Core Curriculum

Core courses in communications focus on understanding the transactional nature of oral communication in its relation to audiences of one or many.

Guiding core question: What speaking and listening skills are required to communicate complex ideas?

Student Learning Outcomes will include the following:

• Display competence in oral, written, and visual communication.
• Demonstrate appropriate communication skills ethically across settings, purposes, and audiences

Primary Department: Communication Studies

Composition courses should demonstrate a fundamental commitment to the writing process consistent with the objectives and outcomes as Composition I and Composition II courses offered in the English department, and for which there will be a portfolio assessment process.
Composition Core Guiding Question:  What does it mean to write clearly, logically, and creatively at a university level? How does writing convey intellectual rigor and contextual understanding?

Student Learning Outcomes may include the following:

• Compose and communicate effectively for a variety of rhetorical and creative purposes.
• In writing, frame and analyze a problem using and interpreting relevant information.
• Write an appropriate argument, report, application, or other expressions of such inquiry.

Primary Department: English

Core math/logic courses involve the intrinsic study of and application of formal deductive modes of inquiry.

Guiding core question: What does it mean to think with reason, or to arrive at a valid deductive conclusion?

Students will be able to:

• Utilize the formal structure of mathematical, symbolic, logical, graphical, or statistical analysis for the statement and interpretation of problems.
• Recognize and differentiate formal and informal fallacies in deductive and inductive reasoning.
• Construct and diagnose proofs, arguments, and derivations using symbolic and natural language.
• Apply mathematical, symbolic, logical, graphical, or statistical analysis to describe and derive solutions to real world problems.

Primary departments: Mathematics, Philosophy

Core courses in religion are academic rather than devotional, and explore the traditions, doctrines, and practices of religious life. From the perspective of the liberal arts, the academic study of religion is the critical and rigorous investigation of matters of belief in God, faith, and ritual practice, and includes theological and confessional traditions. Given the historic role of the Brethren Church and the Judeo-Christian heritage at Ashland University, it is expected that many of these courses will have Christian themes and Biblical content. Courses that examine other world religions may be included.

Religion Core Guiding Question: How do religious commitments shape our lives and our world?

Classes in the Religion area of the Core will include at least one of the following SLOs:

• Interpret how religious traditions, practices, and texts shape our lives and our world.

Primary Department: Religion

Core courses in aesthetics should focus on the application or development of levels of expressive or technical skill in artistic production or aesthetic inquiry.
Aesthetics Core Guiding Question: How can we make meaningful distinctions regarding the quality and nature of aesthetic expression and beauty, through active practice in the arts, and/or through the study of artistic creations and their context?

Student Learning Outcomes:

• Be able to articulate aesthetic theories and values through the interpretation of symbolic, nonverbal, non-literal communication in the arts.
• Be able to apply parameters of aesthetic expression in the performance, exhibition, or creation of artistic works.
• Be able to compare and contrast artistic works in their historical context.

Performance Outcomes [Revised 9.15.16]

Core Aesthetics Student Learning Outcomes for ensembles include the following:

• Be able to apply parameters of aesthetic expression in the performance, exhibition, or creation of artistic works.
• Be able to identify and interpret symbolic, nonverbal, non-literal communication in the arts.

Course Student Learning Outcome for music ensembles:

• Students will perform compositions in a variety of genres appropriate to the ensemble, with substantial accuracy, expression and stylistic awareness

Primary disciplines: Art, Music, Theater

Additional Aesthetics rubrics for ‘performance’ courses [still in progress]

Visual arts performance

• Inventiveness: work takes risks, applies knowledge of medium to solve problems of presentation; demonstrates unique style or voice.
• Craftsmanship: demonstrates knowledge and mastery of the tools and materials; professional presentation; reflects contemporary and historical influences
• Productivity: Artwork reflects unique and focused effort appropriate to the kind of work it is; used class time effectively; sought input from instructors and peers.
• Unity: Work appears unified; there is a clear focal point, or a clear ironic take; the work seems to be ‘about’ something’ a value-pattern can be discerned.

Musical performance

• Tone: There is a consistency of sound throughout the different registers and dynamics; there is the use of vibrato (if appropriate); the mechanics of tone production is present
• Rhythm: There is accuracy, stability; appropriate choice of tempo; timing is precise; note durations and rests are clear.
• Technique: pitch accuracy; fluid coordination of mechanical elements; proper execution of articulation
• Musicianship: stylistic element is present and appropriate; sensitivity to the performance; attention to musical detail.

Oral presentation/performance

• Delivery: Volume, pacing, rapport. Speaker varies volume to fit the message; pace appropriate to topic; audience engaged.
• Content: Accuracy, relevance, organization. Content is precise, customized to audience, coherently ordered.
• Language: vocabulary, enunciation, grammar. Vocab is rich and vivid; grammar is complex and university-level appropriate.
• Physicality: Body, eye, facial. Movement and gestures are customized to topic and context. Speaker engages through eye contact and facial expressions.

Theater performance

• Memorization: Lines are correct, fluid, displays a command of the scene.
• Movement: Strong choices are made as to how and when to move based on the characters needs and style of the scene.
• Diction, projection, vocal variety: scene is easy to understand, words are clear, vocal variety is registered.
• Tension and emotion: both are motivated throughout; emotion is believable and matches the character, style, and play.
• Tempo and exchange: the pace is appropriate and there is give-and-take throughout.

Core Humanities courses involve the application of uniquely literary and interpretive modes of inquiry with regard to the study of written and spoken languages, literatures, and to the traditions of interpretation, theory and criticism of religious, philosophical, and literary textuality and ideas.
Humanities Core Guiding Question:  What does it mean to be a human being? What does it mean to lose one’s humanity?

Student Learning Outcomes may include the following:

• Examine and critically engage important texts in history, foreign languages, literature, religion, and philosophy.
• Demonstrate sophistication in writing skills, including developing a thesis and supporting it with logical arguments and interpretive justification and synthesizing concepts.
• Demonstrate the complexities of research, documentation, and handling textual evidence.
• Organize and analyze moral and religious perspectives in a coherent and informed manner.
• Identify one's intellectual and ethical parameters within existing traditions.

Primary disciplines: English, Religion, Philosophy, Foreign Languages

Core courses in the natural sciences apply scientific methods to questions about the natural world.

Natural Science Core Guiding Questions:  How is the scientific method used to improve our understanding of the natural world?  How does one distinguish between scientific and unscientific claims and weigh the validity of competing hypotheses?  What are the impacts of science on society?  How has our understanding of the natural world changed through time?
Student Learning Outcomes may include the following:

• Be able to design, implement, and/or evaluate scientific inquiry as an instrument of argument, investigation, and discovery in areas of the natural world.
• Be able to formulate hypotheses, make predictions from those hypotheses, test those hypotheses, and make revisions to hypotheses based on those tests.
• Be able to diagnose scientific claims from unscientific claims.
• Be able to recognize the scientific reasoning and methodology in current research and/or in examples from the history of science.
• Be able to communicate scientific findings to a variety of audiences.
• Be able to articulate the challenges of interaction between humans and their natural environment.

Primary disciplines: Biology, Chemistry, Geology, Physics

Social Science courses focus on the study of how people live, both as individuals and as members of society.  Such courses might study humans as individuals, as members of various groups, as participating in and shaped by various institutions, or as members of society as a whole.  While no single method characterizes the social sciences, each social science course is concerned to understand the method used in its attempt to understand how humans live.

Social Science Core Guiding Question: How do we reason deeply about individual, political, or social behavior using the scientific method or theories and classic texts from economics, political science, psychology, or sociology?

Social Science Core SLOs must include the ability to:

• Think deeply about an important question or problem of individual behavior and/or social phenomena using political, psychological, social, or economic theories or classic texts.

AND/OR

• Apply the scientific method to an important question or problem (quantitative and/or qualitative) relating to individual behavior or social phenomena.

Additional SLOs may include the ability to:

• Explain the method and categories of understanding used to examine individual and/or group behavior, and explain how they are suited to the study of the particular question, problem, theme, or subject under investigation.
• Identify and analyze the practical implications and consequences of individual and/or group behavior.
• Make inferences from and draw conclusions about individual and/or group behavior.
• Use hypothetical reasoning to conduct inquiries into and to explain individual and/or group behavior.

Primary Disciplines: Psychology, Political Science, Economics, Sociology

Historical Reasoning courses employ primary sources to inquire into the character of the past and to examine and attempt to account for change and persistence in human events over time, not in one particular sphere of life but in human life more generally across a variety of disciplines.
Historical reasoning Core Guiding Question: How are primary sources used to understand the causes and consequences of change and persistence over time in a nation, country, or civilization?

Student Learning Outcomes will include the following:

• Recognize, analyze, interpret, evaluate, prioritize, and draw conclusions from primary sources.
• Handle and prioritize different kinds of primary sources (a political speech, a philosophical text, a biography, laws, a painting, a prayer, trade or population statistics, a travel narrative, a diary, etc.).
• Use historical evidence to give an account of the forces of continuity and change in human affairs, especially at the level of the social or political order.
• Explore and evaluate the relative merits of different claims concerning historical causation (for example, claims based on ideas, economic or political interests, technological developments, religion).
• Identify, follow, interpret, and compare major events in human history.

Primary discipline: History, Political Science

Core experiences in the CCI initiative focus on getting students to communicate effectively across linguistic and cultural boundaries, to understand the world from a perspective other than one's own, and to interact effectively and critically with diverse societies and cultures in an increasingly globally interdependent world.

Critical Cultural inquiry Core Guiding Question: What does it mean to understand a culture other than one’s own?

Core courses in the CCI category must meet all Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs)

To the point where critical cultural inquiry can be engaged, students will:

• Apply cultural knowledge through interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational modes of communication that cross linguistic and national boundaries.
• Analyze the contexts and manifestations of cultural expression.

Below are the previous Student Learning Outcomes for the various types of CCI Classes.  We still use the SLOs for study away in evaluating FL 299 essays.

Student learning outcomes for all core value-added language courses

Core courses in the CCI category must meet all SLOs

Students must demonstrate measurably to the point where critical inquiry can be engaged:

• Evidence of interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational communication skills [speaking, writing, listening, reading, viewing] in the foreign language.  
• An informed understanding of the cultures of the countries represented by the foreign language.
• The ability to communicate across linguistic, cultural, and geopolitical boundaries.

Student learning outcomes in Critical Cultural Inquiry (CCI) courses

Core courses in the CCI category must meet all SLOs
Students must demonstrate measurably to the point where critical inquiry can be engaged:

• The ability to communicate across linguistic, cultural, and geopolitical boundaries.
• The ability to identify and to explain how language transmits culture.
• An informed understanding of the literary and/or cultural histories of the countries represented by the foreign language(s).
• An informed understanding of the expression of culture through the language(s) of the Other.

Student learning outcomes for study-away, study-abroad, and course-with-experience

* Through the 1500-3000 word CCI Narrative, students must include the following:
what was the purpose of the event, who were the agents involved, what were the initial goals, what were the specific interactions, how did the circumstances change the expected results. Students will demonstrate a majority of the following slo's within the narrative:

• Facility in a language other than English.
• Identifying markers of culture.
• Having knowledge and some understanding of at least one culture other than their own.
• Knowing that communication styles vary by culture.
• Becoming familiar with communication styles and values of one culture other than their own.
• Understanding the political, scientific, socioeconomic, historical and cultural interconnections between the U.S. and the rest of the world.
• Recognizing cultural variances concerning what counts as knowledge.
• Ability to collaborate effectively across cultures.
• The narrative should address how the student 'crossed borders' - how the cultural differences impacted the study.
• Show an awareness of environmental and cultural responsibility.
• Connections between the knowledge and skills acquired abroad and their coursework, professional ambitions, and personal beliefs.
• Ability to recognize that their own beliefs represent a perspective that is conditional by U.S. American cultural, political, religious, and economic institutions.

Specific study-abroad criteria:

• The academic program must be a minimum of 8 full-weeks of instruction, from the first day of classes to the last day of finals.
• Students will earn a minimum of 6 semester credits.
• Students will successfully complete the CCI Narrative.
• All programs must have pre-approval of the Global Education Office.
• The educational organization abroad must be an accredited institution or be associated with a U.S. accredited university.
• Coursework to be taken must be documented on a Transient Student Form and be approved by the Registrar's Office prior to departure.
• Students need to meet the eligibility as set by the Global Education Office: have completed a minimum of 12 Ashland University credits at the time of the application (transfer credits and post-secondary credits (ex. AP, CLEP) do not apply); have a cumulative GPA of at least 2.5; be 18 years old at the time of departure; and be free of any academic or judicial sanctions within the past year.

Primary Discipline: Foreign Languages. Global Education Office