Examples of Learning Outcomes

Columbian College of Arts and Sciences

American Studies 101: Early American Cultural History
As a result of completing this course, students will be able to:

• Analyze competing interpretations of cultural history and to create their own analyses of primary documents;
• Write clearly and cogently in their analytical papers about secondary sources and primary documents;
• Analyze cultural artifacts such as paintings, material objects, and buildings;
• Understand a variety of American experiences in their analyses of different forms of cultural expression and relationships of power that are structured through culture;
• Work collegially as thinkers and cultural critics, particularly in their discussion sections.

Chemistry 151: Organic Chemistry I
Learning outcomes:

• Demonstrate analytic skills to solve complex problems (with organic molecules);

• Apply the concepts of electronegativity, VSEPR, hybridization, and the octet rule to draw Lewis structures and predictphysical and chemical properties;
• Name and draw organic molecules; identify functional groups;
• Recognize the concepts of (Bronsted and Lewis) acids and bases, electrophiles and nucleophiles to predict characteristic organic reactions;
• Analyze and evaluate the relationship of structure and reactivity;
• Describe and recognizethe characteristic reactions of functional groups; predict and designsynthetic pathways to create complex structures from simple compounds;
• Apply chemical (and eventually spectroscopic) data to predict structure. 

Math 51: Finite Mathematics for the Social and Management Sciences
As a result of completing this course, students should be able to:

• Understand the mathematics underlying the solutions of systems of linear equations and inequalities, financial math formulas, sets and principles of counting, and probability theory;
• Apply the mathematical theory to analyze and solve problems in the above areas;
• Use the problem solving skills learned in the course to formulate and analyze mathematical models in business, economics and the social and management sciences.

Psychology 13: Developmental Psychology
Throughout the semester students will be challenged to integrate theory and empirical research, and to apply research findings to real world issues. At the end of this course, students should be able to:

• Describe key developmental concepts and theories;
• Use  developmental theories to understand change and stability from infancy through adolescence;
• Use empirical research to evaluate the strengths and weakness of specific developmental theories.

Elliott School of International Affairs
IAFF 202: Ethics in International Affairs
Student Learning Outcomes. By mastering this course, the student should be able to:

• Distinguish between descriptive and normative assessments, descriptive and normative ethical relativism, and also distinguish between ethics and law;
• Know and comprehend numerous criteria for a good or adequate normative ethical theory;
• Know and be able to present, at least in summary fashion, eleven different normative ethical theories that have been proposed by philosophers;
• Recognize many different ethical problems or difficulties that occur in international affairs and analyze and evaluate some of those ethical difficulties or problems;
• Propose a solution to one or more of those ethical problems, using one or more of the received normative ethical theories, or some other ethical theory constructed by the student;
• Defend his/her solution to some ethical problems.

 

School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Computer Science 143: Software Engineering I
Course Outcomes.  In this course, students will:

• Design Java classes for a challenging problem involving multiple classes;
•  Demonstrate skill in problem-solving by going from complex word description to implementation;
• Understand objects: static and dynamic classes, interfaces, abstract classes, inheritance, polymorphism, constructors, Java’s object features and syntax, memory representation of objects;
• Experience programming in C;
• Understand application development: front-end, back-end, threads, networking;
• Understand the relationship of language features to static and dynamic memory

School of Business
BADM 76W:  Analysis of Business Issues
Learning Objectives:
A student who successfully completes this course will have demonstrated the ability to:

• Distinguish problems from symptoms in a business setting;
• Communicate information effectively and efficiently using conventions of writing in the discipline;
• Determine the appropriate form and tone for communication in various business settings
• Use general business terms appropriately;
• Use data from appropriate business information resources for a given issue
• Construct effective arguments given a set of facts;
• Understand the different ways to communicate with a variety of audiences and stakeholders;
• Revise messages and documents to best address intended audiences
• Give and receive objective, constructive feedback to and from peers and superiors; rethink & revise;
• Respond appropriately to feedback.

School of Public Health and Health Services
Public Health 172: Health and the Environment
Course Competencies for BSPH:

• Explain principles of epidemiology necessary to understand health and impairments of health including the uses of rates, the meaning of causation, and the evaluation of the effectiveness of interventions. Apply principles of epidemiology to reading research articles including case-control and cohort studies;
• Explain the impacts of the physical environment on health and use these explanations to understand human actions that alter, detect, and/or minimize these impacts;
• Explain the use of clinical and community interventions for assessing, protecting, and improving health and preventing, detecting, curing, and minimizing the impact of disease.

Course Learning Objectives:  Upon completion of the course, students will be able to:

• Understand the link between environmental health and public health;
• Understand the impact of human activity, such as air and water pollution, toxic substance use, overpopulation, on environmental health;
• Identify key actors in environmental health policy and anticipate their potential reaction to hazard assessment and control strategies;
• Use conceptual models to describe environmental health issues;
• Identify data sources for scientific information on environmental health topics;
• Describe several environmental health policy accomplishments and their impact on public health.