Student Learning Outcomes In a Cyberspace Age

By Ruby Evans

Institutions accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools have heard much recently about student-learning outcomes. Simply put, the question we must ask ourselves is “What do we want our students to know and be able to do once they have matriculated on our college campus?”

Southern University at Shreveport (La.), a two-year institution within the Southern University System, the only historically Black land grant university system in the United States, answered that question by developing these educational goals: computer/technical literacy; critical thinking skills; effective communication skills; ethics and integrity; group interaction and teambuilding skills; information literacy skills; leadership skills; and multicultural and global awareness.

Information technology has changed life and learning, and it continues to significantly influence the infrastructure and delivery of formal education. While basic education still revolves around the three R’s, the environment in which individuals are expected to demonstrate competency has changed considerably. Beyond reading, writing, and arithmetic, researchers and scholars say that today’s worker needs complex information fluency skills like critical thinking, information literacy and technology literacy.

Recently, The Sloan Consortium, which promotes online education, reported that nearly 3.2 million students were taking at least one online course during fall 2005, a substantial increase over the 2.3 million the previous year. The consortium report added, “There has been no leveling of the growth rate of online enrollments; institutions of higher education report record online enrollment growth on both a numeric and a percentage basis.” Online education, combined with effective pedagogy and reflective teaching, has transformed higher education, offering an increasingly popular alternative to traditional classroom teaching and learning.