River Leadership Curriculum Development: "Beginning with the End"

Below is a timeline explaining how we have been developing the RLC Student Learning Outomes over the past couple months.....

1. Student Learning Outcomes – With input from students, these are determined as a basis for the course. They articulate the minimum of what is important for each student to know and be able to do after taking the course....

126 possible SLOs were developed from a meeting with 30 people at Art Street; including students, staff, community partners and faculty.

2. First Level of Student Learning Outcomes – the core RLC planning committee established these 4 Categories amongst the 126 SLO's:

-Scientific
-Social Sciences
-Aesthetic
-Personal Growth

3. Second Level of Student Learning Outcomes – brainstorm session w/ a small group of Stewards, who were involved w/ the Art Street session, decided to develop these:

Integrative (Interdisciplinary) & Synthetic SLO’s – the group decided to integrate the 4 categories so the interdisciplinary nature of the course would be embedded in the SLO’s

After completing the River Leadership Curriculum, the student should be able to…

(1) develop expertise in and articulate connections among scientific, sociological, aesthetic, and public policy perspectives of a river system;

(2) explain how synthesizing scientific, sociological, aesthetic, and public policy perspectives of a river system better enable them to understand its past, evaluate its present state, and envision its future;

(3) complete a course project that demonstrates their understanding of and ability to integrate scientific, sociological, aesthetic, and public policy perspectives of a river system; and

(4) develop a service proposal which calls on them to assume a leadership role in a project that demonstrates their ability to synthesize and act upon scientific, sociological, aesthetic, and public policy perspectives of a river system.

The Student Learning Outcomes seem to be following the University’s model of educating students to Learn, Lead, and Serve.

Next Steps: Meet with the extended Curriculum Committee in January to plan the next steps of development……