for the assessment.

The coordinator also organizes the review process, collecting data and feedback from section instructors. The coordinators are also responsible for writing and submitting reports.

2. Will I need to submit a report this year?

The biennial program requires reports for the Foundations and Human Cultures areas in even years. Reports are required for Natural World and Public Affairs area courses in even years.

3. If I have a report due this year, what is the due date?

Monday – December 6th, 2023.

4. What are the major goals and tools of assessment expected for these reports?

Essentially, the questions to address in the report are:

What do you want students in your class to learn (discipline-specific knowledge, skills, etc.) that also fits in with your course’s GG? This change allows (encourages) faculty to evaluate their course on the basis of inherent course objectives that also align with general education goals.
What evidence do you have that students are learning these topics? You should evaluate results of course assignments, projects, exam questions, etc., that correspond to the topic / goal. You can treat these as “checkpoints” to figure out where your students learned the course materials and where they continued to struggle. For some courses, the previous system’s SLOs may function well as the checkpoints. For others, the SLOs aligned poorly with course objectives. The modified system allows coordinators and their faculty to tailor the checkpoints to their specific discipline and course.

5. When should I begin the assessment process?

Assessment is an ongoing process. If your general education assessment checkpoints align well with your course’s discipline-specific learning objectives, general education assessments should become a natural extension of your evaluation of students’ performances on exams, projects, etc., rather than a separate exercise.

6. Where do I find the report form?

Report forms will be available on the CGEIP website.

7. What information is required for the report?

Some basic information about the report will be required, but enrollment data will automatically be loaded (i.e., you do not need to look this up).

You will need to identify the course’s General Goal(s) (GG(s)) – these will be available from a pull-down menu on the report form.

You will be asked to describe how your course meets the GG(s), and to provide information about student learning / achievements relevant to each goal.

You will be asked to reflect on your course’s success at meeting the GG(s). Where was the course successful / what should be kept the same going forward? Were there any weak areas where you might alter what or how you teach to improve student learning?

You will be asked to provide a representative syllabus for the course.

There is an optional section for reporting diversity content, if any, in your course.

8. Where do I submit the report?

Report forms will be available on CGEIP website.

9. Who do I ask for help?

There are two CGEIP representatives from most colleges. Talk to your college rep for more information and with questions. You may also contact CGEIP via email.

10. If there are concerns identified during the review process, what happens?

If a course consistently submits unsatisfactory reports (or fails to submit reports), the course may be put on a probationary status and will be required to resubmit their materials in the following year for a new review.

However, the primary response will be to make suggestions on how to improve the course’s assessment and/or reporting procedures.