AREA E - LIFELONG UNDERSTANDING AND

SELF-DEVELOPMENT COURSES

Return to GE Program and Area Distribution

Area Requirements All courses certified for Lifelong Understanding and Self-Development must meet all the goals, objectives and requirements specified below as well as the criteria specified for all General Education courses (pages 6-8). Courses in Lifelong Understanding and Self-Development should consciously aim to convey to students the goals and guidelines articulated in CSUSM's Mission Statement.

1. Goals

To equip students for lifelong understanding, learning, and development of themselves as integrated physiological, social and psychological entities.

2. Objectives

After completing the course, students shall be able to recognize:

• physiological influences on individual well-being
• psychological influences on individual well-being
• social/cultural influences on individual well-being
• process of human development across the life span.

In addition students will possess knowledge of the processes that comprise successful lifelong learning and understanding.

3. Course Requirements

• courses will focus on the interdependence of the physiological, social/cultural, and psychological factors which contribute to the process of human development and determine the limitations, potential and options of the individual across the life span.
• courses shall give significant attention or be significantly related to issues or aspects of life, behavior, information and knowledge.
• courses will focus on the processes necessary for turning information into knowledge. Specifically, students will be able to identify access points, apply the appropriate access tool, formulate a search strategy, evaluate retrieved information as to its usefulness and be able to recognize alternatives in the absence of recorded information sources. Special attention shall be paid to the Internet as an access tool.
• courses will require a series of assignments which will assist the student in understanding information resources supportive of the course content. Examples of such assignments include: an annotated bibliography, a statistical interpretation, an abstract, a summary, a short opinion paper and a research paper.

4. Evaluation and Assessment

Course proposals shall include a clear plan for assessing student learning. Methods of classroom assessment vary and those employed should be discipline-appropriate. Instructors shall be responsible for evaluating student learning in their courses. Methods employed should provide faculty with an indication of teaching and learning proficiency.

5. Faculty Qualifications

Should be taught, whenever possible, by faculty holding terminal degrees appropriate to their discipline. Library faculty shall form part of the team.