The First-Year Experience

The Engaged Citizen:

All TEC dyads share a common set of learning goals: 

• The ability to comprehend and appreciate a set of complex issues relevant to being engaged citizens.
• The ability to make connections between the evidence and methods from two distinct disciplines in order to formulate arguments about engaged citizenship.
• The ability to express those arguments clearly in writing and discussion.
• The ability to engage in and reflect on experiential learning that connects directly to the classroom experience, preparing the students for vibrant Odyssey experiences later in their Hendrix careers.

Explorations:

1. To assist first-year students in making a successful transition to academic and student life at Hendrix.
2. To assist first-year students in developing their capacity to reflect critically on their values, interests, and abilities as related to academic and student life at Hendrix.

Capacities

Writing Level I (W1) Learning Goals

The Level 1, or W1, courses serve as the gateway to the College's writing requirement. As such, these courses are designed with the following learning goals:

• Reading and Textual Understanding:  To draw on, engage, and cite the ideas of source texts to lend clarity, insight, and rhetorical force to one’s own writing.
• Writing-Ideas:  To generate insight; to convey significant ideas in writing.
• Writing-Structure:  To write with organizational purpose, reflecting a coherent and meaningful order, both at the paragraph level and in the essay as a whole.
• Writing-Mechanics & Style:  To write effective prose in keeping with standard English patterns of grammar, usage, punctuation, sentence structure, and style.
• Process:  To develop an understanding of how a process of preliminary writings, drafting, and revision can improve an essay’s ideas and shape as well as the writer’s control over written language and prose style.

Writing Level 2 (W2) Learning Goals

Expectations for Writing Intensive (W2) Courses 

A student will be able to organize a short paper which articulates and develops an argument. The prose will be grammatically correct, the diction appropriate to the audience and topic, and the sentences well-structured and clear. 

• Organization and Coherence. A student who earns W2 credit has demonstrated his or her ability to write fluent, clear, and logical short papers, marshaling the necessary information to respond to a well-structured and clearly explained assignment. The student is able to present this information to an educated audience, simultaneously conveying the student's viewpoint on the topic.
• Thesis. A student who earns W2 credit has learned to formulate, develop, and summarize a thesis. In the thesis statement the student indicates the direction of the paper and then develops this thesis with supporting illustrations and arguments. The conclusion creates an effective sense of closure that does not simply repeat the thesis.
• Grammatical Correctness. Students who earn W2 credit have demonstrated their ability to proofread their papers and to spell and punctuate properly. Many students, however, continue to have difficulty with these three skills. Every professor, therefore, needs to stress these skills constantly and to offer assistance and encouragement when needed. Among the common grammatical problems a successful W2 student is expected to avoid are fragments, run-on sentences, dangling modifiers, lack of agreement, inconsistent use of tenses, vague pronoun reference, and errors in common usage.
• Diction and Sentence Structure. W2 courses help students to improve their diction and use fairly sophisticated sentence structure. A W2 student learns to choose appropriate words for the assigned audience and topic. In order to be competent writers, students also learn to subordinate their ideas properly through the use of both simple and complex sentences. Sophisticated vocabulary and sentence structure develop over time as the student reads more widely.

Languages (LA) Learning Goals

• Students will achieve the degree of competence in a language other than English necessary to encounter another culture on its own terms.
• This level of ability requires being able to understand, analyze, and use a language other than English.
• Such a capacity increases subtlety of mind, sharpens sensitivity to the use of one's own language, and more fully opens another culture for exploration.

Quantitative Skills (QS) Learning Goals

Upon successful completion of the requirements for the Quantitative Skills Capacity, students will be: 

• Capable of interpreting quantitative ideas graphically, symbolically/algebraically, and/or numerically.
• Able to evaluate quantitative information in the context of a given question.
  

Physical Activity (PA) Learning Goals

• Content Knowledge. Students will demonstrate basic knowledge of rules and/or skills needed to be successful in physical activity classes.
• Social. Students will use physical activity as an opportunity for enjoyment and social interaction.
• Value Physical Activity and Fitness. Students will articulate the value of physical activity to improve health and well being of individuals, and that physical activity can foster self-expression, development, and learning.

Learning Domains

Expressive Arts (EA)

Through successful participation in an Expressive Arts coded course, students:

• Engage with the methods and cultural context of works of art. 
• Appreciate and interpret meaning in works of art. 
• Articulate how art communicates and how art aids in the development of empathy. 

Historical Perspectives (HP)

Through successful participation in a Historical Perspectives coded course, students:

• Engage critically with historical evidence to analyze change and continuity in cultures, periods, or events. 
• Examine social and cultural contexts that shape, and are shaped by, historical periods or events. 
• Evaluate their own understanding of the past using historical analysis and knowledge. 

Literary Studies (LS)

Through successful participation in a Literary Studies coded course, students:

• Analyze how a text's form, language, and content create meanings and experiences. 
• Craft interpretations of texts through study and deliberation. 
• Explain how a text can work to shape one's perceptions and imaginations. 

Natural Science Inquiry (NS, NS-L)

Through successful participation in a Natural Science Inquiry coded course, students:

• Recognize how models explain the natural world by identifying the role of observation and experiment in the development of those models. 
• Assess the degree of agreement between models and observations of phenomena determined by natural laws. 
• Evaluate and articulate strengths and limitations of scientific models. 
• NS-L: Employ scientific tools and techniques to make observations to enhance understanding of these models. 

Social and Behavioral Analysis (SB)

Through successful participation in a Social and Behavioral Analysis coded course, students:

• Identify factors relating to one or more areas of human behavior and interaction. 
• Explore and examine those factors with appropriate techniques. 
• Apply this knowledge to real-world situations. 

Values, Beliefs and Ethics (VA)

Through successful participation in a Values, Beliefs, and Ethics coded course, students:

•  Identify and engage questions about existence, understanding, and values. 
• Explore and examine ways of reasoning, thinking, and making meaning. 
• Encounter and articulate different perspectives and worldviews. 

The Odyssey Program

Enhancement of learning — both what they know and how they come to know — by:

• the examination of ideas in new contexts,
• the application of theories to practice,
• the first-hand discovery of how things are in the world,
• the exercise of, and reflection upon, their powers of judgment in practical situations.

Vocational Self-Discovery and Professional Development through:

• the discovery of qualities and capacities they possess for acting effectively in the world,
• the exercise of resourcefulness and problem-solving abilities in new and complex situations,
• the identification and exploration of vocational and a-vocational passions,
• the reflective delineation of values, life plans, graduation and career goals in light of hands-on experience.

Development of a sense of ownership over one’s educational pursuits and of the habits conducive to life-long learning by:

• independently structuring educational projects in accordance with self-selected learning goals
• applying previous learning to new contexts in creative and novel ways
• discovering unforeseen connections among disciplines, schools of thought, or social practices,
• learning to learn from critical reflection upon both success and failure.

Increased awareness of one’s responsibility for linking action and understanding in the effort to respond effectively to the social, spiritual, and ecological needs of our time by:

• discovering one’s capacity to explore the world and act as an effective agent within it,
• becoming reflective and articulate about how one’s values and beliefs influence one’s actions and actions shape and reveal one’s values and beliefs.
• gaining exposure to, and critically reflecting upon, previously unfamiliar avenues of response to intellectual queries and social problems,
• making conscious decisions in the selection or design of hands on projects responsive to local and/or global communities.