Germanna General Education: Past Success & Future Vision

Students met benchmarks in nearly every learning outcome across Civic Engagement, Critical Thinking, Professional Readiness, Quantitative Literacy, Scientific Literacy, and Written Communication.

Standout strengths included:

• Professional Readiness: 80%
• Quantitative Literacy: 79%
• Scientific Literacy: 71%
• Intercultural Fluency (pilot): 86.7%

These results reflect strong preparation for transfer pathways and Virginia’s workforce.

Germanna created and piloted a new, equity-centered competency developed from the Truth & Reconciliation Strategic Plan.

• 1,286+ students participated
• 86.7% success rate
• Will be fully implemented for the 2027–28 assessment

Germanna is the only VCCS college with this competency.

Faculty designed outcomes, rubrics, assessments, and analysis strategies, making this a collaborative effort across the entire college.

This approach continues in the 2025–2030 plan.

Germanna’s GEAC updated outcomes to better reflect:

• Skills-based learning expectations
• First- and second-year developmental progression
• Workplace readiness & transfer alignment

Major revisions include:

• Critical Thinking: Stronger focus on process (context, assumptions, reasoning) rather than just outcomes.
• Written Communication: Removal of “dual-action” scoring for 6.2 to avoid all-or-nothing penalties.
• Civic Engagement: New co-curricular assessment partnerships to improve data quality.

Germanna re-envisioned Professional Readiness to align with the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) framework.

New outcomes focus on:

• Leadership (strategic thinking)
• Professionalism (ethics & integrity)
• Teamwork (collaboration)
• Technology (technology awareness)

This shift strengthens the college’s Work-Based Learning ecosystem.

Based on lessons from 2019–24, Germanna created uniform rubrics with:

• 4-level scoring (Invalid, Insufficient, Sufficient, Proficient)
• Observable indicators
• Parallel language
• GenAI & academic integrity flags

These support consistent, equitable scoring across all disciplines.

The new plan improves data quality through:

• Canvas-based assessment collection
• Standardized CSV extraction
• Easier disaggregation by:
  • Modality (traditional, hybrid, synchronous, asynchronous)
  • Session length (15w, 12w, 7w, 5w)
  • Special populations (Dual Enrollment, Early College, College Everywhere)

This shift directly responds to limitations from the prior plan.