General Education Assessment at IU Bloomington
Every course has its own learning outcomes. Courses that are part of the IU Bloomington General Education curriculum include a wide variety of student learning outcomes, some of which are course-specific and not directly related to the GenEd Program; but each course that has been approved to carry GenEd credit was approved with the understanding that every offering of the course would address many of the GenEd Learning Outcomes in the area for which the course was approved. A course approved for IUB GenEd A&H credit, for example, is expected to address most of the A&H learning outcomes (see GenEd Learning Outcomes).
When the IUB General Education Program was created, the Bloomington Faculty Council charged the IUB General Education Committee (GEC) with instituting a process for ongoing assessment of the GenEd Program. To facilitate this process, the GEC defined learning outcomes for each of the Common Ground categories (English Composition, Mathematical Modeling, Arts and Humanities, Social and Historical Studies, Natural and Mathematical Sciences, World Languages and Cultures) and formed the General Education Monitoring Subcommittee (GEMS), which outlined a plan for the ongoing assessment of the GenEd Program.