Philosophy

General Education at Northwestern Michigan College promotes the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to function effectively in a changing world. This fosters intellectual curiosity, essential to lifelong learning.

Outcomes

To ensure students experience the benefits of our philosophy of general education, the faculty of NMC commits to instilling these practices throughout the curriculum.

Communication: Students will practice effective communication with an awareness of audience and sense of purpose.

Critical Thinking: Students will skillfully conceptualize, apply, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate information gathered from observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication.

Quantitative Reasoning: Students will accurately use numbers, symbols, measurements, properties, and the relationships of quantities to make sound decisions, judgments, and/or predictions.

Assessment

General Education outcomes are measured in several ways:

• Each year faculty members assess student achievement of the General Education Outcomes their courses support.
• The Office of Research, Planning & Effectiveness aggregates institutional data so that faculty and departments can assess the level of achievement represented by the student work.
• Graduates are surveyed annually and are asked to provide their perceptions of achieving the General Education Outcomes.
• The faculty and teaching staff are charged with using the results of assessment to make curricular improvements.