Academic Program Characteristics

 

In accordance with the University of Minnesota Crookston mission, all programs are:

Employment-oriented

  • Prepare students to participate in and manage a diverse workforce.
  • Linked to employers in a variety of ways (such as field trips, on-site assignments, shadowing, and shared databases).
  • Require an internship or field experience.
  • Respond to changes in the workforce via interaction between faculty and employers.
  • Are evaluated by a Program Improvement Advisory Committee whose membership comes from business and industry.
  • Designed around active learning and responsive teaching.
  • Taught by team leaders and project directors.
  • Actively involve students in the learning process.
  • Emphasize application and solving real world problems.
  • Allow students to develop portfolios of their experiences to demonstrate their personal and career development.

Technology-driven

  • Technology outcomes are central to every course.
  • Students gain technical competence that meets or exceeds the needs of industry.
  • Students use e-mail, interactive communication technology, and the Internet.
  • Interactive television and online course delivery enables students to take courses offered by other higher education institutions.
  • Students develop the ability to adapt to technological change—an essential ability for career success.

Focused on three core competencies

Every program has curriculum focused on developing skills in the following core areas:

  • Communication
    • Reading
    • Writing
    • Speaking
    • Listening
    • Using technology
  • Critical Thinking
    • Problem solving
    • Applied learning
  • Working With Others
    • Teamwork
    • Diversity

Note: See expanded definitions and performance indicators of our core competencies.

Outcome-based

  • Learner outcomes are published for each course.
  • Program outcomes are published for each program.
  • Active assessment of outcomes guides curriculum decisions.
  • Quality is judged through annual assessment reports and comprehensive program reviews that occur every six years.

Defining UMN Crookston's Core Competencies

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Communication

Reading 

Student Learning Outcome:

Students will demonstrate the ability to extract and construct meaning with written language. 

Performance Indicators:
  1. Comprehends text meaning and understands the author’s message
  2. Probes and strategically approaches text-written language to gain knowledge or information
  3. Restructures meaning through interpreting and summarizing information
  4. Responds to written language by analyzing and synthesizing (integrating) information

Speaking Student 

Learning Outcome: 

Students use oral language to increase knowledge, facilitate understanding, and/or promote change in a listener. 

Performance Indicators:
  1. Introduces information clearly and observably
  2. Uses clear language choices appropriate for the audience
  3. Uses delivery techniques (posture, gesture, eye contact, vocal expression) to increase understanding
  4. Articulates a clear and consistent central message with supporting material (examples, illustrations, statistics, etc.) 

Writing Student 

Learning Outcome: 

Students develop and express ideas with clarity in written form. 

Performance Indicators:
  1. Demonstrates understanding of a clear focus on the assigned task as well as the context, audience, and purpose for writing
  2. Employs writing conventions (grammar, spelling, punctuation, word choice) that are conventionally accurate and appropriate
  3. Uses appropriate and relevant content or subject matter knowledge to convey understanding of facts, concepts, and examples.
  4. Organizes ideas and content in a logical and clear arrangement, uses supporting details and evidence, and documents sources appropriately 

Listening Student

Learning Outcome: 

Students listen effectively in order to understand, use, and analyze verbal information.

Performance Indicators:
  1. Concentrates during verbal presentations
  2. Accurately remembers and uses information presented verbally
  3. Recognizes and compares multiple viewpoints which are presented verbally
  4. Analyzes, evaluates and synthesizes verbal information 

Using Technology

Student Learning Outcome: 

Students effectively utilize appropriate software and hardware technology. 

Performance Indicators: 
  1. Uses standard software tools such as email, word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software
  2. Selects and utilizes software and hardware related to the student’s discipline
  3. Develops innovative applications of technology related to the student’s area of study
  4. Uses technology for desired results and to implement complex new technology 

Working with Others

Teamwork Student 

Learning Outcome: 

Students work collaboratively, engage in controversy with civility, and assume shared responsibility while working with others toward a common goal. 

Performance Indicators:
  1. Contributes to the team’s work by sharing work fairly, fulfilling responsibilities, and producing complete and accurate work
  2. Interacts with teammates by communicating effectively, listening to what teammates had to say about issues, and accepting feedback from teammates
  3. Keeps the team on track by assessing progress and helping the team to plan, organize, and execute work
  4. Expects the team to produce high-quality work 

Diversity Student 

Learning Outcome: 

Students understand and appreciate the similarities and differences in ability, behavior and/or beliefs.

Performance Indicators:
  1. Reflects awareness of and willingness to discuss one’s own personal, social, and cultural identity and experience
  2. Demonstrates willingness to talk with others, openness to different points of views, and ability to see different perspectives
  3. Engages in respectful communication across personal, social, and cultural differences
  4. Articulates and demonstrates understanding of the complexity of differences of values, beliefs, practices, communication styles, and politics among cultural groups 

Critical Thinking

Problem-solving 

Student Learning Outcome: 

Students design, evaluate, and implement a strategy to answer a question, resolve and issue, or solve a problem. 

Performance Indicators:
  1. Defines problem clearly and with evidence of contextual factors
  2. Identifies potential strategies or approaches to solving a problem
  3. Proposes solutions and/or hypotheses that indicate comprehension of the problem
  4. Evaluates potential solutions with reasoning and weighs the impact of solutions 

Applied Learning

Student Learning Outcome: 

Students use elements of reasoning to gather and organize information, analyze information, and apply subject matter knowledge for their discipline or field of study. 

Performance Indicators: 
  1. Identifies key purposes, goals, questions, problems and issues essential to mastering subject matter content
  2. Effectively gathers relevant information to make reasonable inferences before using information
  3. Recognizes key assumptions and important implications and consequences
  4. Effectively analyzes key concepts and ideas, recognizes relevant points of view, and shifts one’s concepts or viewpoints when necessary