Learning Goals & Assessment

The goals for the UP Core are embedded in the UP Core Habits of Heart and Mind. We want students to demonstrate those six habits through their UP Core courses:

• Literacy & Dialogue
• Faith & Ethics
• Aesthetics & Creativity
• Science & Problem Solving
• Diversity & the Common Good
• Global & Historical Consciousness

To ensure the UP Core is achieving those broad goals, each UP Core course takes responsibility for specific Course Learning Goals that operationalize each of the six habits. Those Course Learning Goals are then further defined by faculty and departments themselves, each committing to specific Student Learning Outcomes that they can assess at the individual course level.  In sum, this creates a three level system with:

• broad Habits of Heart and Mind all students should cultivate through the UP Core;
• shared Course Learning Goals that are consistent across courses addressing the same Habits;
• class-specific Student Learning Outcomes that can be assessed through any given semester.

This multi-level model serves to both promote consistency across the UP Core while also offering departments and faculty the autonomy to teach in ways appropriate to their discipline.

The model also encourages continuous improvement, allowing regular opportunities to consider what students are actually taking away from the UP Core, how that learning might be enhanced, and how we can evolve our UP Core offerings to best promote student success.

This continuous improvement process is further facilitated by having a regular and interactive assessment schedule, along with a UP Core Guide with Rubrics that offers shared markers for success. The assessment schedule and UP Core Guide with Rubrics are available to members of the UP Community through the Assessment page and through the UP Core Curriculum page at pilots.up.edu.