Draft Proposal for an SSH Essential Knowledge and Skills Program (May 2014)
- Why should I take the essential knowledge and skills social sciences and humanities program?
The program provides students with knowledge and skills that are essential background for careers in the professions, business, work with NGOs and community organizations, and many vocations. It also provides basic education for citizenship in a modern democratic society.
- What is an essential knowledge and skills program for social sciences and humanities?
The program provides intensive, coordinated two-year training in critical thinking, reading, and writing, numeracy, and visual, informational, (financial?) and technological literacy. The core curriculum covers education in economic theory, psychology, sociology, basic statistics, moral and political theory, Canadian political and legal institutions, Canadian history, and literature. Course content for all classes focuses heavily on the development of critical writing and verbal communications skills. The program regards imagination as a fundamental human cognitive capacity that is developed and enlarged through education and the acquisition of critical reasoning and learning skills. In their second year, students will take courses in interdisciplinary studies that challenge them to integrate the knowledge from the core curriculum and apply it to understanding complex social, political, economic, and environmental challenges facing human communities. The goal is to produce students who have the skills and knowledge for life-long learning, adaptability, communication, and understanding and navigating relations with others. These skills are the foundation for any modern walk of life, but are particularly relevant as pre-training for work in the professions, business, work with NGOs and community organizations, and many vocations.
- What are the essential knowledge and skills I will acquire?
SSH Essential Knowledge and Skills Outcomes
| Learning Outcomes (general)
|
Learning Outcomes (specific) | Comments and Courses (not for final version) |
| 1. Critical thinking/reading/writing | Ability to:
a) recognize and evaluate arguments, b) construct arguments, c) apply models for standardizing arguments |
(All courses assumed to contribute directly or indirectly to all or many outcomes. Specific courses are identified for specific outcomes where subject matter is immediately applicable.)
Phil 1104 (Critical Thinking)
|
| 2. Imagination | Ability to call to mind and express what might be (as opposed to describing what is), including capacities for practical planning, personal and social development, theoretical explanation, transfer of learning, and creative activity. |
Engl 1100 (Reading and Writing about Literature)
|
| 3. Values Education | Knowledge of theories of moral value, including
a) general normative ethical theories, b) moral concepts: duty, rights, virtues, justice, freedom, fairness, c) theories and methods for application of moral theory and concepts |
Phil 1100 (Ethics, Social, and Political Philosophy) |
| 4. Knowledge of Canadian legal and political institutions and history
|
Knowledge of the operation of the Canadian federal system of government, including
a) the terms of the Canadian constitution, including the Charter of Rights and Freedoms b) constitutional separation of powers between levels of gov’t and between gov’t and the courts, c) the role of the courts and the judicial hierarchy (provincial and federal courts)
|
Poli 1119 (Canadian Politics and Government)
Hist 1126 (Modern Canada)
|
| 5. Knowledge of economic institutions | Knowledge of models of micro-economic theory, including
a) how behaviour/decisions of individuals affect allocation and availability of scarce resources goods and services b) notions of economic efficiency, how human decisions affect supply and demand, pricing, etc.
|
Econ 1220 (Principles of Microeconomics) |
| 6. Knowledge of human psychology and sociology | Knowledge of basic human psychology, including
a) the role of mental function in individual and social behaviour, b) physiological and biological processes that explain human psychology, including cognitive and emotional functions.
Knowledge of human social behaviour and organization, including social statification, social class, law, religion, sexuality,gender roles, and deviance. |
Two courses from this list that cover two separate academic disciplines:
Psych 1115 (Fundamentals of Psychology)
Soci 1120 (Introduction to Sociology: Models and Concepts) or Soci 1121 (Introduction to Sociology: Structures and Processes)
Anth 1120 (Introduction fo Cultural Anthropology)
|
| 7. Numeracy | Knowledge of basic statistics and its applications relevant for professions, business, and social sciences, including: sampling, experimental design, levels of measurement, descriptive statistics, regression, sampling distributions, normal distribution and inferential procedures of estimation and hypothesis testing.
|
Stat 1124 (Statistical Methods)
Or? Stat 1123 (Basic Probability and Statistics for Business)
Or? Psych 2320 (Research Methods in Psychology) |
| 8. Visual literacy | Ability to interpret and drawing meaning from information presented in the form of an image, including the ability fo evaluate apply, and create visual representations of information. | See: “Periodic Table of Visual Literacy”
Discussion needed about how to fit in. Probably covered partly by Stats, Econ, and other courses. |
| 9. Informational literacy | Knowledge of how to use information resources and data bases. | Can this be worked into a couple of courses? |
| 10. Technological literacy | Knowledge of information software (Excel, +?) | ?? |
| 11. Financial literacy | Ability to read financial statements | ?? |
- What courses does the program cover?
SSH Essential Knowledge and Skills Curriculum:
Econ 1220 (Principles of Microeconomics)
English 1100 (Reading and Writing about Literature)
Hist 1126 (Modern Canada)
Phil 1100 (Ethics, Social, and Political Philosophy)
Phil 1104 (Critical Thinking) ??
Poli 1119 (Canadian Politics and Government)
Stat 1124 (Statistical Methods) recommended particularly for students interested in pursuing degrees in social sciences) or Stat 1123 (Basic Probability and Statistics for Business) Psychology 2320 also accepted (+ ?)
At least two of (covering two separate subject areas):
Psych 1115 (Fundamentals of Psychology)
Soci 1120 (Introduction to Sociology: Models and Concepts)
or
Soci 1121 (Introduction to Sociology: Structures and Processes)
Anth 1120 (Introduction to Cultural Anthropology)
And:
A least one course from a list of suggested IDS courses.
- Are there any other advantages to taking this program at Langara?
The two year program will also provide a broad grounding for students who decide to transfer to a university to complete a degree in a particular subject area in social sciences or the humanities. For students who do not wish to go onto university (or are not sure), the program will ensure students receive over a relatively brief period a rounded education with practical learning outcomes that will be useful as background for any walk of life they choose to enter. Completion of the coursework will allow students to pursue Associate of Arts diplomas with specialities in particular subject areas (e.g., Economics, Philosophy, Psychology, etc.). Langara is currently the only college in BC offering this sort of integrated basic knowledge and skills program for social sciences and humanities.
_____________
Challenges and Questions for the Working Group:
- How do we introduce informational, technological, financial, visual literacy?
Proposal: Phil 1104 include information retrieval tools and techniques (informational literacy)
Stats 1123 and 1124 include some excel training, training in visual depiction of statistics; Poli 1119 (and Stat courses) include some use of public data bases.
- We should talk about cross-course evaluations standards, in order to live up to the claims about developing critical writing and communication skills.
- Should we include some more “practical” abilities or skills: e.g., writing business letters, CVs, etc.? That is, could we have a third column above for such abilities.
- Should we include more concrete outcomes?
- Are 10 courses too many or not enough? An Associate of Arts Requires 60 Credits (or 20 three credit courses), so 10 courses should still permit completion of an area concentration. Here is the link to the A.A. requirements. Frankly, what we have proposed here would ensure a better two-year education than the more open-ended A.A. requirements. We would have to add more science requirements and an English course to meet the , and students would have to find 6 second year courses. If this goes forward as a general A.A. proposal, a virtue of it is that it focuses a broad-based education better without requiring as many basic courses (three science requirements are not necessary, in my view). Rather than a second English course, a communications writing course would be a better choice in my view.
- An alternative: Julie Longo has suggested that we might want to propose this as a new model for the A.A. degree (which is under review province-wide). My initial suggestion is that we should proceed on separate streams. Once we have worked this program out, Julie can decide if she wants to promote this as a province-wide template for A.A. diplomas.
- Should we add recommended courses?
Others ??
JSR/May 23, 2014
Draft_Proposal_for_SSH_Essential_Knowledge_and_Skills_Program