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How CU-Boulder Assesses and Improves Undergraduate Student Learning and Outcomes

Bachelor's degree programs publish their expectations for degree recipients - also known as skill and knowledge goals - in the CU-Boulder catalog.  Colleges and departments are responsible for assessing these goals and for enhancing teaching methods, course content, courses offered, degree requirements, and advising as a result.

The College of Arts and Sciences core curriculum is required of over 70% of CU-Boulder undergraduates. It ensures a broad liberal arts education with skills in foreign language, quantitative reasoning, written communication, and critical thinking. Students also take courses in seven content areas, each with many offerings (e.g., over 50 courses in the Historical Context content area).  The College is responsible for ensuring that courses and student outcomes meet the underlying educational philosophies and goals of the core.

Writing instruction by The Program for Writing and Rhetoric provides research-based writing instruction at all undergraduate levels. It is distinctive among writing programs at large research universities in employing a highly experienced and professional faculty to teach undergraduate writing, rather than relying on graduate teaching assistants. It also runs the campus Writing Center, for writers across disciplines and skill levels.

Departments and other colleges focus on learning in the discipline or major or in sets of key courses.  Major examples: Engineering's comprehensive assessment program; Applied Math's use of pre-examination oral assessments to improve student understanding in calculus; the CU Science Education Initiative to improve the teaching of science to all undergraduate students; the CU-Teach program for training math and science teachers for secondary schools; independent accreditation of Journalism and other professional schools and colleges.

Innovative technologies and environments to enhance learning and teaching include the Integrated Teaching and Learning Program, with an interactive classroom-laboratory shared by all six departments in engineering; a Visual Arts Complex  open spring 2010; "clickers" used in classes all over campus for immediate checks on student understanding and active participation of all students; the Anderson Language Technology Center (ALTEC), supporting all foreign language students and teachers; an honors program; and the ATL&S Institute -- Alliance for Technology, Learning, and Society -- which creates and facilitates educational and research programs in which information and communication technology is an enabling force.  Programs outside the traditional classroom also contribute, including residential academic programs in several residence halls, undergraduate research opportunities, and study abroad programs in which one in four graduates participate. 

Several other programs work to improve teaching and learning, including the Faculty Teaching Excellence Program, the Graduate Teacher Program for graduate students employed as teaching assistants, and the President's Teaching Scholars Program, a group of faculty from all three CU campuses chosen not only for skill in their own classrooms, but for their promise of improving education and enlarging its possibilities across the university.

See also How CU-Boulder evaluates the experiences of its undergraduate students.   

Last revision 05/04/09