The Unified Theory/Framework of General Education:

From Learning Integration to Critical Thinking to Knowledge-Based Value Creation to Building Innovation Ecosystems

Joel L. Cuello, Ph.D.

Professor of Biosystems Engineering

The University of Arizona

cuelloj@arizona.edu

At the core of the undergraduate General Education program is liberal education, which the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), a global membership organization, defines as “an approach to undergraduate education that promotes integration of learning across the curriculum and co-curriculum, and between academic and experiential learning, in order to develop specific learning outcomes that are essential for work, citizenship, and life.” Among such learning outcomes include “knowledge and skills gained from a liberal education, providing a framework to guide students’ cumulative progress.” Specifically, they include critical thinking or higher thinking, making best practical decisions, arriving at most complete self in life and work, and civic engagement and participation.

The foregoing is echoed by the University of the Philippines’ “A Framework for General Education in the University of the Philippines in the 21st Century,” which provides that “the UP GE program must be liberal, holistic and integrative in orientation, developing not only measurable skills or competencies but, equally important, the capacity for and capabilities in critical and creative thinking and action.” Underscoring not only critical thinking, but also creative thinking and action, it further provides that “The UP GE program is a transformative education, enabling and encouraging students to take creative and constructive action that contributes to the improvement of their community, the nation, and the world, based on a strong sense of their cultural and historical identity as well as a sense of a shared humanity.”

To this end of fostering both critical thinking and creative and constructive thinking and action, the Unified Framework for General Education (aka the Unified Theory of General Education) is proffered here where -- irrespective of disciplinary rubric (i.e., natural or physical sciences, social sciences, economics, literature and the humanities, etc.) – the GE program is deliberately organized to progress through the following stages: (1) Knowledge assimilation, (2) Knowledge creation, (3) Knowledge-based value creation (or innovation), and (4) Innovation ecosystem building — with cross-disciplinary knowledge integration being an inherent and defining characteristic of each stage. Stage 2’s Knowledge creation is achieved through cross-disciplinary knowledge and learning integration chiefly by way of research. In Stage 3, “value” is defined as a benefit or a solution, which takes on specific practical embodiments depending on the disciplinary rubric (i.e., natural or physical sciences, social sciences, economics, literature and the humanities, etc.). Meanwhile, Stage 4’s Innovation ecosystem building serves as the ultimate goal toward which the first three stages are oriented. In this stage, “ecosystem” pertains to technological, economic, social, literary or political ecosystem, among others.

The practical implementation of the Unified Theory/Framework of General Education involves sorting GE courses into four classifications corresponding with the four Stages, namely – (1) KA for Knowledge Assimilation; (2) KC for Knowledge Creation (through knowledge integration/research); (3) KVC - Knowledge-Based Value Creation; and (4) IEB for Innovation Ecosystem Building. Each student may then be required to take -- by fiat or by self-choice -- x credits of KA courses, y credits of KC courses, and z credits of KVC courses plus one IEB course to serve as capstone GE course.

While global challenges and disruptions will remain a constant going forward, implementing the Unified Theory/Framework for General Education will foster among undergraduate students both critical thinking and creative and constructive thinking and action which are crucially and indispensably fundamental toward creating the needed innovations (i.e., technological, economic, social, literary, political, etc.) for effective adaptation to a fast-changing world.

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