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Cal Poly Pomona

Student Expectations and Learning Outcomes

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Liberal Studies Student Expectations

Teaching and learning go hand in hand. That is, a teacher is only as effective as students are willing to invest in the learning process.

For this reason, the Liberal Studies faculty expects majors to be actively engaged and invested in their learning as they work to achieve the learning outcomes described below.

Here are the expectations of Liberal Studies students to be successful learners.

  1. Learning in all courses requires active and genuine commitment and investment to excellence; faculty and students are responsible for the learning that happens in the classroom.
  2. High levels of classroom participation is expected and includes coming prepared to class having done all reading and assignments and having spent time thinking about the readings and assignments to comment, to engage in discussion and to ask questions.
  3. Student should aim to possess self-discipline, self-motivation and intellectual curiosity to be strong classroom and life-long learners.
  4. Students should view themselves as learners and teachers and leaders in the classroom and on campus by helping peers, the professor and others understand material, discussions and other issues Liberal Studies students encounter.
  5. Students need to understand that their Liberal Studies education is more than vocational training but also encompasses the intrinsic human capacity to learn and to come to know, understand and improve the world around them.

Liberal Studies Learning Outcomes

  1. Students will be able to explain and identify basic approaches and methods of the humanities, social and natural sciences
    1. Students will be able to identify and explain recurring themes in the humanities, particularly fine and performing arts, literature and history.
    2. Students will be able to identify and explain major concepts in social sciences and/or natural sciences.
  2. Students will be able to use an interdisciplinary approach to understand and solve issues or problems.
    1. Students will be able to distinguish and make connections between knowledge in the humanities, natural and social sciences to understand and solve issues or problems.
    2. Students will be able to synthesize knowledge across the humanities, social and natural sciences to understand and solve issues or problems.
    3. Students will be able to apply recurring themes in humanities to understand and solve issues or problems.
    4. Students will be able to apply theory, concepts, and findings in social and natural sciences to understand and solve issues or problems.
  3. Students will be able to think critically, particularly inquiry, reasoning, and analysis.
  4. Students will be able to write at an academic level.
    1. Students will be able to write to support a position.
    2. Students will be able to write to analyze an issue.
    3. Students will be able to write to synthesize information.
  5. Students will be able to identify and explain a need for active civic participation in democracy.
  6. Students will be able to recognize and explain the importance of and need for advocating for social justice in a democracy.
  7. Students will be able to recognize and explain the complex and complicated nature of the human condition (Multi-causal/ Multi-variable), multicultural and other socially diverse perspectives.
  8. Students will be able to express and justify an appreciation for the arts and their role in and contributions to human societies.