Student Learning Outcomes
Connect-Integrate-Reflect: Experiential Education at Emory centers around student learning outcomes focused on personal and professional development. Experiential education programming will introduce students to a variety of external environments and promote active, hands-on learning activities that:
- Challenge students to think beyond the classroom
- Encourages students to question what it means to apply knowledge in different cultural and professional environments
- Engage students in active reflection to better understand themselves and different communities
Goal One
Students will connect and work responsibly with different cultures, communities, and institutions.
To engage responsibly in experiential learning environments, students must learn to examine their own cultural knowledge, values, and beliefs to begin the process of understanding their own cultural competencies and interrogate their limits and possibilities.
Goal Two
Students will integrate and apply academic knowledge and skills in contexts and environments outside of the university.
To integrate learning requires understanding the communities, cultures, and social environments in which the learning is situated. It also requires a consideration of how learning in one context has potential for applicability in other contexts. Stakeholders, instructors, and students together will figure out how the experience connects, relates to, or integrates with learning from other curricular and co-curricular experiences.
Goal Three
Students will reflect on how their learning experiences affected their personal and professional growth.
Reflection is an important part of the learning process. Reflection connects and organizes new information within one’s existing knowledge. When turned inward, it leads to personal growth through extracting valuable lessons from experience and then use those lessons to set and refine goals. This can assist individuals in making choices that align with their values and lead to a more meaningful and satisfying life.
Assessment
Student surveys will allow the assessment committee to capture students’ perceptions of their learning experiences, attitudes about the learning process, and opinions about their learning relative to the QEP’s intended learning outcomes.
Student focus groups will reveal insight into student perceptions and experiences regarding learning outcomes.
The direct assessment of student coursework will help the assessment committee work with faculty and staff to develop, implement, collect, and evaluate student assignments designed to directly assess QEP student learning outcomes.
Faculty focus groups will discuss the assessment of QEP student learning outcomes, assessment methods, teaching strategies, and opportunities for improvement.
Partner focus group comprised of external stakeholders will help Emory improve its program of experiential education.