Faculty Guidelines

General education at Daytona State College constitutes the academic preparation for participation in a pluralistic society and global community and is the basis for lifelong learning. It is a framework for the acquisition and use of broad bodies of knowledge and a foundation of intellectual, social, and ethical skills and behaviors. Through the general education curriculum, students will acquire the skills necessary for:

• Critical/Creative Thinking
• Communication
• Cultural Literacy
• Information and Technical Literacy

General education requirements comprise an important part of the hours necessary for the associate of arts and associate of science degrees.

Daytona State College considers the knowledge, skills and attitudes cultivated by the general education curriculum vital for educated people in our society.

Identification of appropriate learning outcomes for each degree level. All academic programs, regardless of delivery mode (face-to-face or distance education) measure outcomes at the institutional, program, and course levels. The desired level of attainment of each institutional learning outcome varies depending on the level of the degree. Using The Degree Qualifications Profile developed by the Lumina Foundation as a model, DSC faculty identify expected competencies for each institutional learning outcome within each degree level. These competencies indicate what students should be able to demonstrate if they are awarded a college-credit, vocational, applied technology, or apprenticeship certificate, an associate degree, or a baccalaureate degree (Academic Degree Profile). Faculty agreed that these outcomes would be met at different levels depending on the degree.

The academic degree profile provided the framework for aligning program outcomes with the institutional learning outcomes. The document provided reference points that indicated the incremental and cumulative nature of learning for certificates, associate of science, associate of arts, and bachelor's degree graduates. The outcomes emphasized the integration and application of learning. They were cumulative in nature, so it could be assumed that students advancing to a higher degree had achieved outcomes identified for lower-level degree programs. Using the Lumina Foundation’s Academic Degree Profile model required faculty to define what it takes for a student to earn a degree at each level. The result is a better alignment of institutional outcomes with program outcomes, reference points for accountability, and benchmarks for improving the quality of learning.

As faculty develop the academic degree profiles for each academic level, they discuss the inter-relationship of institutional, program, and course learning outcomes. Through these discussions, they develop a deeper understanding of institutional learning outcomes as the collective expression of the learning environment the college offers. They recognize the extent each academic program contributes to the overall achievement of students. DSC faculty make sure that program and course learning outcomes focus on the more particular skills, knowledge, and attitudes that students learn in programs and courses.

Using the Academic Degree Profile as a guide, each academic program maps its program and course outcomes to the institutional learning outcomes. This ensures that students attain the knowledge, skills, and abilities the college expects of its graduates.

(a) Vocational Certificate

Logical Reasoning:

• Describes the scope and principal features of the student’s chosen field of study, applying core theories and practices using appropriate terminology.
• Uses methodical analysis to solve problems.
• Participates in work-based learning experiences

Quantitative Reasoning:

• Demonstrates computational operations and processes appropriate to the field.
• Demonstrates an understanding of field-related trends and fluctuations.
• Uses field-related data effectively and accurately.

(b) Associate of Science Degree and College Credit Certificate

Logical Reasoning:

• Describes how existing knowledge or practice is advanced, tested, and revised.
• Describes a range of diverse perspectives and their significance both within the field and in society.
• Executes analytical, practical, or creative tasks while using core concepts of the field.
• Cites and documents core theories and practices when analyzing information.
• Manipulates information for the purpose of formulating a perspective and communicating it effectively.

Problem Solving and Decision-Making:

• Selects and applies recognized methods of the field in interpreting characteristic discipline-based problems.
• Gathers, analyzes, and applies evidence relevant to characteristic problems in the field.
• Compares, contrasts, and interprets situations and challenges facing the related field of study.
• Demonstrates effective decision-making using field related ideas, concepts, and theories.

Scientific Reasoning:

• Utilizes theory-based inquiry, experimentation, and evaluation to produce a methodical and systematic approach to real world applications.
• Effectively communicates abstract field-related concepts and theories to diverse audiences.

Quantitative Reasoning:

• Effectively collects and generates data to make predictions and assess outcomes.
• Communicates data via essays, presentations, reports, and demonstrations.

(c) Associate of Arts Degree

Logical Reasoning:

• Evaluates arguments for their logic, validity, relevance, and strength.
• Analyzes information to determine its quality and utility.
• Constructs questions in a selected area of study and recognizes differences between theories and or practical approaches

Qualitative Reasoning:

• Uses subject matter acquired in course and applies to real world situations/affairs.

Problem Solving and Decision-Making:

• Makes informative choices to solve complex issues/problems by analyzing material, options, and consequences.
• Applies tools, technologies, and methods common to the field of study to solve problems.

Scientific Reasoning:

• Draws conclusions using scientific methodology obtained through proficiency in field-related approaches

Quantitative Reasoning:

• Demonstrates proficiency in interpreting quantitative data through use of graphs, visuals, depictions of trends, and relationship changes.

(d) Bachelor’s Degree or Advanced Certificate

Logical Reasoning:

• Distinguishes the boundaries and major subfields, styles, and/or practices in the field.
• Considers intersections between chosen and related fields.
• Creates a field-related project by independently assembling, arranging, and reformulating ideas, concepts, designs and/or techniques.
• Clarifies a complex question using perspectives and scholarship drawn from the student’s major field.

Problem Solving and Decision-Making:

• Evaluates theories and approaches to complex standard and non-standard problems within chosen field of study.
• Investigates a complex problem in field of study, and articulates the reforming of ideas, concepts, and techniques.

Scientific Reasoning:

• Creates a substantial field-based project related to the major course of study.
• Employs and collaborates with others to form insights.
• Uses core concepts, methods, and field assumptions to evaluate a significant question or particular challenge both inside and outside the classroom.

Quantitative Reasoning:

• Translates verbal problems into mathematical algorithms and constructs valid mathematical arguments.

(a) Vocational Certificate

• Describes contemporary terminology appropriate to the field.
• Generates products, reconstructions, data, or performances as appropriate to the field.
• Applies oral and written communication skills in creating, expressing, and interpreting information and ideas appropriate to field.
• Demonstrates an ability to communicate effectively with the team.
• Exhibits leadership and teamwork skills needed to accomplish team goals appropriate to the field.
• Verbalizes a sustained argument or explication with chosen type of audience.

(b) Associate of Science Degree and College Credit Certificate

• Presents substantially error-free prose in both argumentative and narrative forms to general and specialized audiences.
• Generates substantially error-free products, reconstructions, data, service delivery, exhibits or performances as appropriate to the field.
• Applies contemporary terminology appropriate to the field.
• Uses effective interactive communication with intended audiences.

(c) Associate of Arts Degree

• Demonstrates reading comprehension and active listening.
• Uses effective interpersonal communication. 
• Utilizes effective public communication in semiformal and formal settings.
• Writes with coherence, clarity, and purpose in relation to an appropriately targeted audience.  
• Executes communication in a focused, developed, organized, coherent, unified, and correct manner. 
• Effectively sustains an argument or narrative for a target audience.

(d) Bachelor’s Degree or Advanced Certificate

• Properly uses specialized terms used in the field, both historical and contemporaneous.
• Presents a project, paper, exhibit, performance, or other appropriate demonstration that links knowledge and/or skills acquired in work, community and/or research activities with knowledge acquired in one or more disciplines.
• Explains in both writing and verbally how elements were combined in the product to shape its intended meaning or findings.
• Employs appropriate citations to validate the relationship of the product to literature in its field.
• Negotiates with one or more collaborators to advance an oral argument by presenting an approach to resolving a social, personal, or ethical dilemma.

(a) Vocational Certificate

• Describes an understanding of cultural differences as they apply to the field. 
• Describes the importance of professional ethics and legal responsibilities as they apply to the field. 
• Describes their own civic and cultural background, including its origins and development, assumptions, and predispositions.

(b) Associate of Science Degree and College Credit Certificate

• Describes how knowledge from different cultural perspectives would affect interpretations of prominent problems in politics, society, the arts, and/or global relations.
• Describes diverse positions, historical and contemporary, on selected democratic values or processes, and presents a position on a specific topic.
• Recognizes the value of serving and being a part of the local, state, and national community.
• Discusses resolutions for the civic issues present in prominent problems in politics, economics, healthcare, technology, or the arts.

(c) Associate of Arts Degree

• Demonstrates knowledge of, respect for, and sensitivity towards individuals of diverse ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation, and religious affiliations as well as towards those individuals with diverse abilities and from varied socio-economic classes.
• Demonstrates an awareness of populations and countries worldwide by practicing social responsibility.
• Portrays understanding that personal goals prepare for citizenship and contribute to the economy of society.
• Demonstrates aesthetic values and artistic endeavors across diverse cultures.
• Recognizes variations of human behavior and interdependence between culture and the social environment.
• Describes diverse positions, historical and contemporary on selected political values or practices.

(d) Bachelor’s Degree or Advanced Certificate 

• Describes knowledge from different cultural perspectives as related to various academic fields. 
• Explains diverse positions, including those of different cultural, economic, and geographic interests on an issue, and evaluates the issue in light of both those interests and evidence drawn from primary, secondary, or scholarly resources.
• Collaborates with others in composing an approach to civic issues, reflecting on the strengths and weaknesses of the process. 

(a) Vocational Certificate

• Defines information technology and associated vocabulary.
• Uses information technology tools.
• Demonstrates proficiency using technology appropriate to field.

(b) Associate of Science Degree and College Credit Certificate

• Identifies multiple information resources necessary to participate in projects, papers, or assignments within the program.
• Categorizes evidence on a relevant research topic.
• Addresses a course-related question or a question of practice in a work or community setting.
• Offers sophisticated hypotheses in answering course-related questions.

(c) Associate of Arts Degree

• Evaluates relevant resources and data.
• Uses appropriate technologies to conduct and/or present independent or collaborative inquiry and research.
• Documents resources accurately and appropriately to the field.
• Demonstrates ethical use of information, social media, and/or networking.
• Navigates within a digital environment.

(d) Bachelor’s Degree or Advanced Certificate

• Exhibits fluency in the use of tools, technologies, and methods common to the field.
• Designs a comprehensive project, paper, performance, or practice-based performance that draws from current research, scholarship and/or techniques in the field.
• Incorporates multiple information resources presented in different media and/or different languages, in projects, papers or performances, with accurate and appropriate citation format.
• Evaluates the reliability and credibility of resources.
• Demonstrates proficiency using information resources with advanced search strategies to complete projects, papers, or performances.