Recent changes to K-State 8 guidelines ensure students receive an adequate amount of “tagged content” in their courses, said Todd Easton, associate professor in engineering and co-chair of faculty senate’s academic affairs committee.
K-State 8 courses are separated into eight different groups with a specific “tag” to classify the category. The tags are: aesthetic interpretation, empirical and qualitative reasoning, ethical reasoning and responsibility, global issues and perspectives, historical perspectives, human diversity within the U.S., natural and physical sciences and social sciences.
Easton said the changes should help faculty members understand how much content needs to be incorporated into a class with a specific tag. When deciding whether a course can have a tag or not, faculty members must determine how much K-State 8 subject matter is in the course.
Related:
“Secretary
“When they propose a class, they look at it [and] say, ‘Does it have any of this content? Am I creating one credit hour worth of this content for my students?’ If it is, then — in a new class — you say ‘I want this tag on it,'” Easton said.
After a faculty member decides they want a tag on the class, the proposal goes through numerous boards and senates in order to gain approval for the tag.
The faculty senate unanimously approved the changes in June, but this does not affect the categories and tags on existing K-State 8 courses. Easton said the adjustments shouldn’t effect K-State 8 courses, because, hopefully, the classes already followed the content rules.
“There used to be a formula for it, and it was very difficult to understand — it was complicated,” said Easton. “What we deal with at the university is typically credit hours. So, the primary change was that every class that has a K-State 8 tag needs at least one credit hour worth of both content and grading in that tag.”
