Engaging Students in General Education Learning

Project Sponsor

• Nikos Varelas

Project Team

• Ranfen Li
• Nick Ardinger
• Elizabeth Houlihan
• Hugo Teruel
• Agnes Herget

Project Lead

• Benjamin Shultz

Project Objectives

Research indicates that when General Education instructors clearly communicate learning outcomes, students are able to make better connections between required distribution courses and their career goals. Making such connections can counter the perception that general education courses are burdens that do not confer marketable skills. Through collaboration with instructors of General Education courses, the goals of this project are to:

• Examine the relationship between student awareness of General Education learning outcomes and academic performance, persistence, and retention;
• Improve the assessment of General Education learning outcomes at UIC more broadly;
• Create an evidence-based resource that contributes to ongoing campus-wide efforts to inform best teaching practices for General Education courses.