Learning Outcomes Bank

Interfaith learning outcomes provide focus and clarity for programs and initiatives. They also set a solid foundation for assessing your interfaith work and determining ways to improve and leverage student interfaith learning. To inspire you in your development of interfaith learning outcomes, below is a curated bank of examples.

Types of Learning Outcomes in this document:

• Campus Wide Interfaith Learning Outcomes
• Curricular Outcomes
• Miscellaneous Interfaith Learning Outcomes

Campus Wide Interfaith Learning Outcomes

The following examples reflect campus-wide interfaith learning outcomes for a range of interfaith initiatives.

DePaul University

DePaul University uses programmatic and departmental learning outcomes that align with their mission to guide interfaith work on campus. Below are a few example learning outcomes from their Office of Religious Diversity that focus on interfaith cooperation.

Department Level:

Students who participate in Office of Religious Diversity programs will:

• Integrate their spiritual, religious, or philosophical tradition’s beliefs into their daily lives
• Build skills to lead civic engagement efforts and build community in pursuit of justice
• Consider their own and others’ spiritual or religious and cultural practices and traditions

Programmatic Level:

• Students who participate in Office of Religious Diversity educational programming will apply what they learned from the program(s) to their daily life or world understanding
• Students who participate in Office of Religious Diversity community service programs as leaders will demonstrate skills for facilitating interfaith or pluralistic reflections
• Students who participate in service with people from multiple spiritual, religious, or philosophical traditions will value shared social action with those from a religious, spiritual, or philosophical tradition different from their own

Dominican University

Dominican University drafted explicit interfaith learning outcomes, appropriate for graduates and undergraduates and for both curricular and co-curricular initiatives. Below are the learning outcomes they drafted.

Attitudes:

• Demonstrates willingness to respond to questions regarding one’s own religious, spiritual, or value-based (RSV) worldview
• Demonstrates willingness to participate in educational or celebratory events of various traditions as appropriate
• Seeks out information and dialogue on various RSV worldviews
• Seeks to establish common ground while acknowledging conflict as it arises

Knowledge:

• Identifies gaps in one’s own knowledge about one’s own and others’ RSV worldviews and knows how to access resources to increase knowledge
• Identifies key facts and positive facets of multiple RSV-based histories, traditions, and practices, including one’s own
• Explains the value of interfaith cooperation and its importance for Catholic Dominican tradition
• Explains why knowledge about RSV worldviews is important for the students’ chosen field of study or future profession
• Critically evaluates the role one’s own RSV worldview has played socially, culturally, and historically
• Analyzes the role of religion, spirituality, and value-based worldviews in significant current and historical events

Skills:

• Communicates in ways that can build relationships and foster dialogue with various others

Actions:

• Initiates informed and appreciative interfaith dialogue
• Acknowledges mistakes and takes corrective action when one’s behavior has harmed another
• Collaborates with others from different RSV worldviews to address contemporary social concerns

Curricular Learning Outcomes

The following section highlights curricular student learning outcomes relevant for structuring and evaluating academic programs in interfaith and interreligious studies. To access the resource that includes these and other curricular interfaith learning outcomes, check out our resource Student Learning Outcomes for Interfaith and Interreligious Studies.

University of La Verne

The University of La Verne Launched a six-course Interfaith Studies minor in the spring of 2015. It includes a number of student learning outcomes. Through La Verne’s Interfaith Studies Minor, students will be able to:

• Situate their own evolving worldview within a pluralistic context
• Articulate knowledge of multiple worldviews with appreciative and nuanced understanding
• Articulate an appreciation of pluralism and be committed to navigating complexities, ambiguities, and contradictions among worldviews
• Demonstrate adept skills in interfaith dialogue among diverse participants, including the ability to navigate differences among participants to foster pluralism
• Create and sustain formal and informal opportunities for ongoing interfaith action and dialogue

Loyola University Chicago

In the fall of 2015, Loyola University launched a comprehensive six-course, interdisciplinary Interfaith and Interreligious Studies Minor, and included several student learning outcomes. Students completing Loyola Chicago’s Interfaith and Interreligious Studies Minor will develop:

• Basic and appreciative knowledge of multiple religious traditions and theologies of religious pluralism and interfaith cooperation. Such knowledge will convey several of the components of interfaith literacy, including explorations of shared values among religious traditions.
• An understanding of the problems that come up in religiously pluralistic conflicts that have arisen in the past and the positive and effective steps that have been taken to address them, as well as the benefits that have come from religious pluralism and interreligious understanding.
• A set of conceptual tools from multiple disciplines that can help students deal in interdisciplinary ways with challenges of a religiously pluralistic society and appriciate its benefits both in American society and within specific contexts.
• An understanding of the lived reality of religious pluralism in the United States and in Chicago. This would combine historical, sociological, and political science approaches while requiring students to synthesize and apply interdisciplinary approaches to what they are learning.

Miscellaneous Interfaith Learning Outcome Examples

The following examples reflect interfaith learning outcomes that campuses can use for a range of interfaith initiatives:

After this initiative, I would like participants to…

Foundational Knowledge

• Identify three appreciative facts or facets of a religious or philosophical worldview
• Recognize and explain how worldviews are dynamic and have multiple expressions
• Articulate interfaith cooperation as the appreciation of and engagement with people of different religious and nonreligious identities
• Identify assets on campus that will support interfaith endeavors to create change

Application

• Analyze the role of religion, spirituality, and value-based worldviews in significant current and historical events
• Plan events that accommodate for needs of religious and secular students
• Imagine how interfaith competence can be practically applied in their future professions
• Coordinate communication between multiple religiously-based student organizations to effectively engage in interfaith projects

Integration

• Compare common values between two religious or philosophical worldviews other than their own
• Integrate knowledge of interfaith cooperation with that of their major
• Identify intersections between an individual’s religious/philosophical identity and other aspects of their identity
• Relate their own ethical commitment to the ethical commitments that people of other religious or nonreligious identities have
• Connect interfaith cooperation to the institutional mission of their college or university

Human Dimension

• Interact with others across lines of religious difference in ways that can build relationships and foster meaningful dialogue
• Come to see themselves as interfaith leaders, proactively working with at least one person of a different religious or nonreligious tradition to initiate positive change
• Feel comfortable maintaining relationships even in the midst of deep disagreement
• Understand others in terms of their faith tradition or philosophical perspective

Caring

• Value interfaith cooperation as a civic imperative
• Care about developing relationships with people of different religious/nonreligious identities
• Openly reflect on tensions among worldviews
• Develop a personal philosophy of why they engage in interfaith work

Learning-How-to-Learn

• Frame useful questions that help them learn more about other religious or philosophical traditions from other students
• Identify websites/publications that can contribute to their knowledge about interfaith action in society
• Create a learning plan to gather interpersonal skills necessary to navigate tensions between ideologically different people or groups to promote pluralism