FRAMEWORK: SEQUENTIAL CORE

  • Highly specific requirements for each of the four years, enabling instructors to know what students have already mastered.
  • Departmentally-based capstone enables opportunity to integrate earlier coursework in a way that’s tailored to disciplinary requirements.
  • Upper-division mini cluster “global challenges”: a specific theme organizes requirement to enable students to draw more explicit connections across Core courses.

FRAMEWORK: TIERED CORE

  • More fluid requirements than a sequential framework, but instructors still have the ability to have Explorations courses explicitly draw upon Foundations courses to enable greater depth.
  • Experiential learning requirement connects disciplinary requirements with Mission and co-curricular experiences.
  • Integrations requirements explicitly enable students to integrate earlier work in the Core, reinforcing key skills and drawing more intentional connections across requirements.

FRAMEWORK: CLUSTER-BASED CORE

  • Cluster of courses, “Core Concentration” enables students to acquire greater depth in a specific area outside of major course work.
  • Interdisciplinary coursework become central focus of a cluster-based core.
  • Capstone experience to integrate the various parts of the clusters.

FRAMEWORK: COMPETENCY-BASED CORE

  • Structure is based on key competencies the University would like students to demonstrate, rather than focusing on specific disciplinary requirements.
  • Some modest degree of sequencing based on a theory of knowledge acquisition whereby students move from more foundational competencies to more intellectually sophisticated ones.
  • Explicitly emphasizes key aspirations for students (e.g., creativity)

FRAMEWORK: TIERED CORE

  • Tiers represent a compromise between a highly sequenced and a distributional Core: instructors in each tier will be able to assume knowledge from previous tiers, but is still relatively flexible for scheduling.
  • Different tiers can focus on different goals in student development: foundations to develop skills that students will need across all colleges; explorations to enable increased depth of knowledge in a limited number of disciplinary areas; integrations to draw skills and knowledge together on broader issues of faith, reason, and justice.
  • Explicit effort to integrate more disciplinary-focused “Explorations” during upper division course work.

FRAMEWORK: THEME-BASED CORE

  • Core organized around key Ignatian concepts, enabling students to identify how each specific requirement is linked to broader theory of education.
  • Theme enables disciplinary courses to engage each other more explicitly.
  • Mission-based priorities are foregrounded for students and instructors.

FRAMEWORK: THEME-BASED CORE

  • Three overarching concepts guide all specific requirements, clarifying for students the rationale for any specific course.
  • Key concepts are explicitly integrated, encouraging interdisciplinary coursework and projects or problems that move across several courses.

FRAMEWORK: SEQUENTIAL/CLUSTERED CORE

  • Freshman experience to develop campus community.
  • Upper division coursework cluster designed to enable students to tailor Core to their interests in a way that integrates courses across disciplines.
  • Capstone to integrate requirements and provide students the opportunity to intentionally connect the sequence of courses from freshman to senior.

FRAMEWORK: THEME-BASED CORE

  • Focuses disciplinary requirements toward a set of key themes, enabling students to draw connections across courses.
  • Themes are independent of each other, enabling flexibility of scheduling.
  • Themes identify key questions to guide students to understand the rationale for their requirements.

FRAMEWORK: TIERED CORE

  • Tiers enable instructors to teach materials that explicitly build on earlier core skills.
  • Engaged learning specifically emphasizes the role of the University in its environment, the city.
  • A specific course “[University] Experience” to explore what it means to be a student at a specific institution.
  • Keystone requirement as a means to integrate Core coursework with major coursework.