The New Community College’s learning outcomes encourage students to aim high and provide them with a framework for their entire educational experience, connecting school, college, work and life. These outcomes build on Lumina Foundation’s Degree Qualifications Profile and are informed by AAC&U’s LEAP Essential Learning Outcomes. They are an inclusive framework for a contemporary liberal education, defined not as a selected set of disciplines, but as a set of knowledge and skills for all aspects of life: school, work, citizenship, and social responsibility. They are reflective of the NCC’s mission and values.
Students will know from the time they enter the NCC that they will be expected to demonstrate progress in achieving these outcomes. Institutional learning outcomes will be addressed at the course and program level. They will be based on integrative learning in and beyond the classroom and will be assessed via students’ coursework as collected and presented in their e-portfolios.
1. Broad, Integrative Knowledge: General Education
The outcomes in this category demonstrate that students can integrate learning from broad fields of general study and make sense of the connections among different academic disciplines and multiple perspectives.
a. Demonstrates engagement issues that have contemporary, historical, scientific, economic, technological, or artistic significance.
b. Exhibits an understanding of how different disciplines create knowledge and approach problem-solving.
c. Describes multiple perspectives on key debates and connects these debates to societal concerns .
d. Connects prior knowledge and experience to ideas and concepts across different courses, majors, and forms of experiential learning.
e. Expresses curiosity about the essential questions that drive personal, academic, and professional inquiry.
2. Specialized Knowledge: The Majors
The purpose of a major is to provide students with specialized knowledge. Students who achieve the learning outcomes in this category will understand basic concepts, vocabulary and research methods related to their major, which will prepare them to enter the workforce or continue their studies at the baccalaureate level.
a. Recognizes the scope and principal features of the field of study, including its main theories and practices.
b. Understands and uses the vocabulary specific to the field of study.
c. Connects content and concepts of specialized knowledge to the ideas studied in the City Seminars, Ethnographies of Work and other NCC general education courses.
d. Demonstrates knowledge of problem-solving techniques and the ability to form hypotheses for research purposes.
3. Intellectual Skills for Life-Long Learning
The communication, quantitative and critical thinking skills included in this category are necessary to engage in learning throughout life in personal, academic, and professional contexts. These competencies will enable students to pursue their interests and questions about the world by accessing, understanding and using knowledge and information.
a. Demonstrates the ability to analyze ideas, theories and issues by breaking them down, identifying the component elements and explaining how they relate.
b. Communicates effectively using substantially error-free language in oral and written formats.
c. Presents accurate mathematical calculations and operations, and explains how they are used to solve problems and to interpret data.
d. Utilizes both quantitative and qualitative data to explore and understand important issues.
e. Locates, evaluates and cites multiple information resources in projects, papers and presentations.
f. Demonstrates ability to use appropriate technologies, acquire new ones and to resolve technology problems to meet academic, professional and personal goals.
g. Displays ability to assess own work and its relative value.
4. Civic Learning, Engagement & Social Responsibility
This category describes the knowledge and skills a student should have and demonstrate in response to diverse social, environmental and economic challenges at local, national and global levels.
a. Identifies and explains his or her own civic and cultural background, including its origins, development and assumptions.
b. Understands and respects diversity and cross-cultural perspectives and demonstrates how they influence interpretations of key problems in politics, society or the arts.
c. Describes various historical and contemporary positions on democratic values or practices, and presents his or her position on specific problems.
d. Takes an active role in a community context, such as work, service, or co-curricular activities, and examines the civic issues encountered with the insights gained from the community experience.
e. Demonstrates integrity, honesty and ethical reasoning in academic and professional contexts.
The outcomes in this category describe what students can do with what they know, demonstrated by how they address problems in school and in non-classroom settings, including at work. They include applications of learning from the classroom and of skills developed from participation in activities outside the classroom.
a. Uses creativity, content knowledge, research and analytical skills to identify, clarify and provide solutions to real- world problems.
b. Collaborates effectively with others to solve problems and complete projects.
