What are program outcomes?
Program outcomes are clear statements of the knowledge, skills, and values (or attitudes) that students will develop as a result of participating in the core courses.
Strong outcomes are:
- Focused on what students will learn (knowledge, skills and values)
- Clear and concise
- Assessable (measurable)
- Appropriate to the characteristics/level of the students
- Complementary to or obtained within the core
How and why use program outcomes?
Program outcomes can express the School鈥檚 priorities using shared language. They can be a touchstone to inform future curricular decisions and help students progress. Specifically:
Program outcomes allow instructors and administrators to鈥�
- Identify common expectations for students in all paths/streams
- Clarify learning expectations for students
- For all core courses: guide decisions about course development
- Within a given course: guide decisions about course content, strategies & assessment
- Communicate with colleagues
Program outcomes allow students to...
- Clarify program opportunities and expectations
- Guide learning (focus, self-assessment)
- Communicate with prospective employers
Instructors are welcome to incorporate relevant program outcomes into your course syllabi.
What you can expect out of the program:
Upon completion of the seven core courses, students will be prepared to analyze and solve problems, communicate to inform and propel change, and acknowledge diversity as central to understanding the environment. Specifically, students will be able to鈥�
Analyze and address problems:
- Identify core problems and assumptions, and evaluate different perspectives on our socio-ecosystems (i.e., 鈥渢he environment鈥�).*
- Interrogate underlying assumptions and sources of information to navigate our complex and uncertain world.*
- Evaluate core social and natural science concepts pertaining to the environment.
- Identify emergent conditions and risks, then seek out relevant information and skills in a self-directed, reflexive manner.
- Consider the wellbeing of self and others in the face of complex environmental problems.
- Demonstrate familiarity with a variety of research designs and methods and then identify appropriate designs and methods when faced with a given problem.*
- Choose a specialized method from a specific field and demonstrate competency in it by applying it to a given problem.*
Acknowledge the importance of multiple ways of knowing as central to understanding the environment:
- Recognizing the importance of diverse disciplinary, socio-cultural, and embodied ways of knowing the environment.
- Analyze complex, interconnected socio-environmental systems and issues. Then, consider multidisciplinary, holistic approaches to addressing those issues.*
- Exploring the questions of social justice that intersect with environmental harms and the climate emergency.
- Drawing upon experiential learning to enrich environmental knowledge and to translate that knowledge into concrete actions or deliverables.
Communicate to inform, propel and lead change:
- Maintain and communicate a constructive view of the future.
- Employ appropriate teamwork and project management skills to engage and complete group projects.
- Clearly, effectively, and compellingly communicate information and understandings in written, visual, digital, and oral formats for varied audiences (e.g., policy, technical, public, friends & family) to motivate human environmental attitudes, actions, and changes at multiple levels.
- Be prepared to critique, influence and/or participate in transforming decision-making to preserve the environment while balancing human needs:
- By critiquing environmental decision-making and governance across multiple scales (such as local, regional, national, and global) to understand their interconnections and implications
- By engaging in environmental decision-making and governance at various scales (personal, community, regional, national, global etc.) as a changemaker.