Overview
The purpose of general education at Santa Fe College is to foster a disciplined curiosity that leads to the empowerment of the student as an intentional learner and to lay the foundation for lifelong learning. By exploring many aspects of the traditional arts and sciences, students will learn about the human imagination and the products of cultural history and expression, the interrelationships within and among social and global communities, models that help to understand the patterns and behaviors of the natural world and social structures, and the values essential to local or global civic engagement. Specifically, students will encounter these ideas through courses in the sciences, mathematics, communications, the social sciences, and the arts and humanities.
While exploring these disciplines, students will also develop college-level skills in communication, critical thinking, information literacy, scientific and quantitative reasoning, and global responsibility necessary for lifelong learning, whether it be within the academy or in the professional world. In this way, the college seeks not only to instill knowledge but also to integrate skills and knowledge within the context of cultural and professional competencies.
By design, this practical liberal education is highly concentrated within the core of required arts and sciences courses; we expect that students will find the knowledge and skills from these courses are reinforced in many areas of the curriculum, including elective courses, vocational courses, and a variety of capstone learning experiences that interrelate principle and application.
General Education Learning Outcomes (GELO)
Each general education course at Santa Fe is expected to address one of six learning outcomes. The table below describes these six outcomes and the competencies associated with them in greater detail.
Communication
Written Communication. Written communication is the development and expression of ideas in writing. Written communication involves learning to work in many genres and styles. It can involve working with various writing technologies and mixing texts, data, and images. Written communication abilities develop through iterative experiences across the curriculum.
Oral communication. Oral communication is a prepared, purposeful presentation designed to increase knowledge, foster understanding, or to promote change in the listeners' attitudes, values, beliefs, or behaviors
AACU Written Communication Rubric
AACU Oral Communication Rubric
Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is a habit of mind characterized by the comprehensive exploration of issues, ideas, artifacts, and events before accepting or formulating an opinion or conclusion.
Scientific Reasoning
Understanding scientific concepts and reasoning and analyzing and interpreting various types of scientific data. The current definition of scientific reasoning is based on a description by the American Association for Higher Education and Accreditation whereby scientific reasoning is divided into the reductionist and integrative approaches to the understanding and improvement of student learning.
Quantitative Reasoning
Is a "habit of mind," competency, and comfort in working with numerical data. Individuals with strong QL skills possess the ability to reason and solve quantitative problems from a wide array of authentic contexts and everyday life situations. They understand and can create sophisticated arguments supported by quantitative evidence and they can clearly communicate those arguments in a variety of formats (using words, tables, graphs, mathematical equations, etc., as appropriate).
Information Literacy
The ability to know when there is a need for information, to be able to identify, locate, evaluate, and effectively and responsibly use and share that information for the problem at hand. - Adopted from the National Forum on Information Literacy.
AACU Information Literacy Rubric
Program Overview for Faculty
Faculty may look forward to contributing data and expertise for the improvement of the general education program by
- checking “yes” or “no” during grade submission to indicate whether each of their students demonstrates satisfactory achievement of their GELO, according to the college-wide rubric for the GELO.
- submitting fall, spring, and/or summer instructional artifacts on an as-requested basis for faculty team review at annual fall workshops (classes to be randomly selected).
- serving on an as-needed basis as reviewers of instructional artifacts during fall workshops.
- submitting fall, spring, and/or summer student artifacts on an as-requested basis for faculty team review at annual spring workshops (students to be randomly selected, except during Spring Term 2016; please see previous note)
- serving on an as-needed basis as reviewers of student artifacts during spring workshops.
- collaborating with academic department chairs and faculty colleagues to design and implement annual action plans for improving student learning, informed by the data resulting from the activities above.
General Education Course Structure and Learning Outcomes
State Core Courses (S) are broad introductions to the discipline.
College Core Courses offer broad introductions to the discipline and an introduction to academic subdiscipline(s)
Writing Intensive (W). Per state Board of Education rule, students must complete ENC1101, ENC1102, and an additional six (6) credits in courses designated as Writing Intensive with grades of C or better.
Civics Literacy (C). Per state rule students must complete a Civics Literacy (C) course with a grade of C or better. Other options to fulfill this requirement include a three (3) or better on the AP US Government exam, a four (4) or better on the AP US History exam, or a 50 or higher on the CLEP American Government Exam.
Students must complete one (N) course OR one (D) course.
(N) International. Designates a course with international content and that counts towards the SF International Studies Medallion.
(D) Diversity. Designates a course with diversity content.
Communications: (6 credits)
Must take both courses
GELO: written communication
ENC1101 (S) (W)
ENC1102 (W)
Applied Communications: (3 credits)
Must take one course.
GELO: written or oral communication
ART1001C
DAA1000
ISS2270 (N)
MMC2004
MUT1001
SPC2300
SPC2608
MMC2100
TPP1100
ASL2510 (D)
Humanities: (6 credits)
Take two courses. At least ONE must be an (S) course
GELO: critical thinking HUM2020 (S) (W) ARH2050 (W) (N) REL2000 (W) (N)
PHI2010 (S) (W) ARH2051 (W) (N) MUH2019
LIT1000 (S) HUM2210 (W) (N) MUH2501 (N)
ARH1000 (S) HUM2230 (W) (N) DAN1120 (N)
MUL1010 (S) HUM2250 (W) (N) HUM2410 (N)
THE1000 (S) PHI2600 (W) HUM2420 (N)
HUM2461 (N) REL2121 (D)
REL2315 (N)
Math: (6 credits)
Take two courses. At least ONE must be an (S) course
GELO: quantitative reasoning MAC1105 (S) MAC2312 (S) MAC2234
MAC1114 (S) MGF1106 (S) MAC2313
MAC1140 (S) MGF1107 (S) MAP2302
MAC1147 (S) STA2023 (S) MAS2103
MAC2233 (S) MAC2311 (S) MAS2202
MAC2311 (S) MGF1121
Biological Sciences: (3 credits)
Take one course.
GELO: scientific reasoning EVR1001 (S)
BSC2005 (S)
BSC2010 (S)
BSC2085 (S)
Physical Sciences: (3 credits required)
Take at least 3 credit hours. AST1002 (S)
CHM1020 (S)
CHM1030 4 credits
CHM2045 (S) 4 credits
ESC1000 (S) 3 credits
ESC1000L (S) 1 credit
GYL2010
PHY1020 (S)
PHY2048 +l (S) 4 credits
PHY2053 + l (S) 4 credits
Social Behavioral Sciences: (3 credits) Take two courses. At least ONE must be an (S) course.
GELO: critical thinking AMH2020 (S) (W) (C) AMH2010 (W) AMH2091 (D)
POS2041 (S) (W) (C) CPO2001 (W) (N) ANT2301 (N)
SYG2000 (S) (W) EUH2000 (W) (N) ANT2410 (N)
ANT2000 (S) EUH2001 (W) (N) GEA2000 (N)
ECO2013 (S) EUH2002 (W) (N) GEO2420 (N)
PSY2012 (S) POT2002 (W) SYG2010 (D)
WOH2012 (W) (N) SYG2430 (N)
WOH2022 (W) (N)
Writing Across the Curriculum (SF Capstone): (3 credits) Take one course.
GELO: information literacy AMH2035 (W) GEO2200C (W)(N) INR2002 (W) (N) SYG2323 (W)
AML2010 (W) ENG2102 (W) LIT2620 (W) THE2300 (W)
AML2020 (W) ENL2012 (W) PHI1100 (W) WOH2040 (W) (N)
AML2600 (W) )(D) ENL2022 (W) PHI2635 (W) HUM2450 (W) (D)
ANT2511 (W) ENL2330 (W) POS2112 (W) REL2300 (W) (D)
BSC2862 (W) (N) SOP2002 (W) ENC2210 (W)
General Education Learning Outcomes Assessment Map
I = Introduce the skills associated with the outcome, including initial assessment
P = Practice the skills associated with the outcome
A = Assess the skills associated with the outcome
| Communications-written or oral | Critical Thinking | Information Literacy | Scientific Reasoning | Quantitative Literacy | |
| ENC1101 | I | I | |||
| ENC1102 | P | P | I | ||
| Applied Com | P | P | |||
| Humanities | P | P | |||
| Social Behavioral Sciences | P | P | |||
| WAD (Capstone) | A | A | A | ||
| Mathematics* | I, P, A | ||||
| Natural Sciences* | I, P, A |
*GELO assignment would be consider I in student’s course 1, A in student’s terminal course, P if the student is completing more than one course