Seattle Central Community College - Instructional Assessment Team

Seattle Central Community College
Assessment Matters

Examples of Program Learning Outcomes
Page updated April 19, 2006

for Bridgewater State College Programs, Bridgewater, Massachusetts
http://www.bridgew.edu/AssessmentGuidebook/outcomes.cfm

Learning Outcomes for BSC's Communication Studies Program
All students graduating from the Communication Studies Program should:
1. Possess the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and communicate information in a variety of contexts.
2. Understand the historical dimensions and development of the discipline.
3. Have acquired competence in reflective construction and analysis of argument and discourse intended to influence beliefs, attitudes, values, and practices.
4. Understand the role of media and other communication technologies in enabling, facilitating, and challenging the social constructions of cultural understandings, ideologies, and values.
5. Be able to develop, conduct, evaluate, and report communication research.
6. Have acquired competence as oral communicators and effective listeners in a variety of contexts.
7. Be able to communicate effectively in a culturally diverse world.
8. Have an awareness of the professional ethical standards involved in communication.

Learning Outcomes for BSC's Dance Program
The Dance Program is shaped for dance education, and includes components directed specifically at teaching dance. As a liberal arts program it also prepares students for advanced work. The following general program objectives focus on dance learning. They are stated as program level learning outcomes.
a) Students will be able to demonstrate proficiency in a variety of dance styles, including ballet, modern dance, jazz, and tap dance.
b) Students will demonstrate a working knowledge of choreography and will be able to create a dance work.
c) Students will demonstrate a working knowledge of production techniques, including technical theatre, management, and costuming.
d) Students will demonstrate an understanding and appreciation for the principal historical, theoretical, and critical approaches to dance as a performing art.
e) Students will demonstrate an understanding and appreciation for dance as a multicultural expression.
f) Students will demonstrate an understanding and appreciation for dance education in the private and public sectors.

Learning Outcomes for BSC’s Undergraduate English Program
Majors should be able to demonstrate:
1. knowledge of works from different periods and genres within the evolving canon of English language texts, including but not limited to texts by women, African Americans, other ethnic and racial minorities, Anglophone authors, and gay and lesbian authors.
2. knowledge of various critical and theoretical approaches to texts.
3. in their own texts, and understanding of the writing process and of the roles of audience, purpose, and various rhetorical forms.
4. the ability to analyze and interpret the texts of others as well as their own, recognize the contexts in which they are written, and understand the ways in which texts and contexts interact.
5. the ability to write coherent, organized, well-developed, and substantive texts that follow the conventions of standard written English.
6. in their own texts, the ability to locate, evaluate, and cite primary source material, literary criticism, theory, and other scholarly texts relevant to the profession.

Learning Outcomes for BSC’s Physics Program
These skills are emphasized in several of our [Physics] courses so that students have multiple opportunities to learn them throughout their physics experience at BSC:

Basic knowledge of the major fields of physics
Mathematical and analytical problem solving skills
Students should be able to use calculus to solve problems in physics by
a) Drawing a suitable diagram with appropriate labels
b) Identifying the basic physical principle (or principles) that are involved, listing the knowns and unknowns.
c) Selecting a relationship or derive an equation that can be used to find the unknowns, and solve the equation for the unknown symbolically.
d) Obtaining a numerical value for the unknown.
e) Being able to check your answer with boundary conditions (does it make sense) and are the units correct.
Experimental skills
Students should have basic experimental skills that include
a) experiment design
b) data collection
c) notebook recording
d) data analysis, including error analysis
Information handling skills
Prioritizing information and gleaning most important points.
Computing proficiency
Basic programming skills that are portable to any programming language as well as experience with data collection and analysis software.
Communication skills
Students should have experience with communicating scientific and technical information through both written and oral presentations.
Scientific method and approach
Organizational skills
To handle the rigor and discipline it takes to be a good scientist – time management, meeting deadlines, focus and staying power, appropriately utilizing other resources, etc.
Personal/interpersonal skills

Learning Outcomes for BSC's Political Science Program
Political Methodology: Students will improve their knowledge and understanding of the scientific method, technological applications, and basic research techniques and approaches used by political scientists, including qualitative and quantitative methods, the comparative method, experimental design and survey research.
Comparative Politics: Students will improve their knowledge and understanding of the different types of governmental and political structures, institutions, processes, and perspectives that exist in the world today and that existed in the past.
U.S. Politics: Students will improve their knowledge and understanding of governmental and political structures, institutions, processes, and perspectives—and their respective historical evolution—at the local, state, and national levels.
International Politics: Students will improve their knowledge and understanding of the major international structures, institutions, processes, and perspectives that affect social, economic, and political relations among global actors.
Political Philosophy: Students will improve their knowledge and understanding of the major works and ideas of important political thinkers from Plato to the present, and how those ideas apply to current political issues and events in the world.
Intellectual Skills: Throughout all coursework, students will improve their ability to critically analyze and evaluate the merit of ideas and arguments, to reason and think logically, and to express their views—in both oral and written form—using concise, coherent and grammatically correct prose.
Civic Engagement: Students will improve their knowledge and understanding of how civic engagement and political participation are important components to successful democratic government.

Learning Outcomes for BSC's Theatre Program
Analysis: Literature, Criticism, Theory
1. Familiarity with a diverse body of dramatic literature of different genre, style, period, and cultures.
2. Understand principal critical approaches to dramatic production.
3. Developed analytical abilities for understanding meaning and structure in dramatic works.
4. Familiarity with the means by which the elements of production can establish and reinforce the concepts and meaning of a script.

Technology/Design/Management/Production
1. Understanding of and basic facility in the principles, theories, processes, organization, and techniques of costume, scenic, and lighting design.
2. Guided practical experience in planning, preparation, and organization in each of stage production, costume, theatre management, and production management areas.
3. Understanding of the fundamentals of specialized technology and theory as it applies to theatre.
4. Fundamental skill in representing design and technical ideas.
5, Fundamental skills associated with the commercial aspects of theatrical production: publicity, programs, financing, ticket sales, house management.

Performance
1. Understanding of the established approaches to acting.
2. Developed awareness of proper vocal and movement techniques and habits for performers.
3. Facility in character and scene analysis.
4. An introduction to the technical skills, communication skills, and various duties necessary for the stage director.

Cultural and Historical Context
1. A familiarity with the widely accepted view of theatrical practices, trends, conventions, and criticism, throughout the western world from the Greeks to the present.
2. An awareness of the trends, problems, issues of contemporary theatre, and the practical matter surrounding careers in contemporary theatre.

Scholarly Skills
1. Preparation for continual learning through research skills, critical analysis, group discussion, and disciplined writing.