Learning outcomes and measures

Download Educated person learning outcomes and measures (PDF)

Instructor Resource Materials

What does it mean to be an educated person? This may be a question you haven’t carefully considered before. Is it someone with an advanced degree? Is it a Nobel Prize winner? Is it someone who has memorized a great deal of information, or someone who knows how to find and evaluate information? A biological researcher? A writer? An artist? A lab scientist or a chemist? A college professor? Is it someone who knows how to solve problems or someone who can get others to join in a project or activity?

At UMass Dartmouth, we have designed programs, both inside and outside of the classroom, that we think will help you to become an educated person. Our General Education program is designed to provide both depth and breadth of knowledge, and coupled with courses in your major and the co-curricular activities you choose, and to help you develop the attributes of an educated person. Two important readings for you are: The UMass Dartmouth Commitment to Student Learning and the General Education Program.

We think if you actively engage in these programs, you will become an educated person who has the following knowledge and attributes and can demonstrate these in particular ways.

The Educated Person

• is aware of how history affects culture, and how culture affects personal outlook and experience (regardless of one's grasp of history, culture or oneself)
• can cite paths that connect history to culture to personal viewpoint
• is aware of the role of reason in the achievement of intellectual independence
• can cite personal instances where reasoning has overcome cultural bearing
• is aware of the rudiments of epistemology: how ideas become trustworthy; the necessary functions of doubt and humility; and the requirement of constructing and testing arguments
• can cite examples of opinions revised through challenge and deliberation
• is aware of the importance of gathering knowledge, of how new information is only firmly grasped through the engagement of what is already known
• can cite patterns of facts - correlations - that suggest causality
• is aware of the importance of metaphor and analogy in the formation of ideas, of how the structures of understanding beget understanding
• can cite consistent relationships between patterns of knowledge
• is aware of how curiosity and imagination can breed discovery
• can cite productive associations between directed and undirected (linear and non-linear) thinking
• is aware of the interrelatedness of one’s self and one’s community
• through community based research, articulates one or more needs in the community
• is aware of the link between moral feeling and ethical practice
• can cite principles of informed ethical reasoning
• is engaged in lifelong learning
• through reflection, identifies at least one area of interest beyond the academic for continued pursuit
•  is flexible in problem-solving and considers a multiplicity of factors
• articulates the impact of various solutions to complex problems on various populations and identifies the solution with the least negative impact

Instructor Resources for The Educated Person

• Steltenpohl, Elizabeth, Jane Shipton, andSharon Villines. Orientation to College: A Reader on Becoming an Educated Person. Second Edition. Canada: Wadsworth, 2004. Print.
• “UMass Dartmouth Commitment to Student Learning.” University of Massachusetts Dartmouth , n.d. Web.
• Dixon, Karen and Bruce Maddocks. “The Educated Person.” Unpublished instructional materials. Dartmouth: Aug. 2011.
• Maddocks, Brue and Karen Dixon. “The Educated Person: Learning Outcomes and Measures.” Unpublished instructor resource materials. Dartmouth, May 2011.