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Examples of Learning Outcomes for BSC Programs

Anthropology, Biology, BSC Core Curriculum (pdf), Chemistry, Communicaton Disorders, Communication Studies, Criminal Justice, Dance, Earth Science, English, Foreign Languages, History, Music, Philosophy, Physics, Political Science, Social Work, Theatre Arts

Anthropology
Cultural Anthropology: Students will be able to "describe, analyze, compare and contrast socio-cultural data from diverse cultural settings."
Public Archeology: Students will be able to "recover, analyze, and describe past cultural materials within an explicitly anthropological framework, incorporating models derived from cultural anthropology as well as related fields such as geography, biology, history."

Biology
Content knowledge as evidenced by an assessment of the conceptual knowledge of course content.
Technical abilities and appropriate use of scientific equipment to complement content knowledge and solidify concepts and ideas.
Proficiency in expressing scientific content in the written form.
Ability to apply scientific method and to use equipment specific to concentration area.
Ability to apply the proper statistical test to a data set.
Improved confidence and student attitudes toward science.

Chemistry
1. Factual Knowledge: Students will have a working knowledge of chemical principles and a mastery of a broad set of factual chemical knowledge concerning the properties of atoms, molecules, and substances
2. Problem Solving: Students will be able to solve chemical problems by:
  a) Integrating knowledge from different courses
  b) Integrating classroom knowledge and laboratory skills
  c) Applying fundamental mathematics
  d) Developing and evaluating multiple approaches to arrive at an optimum solution
  e) Collaboration and teamwork
3. Laboratory/Instrumentation Techniques: Students will be able to understand and apply the following skills in experimental design and analysis:
  a) Accurate preparation of solutions
  b) Accurate and complete record keeping
  c) Quantitative measurements
  d) Separation techniques
  e) Spectroscopic methods
  f) Modern synthetic methods
  g) Chemical hygiene and safety
  h) Use of computers
  i) Statistical analysis
4. Communication Skills (writing, oral, and gathering information): Students will be able to communicate chemical knowledge and results through:
  a) Oral presentations
  b) Written presentations with appropriate use of electronic media
5. Research Techniques: Students participating in undergraduate research will be able to:
  a) Search bibliographic and other databases
  b) Learn to organize, interpret, and report results
  c) Develop a hypothesis and design experiments to test it
  d) Develop independence and confidence
  e) Develop an awareness of moral and ethical issues

Communication Disorders
Academic Goals
Academic goals apply to all students enrolled in the Communication Disorders program.
1. Develop the student’s understanding and knowledge of the normal processes of speech, language, and communication development across the lifespan.
2. Develop the student’s understanding and knowledge of disordered processes of speech, language, and communication across the lifespan.
3. Develop the student’s understanding and knowledge of prevention, assessment, and treatment of speech, language, and communication disorders across the lifespan.
4. Develop the student’s understanding and knowledge of multicultural issues as they relate to speech, language, and communication development and disorders.
Instill in the student the desire to maintain a curiosity in the dynamics of the profession by encouraging continuing education and professional development.
5. Develop the student’s ability to integrate and apply theoretical knowledge gained in academic coursework into the clinical situation.
6. Establish the student’s awareness of multicultural issues as they relate to the provision of clinical services to clients and families from diverse cultural backgrounds.
7. Establish the student’s ability to provide clinical services and engage in professional behavior in accordance with the ASHA Code of Ethics.

Clinical Goals
Clinical goals apply to those students who qualify by grade point average and permission of faculty to elect to participate in clinical practicum courses during their senior year. This option is limited to those seniors who not only meet the academic requirements, but, began the program during their sophomore year.
1. Establish and develop the student’s clinical skills consistent with the ASHA Scope of Practice relating to screening, identifying, assessing, interpreting, diagnosing, treating, and preventing disorders of communication.
2. Establish and develop the student’s ability to plan and implement appropriate treatment programs for children with speech, language, and hearing disorders.
3. Establish and develop the student’s ability to interact effectively with other professionals, paraprofessionals, clients, and their families while engaging in the clinical practice of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology.
4. Instill in the student the desire to maintain a commitment to ongoing refinement of clinical skills.

Communication Studies
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.

Criminal Justice
Learning objectives for the master's program include understanding of crime causation and behavior; critical thinking; research skills; understanding competing perspectives; communication skills; applied scientific and IT skills; problem-solving skills; diversity; intersection between social and criminal justice issues.

Dance
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.

Earth Science
1. Characterize geologic materials.
2. Working knowledge of analytical techniques.
3. Construct and read maps.
4. Understanding of earth history.
5. Effective communication.
6. Application of basic sciences.
7. Interpretation of data.
8. Basic field skills.

English
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.

Foreign Languages
1. Teach critical methodologies necessary to interpret and appreciate literary and other kinds of texts, thus enabling students to develop critical and analytical skills.
2. Enable students to develop the five skills necessary for fluency in foreign languages: reading, writing, speaking, listening, and cultural competency.
3. Provide opportunities for students to enhance their foreign language competency and their understanding and appreciation of foreign languages through study abroad.
4. Work with our School of Education to prepare students for careers in foreign language pedagogy in Massachusetts and the region.

History
Promotion of awareness of cultural diversity past and present, a thorough grounding in the historical experience of broad areas of the globe, exposure to historical methodologies, encouragement to students to pursue personalized areas of study, and emphasis on the study of world history.

Music
1. Help majors strive for excellence in performance.
2. Ensure students have a solid grounding in music theory and history.
3. Offer opportunities for creativity, technological exploration, and exposure to world music.
4. Prepare majors for graduate study and pursuit of professional endeavors.

Philosophy
Majors in philosophy are expected to achieve the following specific outcomes:

Outcome 1: Philosophy and its History

Outcome 2: Logical Reasoning

Outcome 3: Understanding of the bearing philosophy has on other disciplines and conversely

Outcome 4: Cultivation of Intellectual Values

Physics
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

Political Science
Undergraduate
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.

Graduate
The learning objectives of the MPA program are to improve students':
1. understanding of the institutional structures and political perspectives of federal, state, and local bureaucracies;
2. ability to synthesize the theoretical underpinnings of public administration with the practical content of their own public service work, or the public service effort in which they intend to seek a career;
3. ability to develop and implement research designs using a variety of research techniques such as surveys, focus groups, secondary data, and field research;
4. understanding and appreciation of the breadth of the policy analysis field, including economics-based approaches, group deliberation approaches, and time sensitive analysis and evaluation;
5. understanding of the basis for effective budget requests and analytical support for budgetary items;
6. understanding of the wide range of personnel issues and skills in decision-making processes with respect to principles of management control, ethics, and diversity; and
7. knowledge of various theories of organization that describe how and why organizations work as they do, and then further develop their ability to apply concepts to real-world situations.

Social Work (Graduate)
Critical thinking skills.
Understand the value of the profession and its ethical standards and practices.
Practice without discrimination.
Understand forms and mechanisms of oppression and apply strategies of advocacy and social change.
Understand the history of the profession and its current structure, and connect those to professional practice.
Apply knowledge and skills to practice.
Use theoretical frameworks supported by empirical evidence.
Assess human needs, influence social policies, and work within social and political institutions.
Evaluate and apply research findings.
Use assessment and communication skills across different populations.
Use supervision and consultation appropriate to the practice.
Function within organizations and service delivery systems and seek organizational change when necessary.

Theatre Arts
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.

Last Modified: June 5, 2008

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Examples of Learning Outcomes for BSC Programs