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Student Learning Outcomes - Overview

Page history last edited by Rachayita Shah 10 months, 4 weeks ago

Front Page / Assessment / Student Learning Outcomes / Overview

 

 

 

Student Learning Outcomes


Overview  |  Guides  |  Campus Examples  |  Documents to Download


 

Content:


 

At the core, colleges and universities aim to educate students. Nearly every institution has some reference to a public purpose in its mission statement. In that mission statement, there are often references to intended outcomes that tie to citizenship, leadership, ethics, or other ways that their graduates will lead meaningful lives and make contributions to the broader society. 

 

Yet, not every campus center (for community engagement) has articulated a formal set of student learning outcomes and an assessment plan for measuring them. Doing so is a good idea. Earning the highest accolades for campus community engagement, such as the Carnegie Community Engagement Classification, requires showing the integration of assessment and evaluation. 

 

Integrating student learning outcomes is also likely to show positive results, as well as undergird continuous improvement. The adoption of these and other learning outcomes across the Bonner Network has been supported by various initiatives including the Bonner High-Impact Initiative and Community-Engaged Learning Initiative. Nearly two-thirds of the 24 campuses involved in the Bonner High-Impact Initiative between 2011-2014 worked on developing and formalizing student learning outcomes. As they did this, and the Bonner Foundation also looked at common outcome areas across civic engagement, a number of key themes have been identified.

 

Additionally, many centers have embarked on projects, especially in conjunction with strategic planning, to identify and clarify the learning outcomes associated with their programs and work. In 2022, the American Association of Colleges and Universities published this new meta-report entitled The Effects of

Community-Based and Civic Engagement in Higher Education, which summarizes the plethora of outcomes that various large scale studies have found. 

 

We encourage you to reflect on these as your campus and center develops student learning outcomes. While the language used may ultimately vary to fit your particular institutional context, these themes do indeed reflect the evolution of the broader field of academic and co-curricular community engagement.

 

Download copy of the Bonner Program (Student) Learning Outcomes.

 

This rubric includes outcomes and metrics from several rubrics available from the Association of American Colleges and Universities and its VALUE Initiative. Bonner Foundation staff (Ariane Hoy) was part of the faculty team involved in the development of the Civic Engagement, Civic Values, Civic Knowledge, and Integrative Learning rubrics.

 

 

 

Bonner Program (Student) Learning Outcomes


Over the past decade, the Bonner Foundation and colleges and universities in its network have begun to formalize a set of learning outcomes connected to the co-curricular, curricular, and integrative experiences associated with its four-year civic engagement program. This rubric draws on rubrics developed as part of the VALUE initiative of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education, and the Western Michigan University’s Self Care Rubric. Below are the outcomes and the highest (capstone) level expression of them.

 

Click here to download the handout of the Bonner Program Learning Outcomes.

 

The Bonner Program Learning Outcomes Rubric is designed to make civic learning outcomes more explicit. Civic engagement can take many forms, from individual volunteerism to organizational involvement to electoral participation. For Bonner Scholars and Leaders, students often engage in service, site-based capacity building, community-based learning, relevant coursework, and community-based research. Thus, multiple types of work samples or collections of work may be assessed using this rubric. 

 

 

Click here to download the rubric for the Bonner Program Learning Outcomes. 

 

 

Bonner Skill Set 


First developed in 2003-04 through collaborative efforts of students, campus administrators, community partners in the Bonner network and Foundation staff, the Bonner Skill Sets were created to connect to and complement both the Common Commitments and the Student Development Model. It is the hope that every Bonner graduate will have increased their mastery and grown in their ability in each of the skills listed below after four years in the Program.  To facilitate student achievement,  we have developed an extensive series of training modules which can be found on and downloaded from our Bonner Civic and Community Engagement Trainings.

 

Personal Skills Leadership Skills Professional Skills
  • Active Listening
  • Balance/Boundaries
  • Communication
  • Decision Making
  • Organization
  • Planning
  • Reflection
  • Time Management
  • Goal Setting
  • Conflict Resolution
  • Delegation
  • Planning
  • Public Speaking
  • Running a Meeting
  • Teamwork
  • Working with Diverse Groups
  • Budgeting
  • Evaluation/Research
  • Event Planning
  • Fundraising
  • Grant Writing
  • Marketing/Public Relations
  • Mediation
  • Networking
  • Public Education/Advocacy
  • Volunteer Management 

 

 

Knowledge Areas


The following knowledge areas were identified as topics to educate and broaden students' understanding of the often complex issues they may confront during their direct service experiences.  Through the following lenses, students may examine root causes, which policy options work well and which do not, and what may be needed for long-term solutions: 

 

  • Public Policy
    • Structure and roles of government
    • Ways to be involved in shaping public policy
    • Analyzing the implications of governmental policies
  • Poverty
    • Roots and conditions of poverty
    • Implications
    • Possible solutions
  • International Perspective and Issues
    • Worldwide distribution of wealth
    • Global distribution of food
    • Health care
    • Environmental concerns
  • Issue-based knowledge
    • Connected to direct service areas, such as of homelessness or hunger
  • Place-based knowledge
    • Connected to the community where the student is serving, such as knowledge of local context, history, economics, politics, and issues 

 

Bonner Civic and Community Engagement Trainings include modules that address a number of these topics.