Graduate Program Learning Outcomes

Graduate Program Learning Outcomes for MA Program in History and the Teacher Education Program for Social Studies Education

PL0 1: All graduate students will learn to apply a variety of ideas and concepts-continuity, change over time, context, causation, and corroboration-in order to understand how change in societies, systems of knowledge and belief, technologies, and cultures contribute to understanding the common features of the human experience.

PL0 2: All graduate students will learn to analyze the culturally and politically constructed nature of individual and group identities in specific historical contexts, with particular attention given to the idea of change over time.

PL0 3: All graduate students will learn to evaluate the role individuals play in shaping history, along with the role played by broader forces of change (e.g., social, intellectual and ideological movements, cultural developments and economic trends), and to appreciate the interrelationship between such factors and historical change.

PL0 4: All graduate students will learn to conceptualize, research, and write papers using primary and secondary sources. Appropriate citation form will be used; emphasis will be placed on cogently framing questions, critically evaluating evidence, composing an effective thesis statement, constructing a persuasive argument, and including pertinent historical content in the body of the paper.

PLO for Students in the MA Program in History: MA students will continue to hone their ability to work with primary and secondary sources, and will produce an article-length (10,000 words) piece of original historical scholarship. To this end, students will work closely with a faculty adviser in their final two classes: an independent study preparatory course; and a thesis-writing course. Together, these two classes will focus on framing an appropriate historical question, developing a research agenda, conducting research and organizing research material, and, finally, on planning and writing the MA thesis in clear and coherent prose. The adviser (a full-time member of the department) and a second reader (from inside or outside the department) must approve the thesis.