CEA CAPA's New Student Learning & Development Objectives

CEA CAPA is delighted to share our new, finalized organization-wide Student Learning and Development Objectives (SLDOs).

SLDOs are meta-level learning objectives that transcend coursework and are infused across all elements of program design and delivery. They are the learning goals we promote across all sites, beyond specifics of course offerings, that address student learning holistically.

As an organization that proudly leads with academics, these SLDOs allow us to further distinguish ourselves in the field, and to compellingly describe to our partners and students how we go about delivering on our mission.

These new SLDOs received input from our academic teams around the world, our Global Faculty Advisory Council, and our CEA CAPA Advisory Board. We look forward to them serving as our academic compass, helping us to deliver on the promise and possibilities that education abroad offers.

CEA CAPA’S STUDENT LEARNING & DEVELOPMENT OBJECTIVES (SLDOs)

Critical Thinking & Intellectual Curiosity

Students learn to productively interrogate assumptions, to approach their experience with a spirit of curiosity, and to be open to different interpretations of what they are learning and observing around them.

Content in Context

Students are able to draw connections between the academic content of their experience and their context. They are able to situate their learning within local, regional, national, and global contexts, and connect them to one another.

Navigating Differences

Students learn to better identify, understand, and navigate social, economic, racial, ethnic, religious, and other differences—and similarities—between their home and host contexts, and within their student cohort. In all of these areas, students are able to make skillful and nuanced comparisons and contrasts.

Power & Equity

Students are able to identify and analyze power structures within their host contexts and the ways power is used across national boundaries. Comparing and contrasting with the U.S. context, they are able to form complex arguments around the principles of justice and equity, identifying dominant and marginalized groups, and better understand how power impacts people within the host society and globally.

Career and Professional Development

Students develop skills and competencies that prepare them for professional advancement in a globally interdependent and diverse world. They learn to navigate, reflect upon, and articulate their experience abroad in a manner that fosters career readiness and positively shapes their future professional opportunities.

Sustainability & Migration

Students examine and engage their host context through the lens of sustainability. They consider factors shaping urban and rural spaces, how relationships with the environment contribute to national and regional discourses, and the impacts of their own actions. Through a sustainability lens, students discern elements of mobility and migration in their host context, identifying how these elements impact economics, politics, culture, and society on local and national levels.