General Education Course List
Courses appearing in two categories will satisfy the requirement for only one.
General education, as distinguished from professional or technical education, provides a broad-based educational experience. General education courses promote those skills, understandings, attitudes and values which will equip students for effective, responsible, productive living. The General Education program is structured so that all degrees require a core of courses with each of the following areas represented: Fine Arts/Humanities, Social/Behavioral Sciences, Natural Sciences/Mathematics. The courses required for the AA, AS, AAT and AAS degrees constitute the core curriculum as required by the State of Texas.
General Education Competencies
AC uses an embedded assessment approach across the curriculum to determine whether students who have completed at least 30 hours at AC have achieved the general education competencies. AC uses the Institutional Portfolio Model developed by Johnson County Community College in Kansas. By enrolling at Amarillo College, students have agreed to participate in assessment. (See Assessment of Student Experiences).
Critical Thinking Skills – Students will engage in creative and/or innovative thinking, and/or inquiry, analysis, evaluation, synthesis of information, organizing concepts and constructing solutions.
Communication Skills – Students will demonstrate effective written, oral and visual communication.
Empirical and Quantitative Skills – Students will demonstrate applications of scientific and mathematical concepts.
Teamwork – Students will demonstrate the ability to work effectively with others to support a shared purpose or goal and consider different points of view.
Social Responsibility – Students will demonstrate intercultural competency and civic knowledge by engaging effectively in local, regional, national and global communities.
Personal Responsibility – Students will demonstrate the ability to connect choices, actions and consequences to ethical decision-making.
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GENERAL EDUCATION REQUIREMENTS
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| |
AA, AS, AAT
Degrees1
|
AAS
Degree
|
Communication
ENGL 1301: Composition I
ENGL 1302: Composition II
Speech Communication* |
3
3
3
|
3
3
|
Social/Behavioral Sciences
HIST 1301: United States History I |
3
3
3
3
3
|
3
|
| HIST 1302: United States History II |
| GOVT 2305: United States Government |
| GOVT 2306: Texas Government |
| |
| Elective* |
Natural Science/Mathematics
Mathematics*
Natural Science* |
3
8
|
3
|
Humanities/Fine Arts
Humanities*
Visual and Performing Arts* |
3
3
|
3
|
Lifetime Fitness
Any PHED course numbered 1101-2127, except 1123, 1124 & 1125 |
1
|
|
| |
42
|
15
|
1These requirements constitute the core curriculum as required by the State of Texas.
*As specified in individual curricula or selected from the General Education Course List. |
The General Education requirements for the AA, AS and AAT degrees as displayed in the preceding chart make up the “Core Curriculum” as required by the State of Texas. Amarillo College’s 42 credit hour core will transfer to any Texas state college or university and satisfy 42 credit hours of that institution’s core curriculum requirement. Likewise, course credits totaling less than 42 credit hours will transfer and count towards the core curriculum requirements at the receiving institution in the appropriate categories.
Assessment of Student Experiences
Amarillo College - enriching the lives of our students and our community. AC’s mission of enriching lives necessitates assessment of student achievement and performance. Therefore, an Assessment Committee of faculty and staff guide the assessment efforts at AC. As stipulated in Amarillo College’s Principles of Assessment “1) The intent of assessment at Amarillo College is to improve “the educational, cultural and community services”. 2) Outcomes assessments focus on achieving continuous improvement in educational programs and administrative and educational support services rather than identifying these programs’ success or failure.”
Data collected from these assessment activities will be analyzed at the aggregate level – not by individual students. Therefore, any student who participates in any assessment activity will not have a course graded, graduation eligibility or overall grade point average affected by this participation. AC’s Principles of Assessment also stipulate that “5) Whenever possible, the methodologies for assessing outcomes will be inconspicuous to students or others who are being assessed. 6) Whenever possible, submissions used for assessment will come from existing assignments instead of ones specially created for outcomes assessment. What we assess will be what we already do.”