The primary goal of the Workshop Biology course, as we believe should be true of all general education courses, is to improve students' decision-making abilities. We have found that improving students' decision-making abilities requires explicit attention to three factors: their epistemological perspectives and background knowledge, their critical thinking skills, and their values. We have developed a model of decision-making that describes these elements and the relationships between them, in order to better formulate clear objectives and understand barriers they and their students may face in achieving them.

Traditional models of student learning, as evidenced by traditional college teaching practice, have emphasized the acquisition of knowledge. Even when innovative teaching strategies are introduced, the primary goal is to enhance knowledge acquisition. Attention paid to students' motivations, personal interests, learning styles, and other characteristics often serves specifically to engage students' interest in the material and remove hindrances to learning it. These practices are critical to effective education; however, the model presented here should make it clear that conceptual learning is but one part of a larger whole.

Since we include process skills in the epistemology element of the model, the critical thinking element represents meta-level thinking, the means by which an individual evaluates his or her own thought processes. Critical reflection on one's values and ways of knowing, the other two elements of the model, are also important aspects of this kind of thinking.

How students value thinking and learning, different kinds of learning experiences, and the subject matter of different disciplines, affects everything they do in college and in their lives. They must be able to decide which problems are important enough to warrant their time and energy, and which of many alternative solutions are worth implementing. These are purely value judgments. Personal, social, and cultural values initiate and inform the decision-making process from beginning to end.

Important qualities of the model

• It represents a system, rather than a list, of educational goals, which are related in complex and mutually reinforcing ways. Particularly important is this system's ability to subsume the traditional distinction between content and process.
• All of the elements and their relationships represent potential dependent variables in the educational process, as opposed to the more common view of students' values and views of knowledge as independent variables, affecting students' learning but not themselves subject to reflection or change.
• The model works equally well for students and instructors. Instructors, too, need to be able to make sound instructional decisions based on their knowledge and epistemological perspectives, critical thinking skills, and values. This is the underlying philosophy of our dissemination efforts.
• Focusing on decision-making as the superordinate goal ensures that students' learning will be relevant to real-life concerns.

This model serves as the basis for all goals in the workshop course, which can be summed up in the following statement:

We want students to be able to make informed, critical decisions that are consistent with their values.