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Student Outcomes Assessment
Overview | Guides | Campus Examples | Documents to Download
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 as it helps with intentional decision making and strategic planning. 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. We encourage you to reflect on these as your campus / 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.
Bonner Program (Student) Learning Outcomes
The Bonner Foundation and colleges and universities in its network have formalized a set of learning outcomes connected to the co-curricular, curricular, and integrative experiences associated with Bonner - the four-year civic engagement program. The image below represent the Bonner Program student learning outcomes that integrate the eight career-readiness competencies defined by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) as well as civic competencies.
Bonner Program Learning Outcomes handout
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 Bonner 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 Training includes modules that address a number of these topics.
