University
of Washington
Geography 493: Assessing
Geographic Learning
Learning Objectives for the Geography Major
Developing learning objectives
Since 1998, the Geography faculty (with guidance and support
from Rick Roth) have been engaged in discussions and decisions about student
learning. We've asked each other:
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What do we want our students to be able to do at the end
of each of our courses?
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What capabilities do we want our undergraduate majors to
have, upon graduation?
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How should we modify the curriculum to make those outcomes
more likely?
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How can we know whether our students have those capabilities?
The curricular modifications have included:
Our work on student learning continues -- it's become an
important part of how we interact with each other. As of February
2005, here are our goals for what Geography majors should have by the time
they finish studying here!
General, social science concepts and skills
Can you explain how you have mastered and used each of
these skills? Employers and graduate schools want to know!
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ability to foster awareness of cross-national and cross-cultural
perspectives and realities, and developing trans-disciplinary ways of understanding
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ability to identify and evaluate information sources and
prior research relevant to a research topic for contextualizing research
questions
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ability to assess different and competing worldviews
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ability to identify and describe significant research questions;
identify the audience most interested in the answers to these research
questions, and identify and describe an appropriate research strategy to
answer a particular research question
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ability to understand the benefits of qualitative and quantitative
approaches, including understanding of nominal/ordinal/interval ratio measurement
levels; plus understanding of categorical and "statistically significant"
in relation to research questions
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ability to understand the inter-play between data gathering
and analysis methods
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ability to understand and evaluate environmental impacts
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ability to effectively critique materials, including an understanding
of the difference between expressing an argument from evidence versus opinion
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ability to construct and defend an argument based on interpretation
of research findings, including interpretations of data that lead to an
ecological fallacy
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ability to develop holistic explanations
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ability to report results in multiple media, including reporting
in verbal and written form
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ability to exercise collaboration skills in the form of working
in groups; and understanding and negotiating differences
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ability to develop a perspective about and practice active
citizenship (local and global)
Discipline-Specific substance, concepts, and skills
If you ask our Geography faculty "What abilities distinguish
a UW Geography graduate from other majors?" here's what we would say.
But the proof is in the actual capabilities of our students -- can you
claim and illustrate these capabilities?
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ability to understand and use key concepts constituting a
geographic perspective: context, scale, cartographic, tabular, process,
flow and outcome, and the holistic and integrative character of a
spatial perspective
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ability to understand causes and implications of spatial
variability (for example, in housing, law enforcement, immigrant incorporation
into US society, regional economic growth, etc)
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ability to understand the causes and implications of spatial
interaction & movement patterns
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ability to understand and put into practice spatial scale:
ways in which localized, regional, national, and global processes
interact
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ability to develop and use basic geographic skills such as
map reading and analysis; map making; landscape analysis via use of multiple
analytical methods
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ability to think relationally about such key intertwined
concepts as community and economy, society and environment, and citizenship
and globalization
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ability to seek relationships among historical development,
economic development, & globalization
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ability to develop information literacy about representations
of locational relationships
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ability to understand the relationship among regional
economy, health, and well-being in regards to sustainability
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ability to pose important geographic research questions,
appreciate what makes those questions important, and design reasonable
research approaches to them
What students have told us
From Winter 2005 through Spring 2006, Geography is undertaking
a Study of Undergraduate Learning (Geography SOUL), modeled after the UW
SOUL project. Here are some of the common thematic threads ("What
content have you focused on?") emerging from surveys of current majors,
during Winter 2005. You might use these as you develop language for
what you've emphasized during your study.
social differences
spatial interactions
power relationships
scale and location
importance of the context of local environment
linkages between nature and society in health, food
sustainability, etc.
social justice and inequalities
regional economic impacts and differences
how public policies affect local populations
health care and inequality
globalization and hybridization