Dragon Core



Foundation Four

These courses begin to develop competency in four skill areas that will be extended and applied throughout a student's career at MSUM.

Oral Communication (3 credits)

Student Learning Outcomes:  Students will be able to

  • Analyze the audience for an assigned speech, choose an appropriate topic and create audience outcomes (decide what they want from their audience).

  • Create and present a variety of speeches, such as informative, persuasive, and impromptu.

  • Use credible research that supports their argument and also orally credits sources.

  • Use appropriate organizational structure..

  • Use effective and appropriate language.

  • Use an engaging and audience-centered delivery style.

  • Use visual aids to support a speech effectively.

Written Communication (3 Credits)

Student Learning Outcomes: Students will be able to

  • Analyze particular audiences and select appropriate communication strategies.

  • Create a variety of essays using rhetorical frameworks such as narrative, process analysis, comparison/contrast, and cause/effect.

  • Identify a variety of organizational patterns and techniques and choose appropriate patterns for particular essays.

  • Understand and use the writing process, including prewriting, writing, revising, editing, and proof-reading.

  • Use correct syntax, diction, grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

  • Adhere to conventions of format and structure such as those that govern constructing effective paragraphs and using appropriate tone and style.

  • Consult effectively and appropriately with others.

Critical and Multicultural Thinking (3 Credits)

Student Learning Outcomes:  Students will be able to

  • Recognize and define the questions upon which a controversy depends.

  • Distinguish arguments from non-arguments.*

  • Identify the implicit assumptions and practical implications of multiple perspectives so that arguments can be analyzed within their historic and cultural contexts.

  • Distinguish between fallacious and non-fallacious arguments.

  • Recognize stereotypes and critically assess cultural images.

  • Distinguish between and use inductive and deductive reasoning.

  • Formulate clearly and precisely a question or problem and generate alternative hypotheses or solutions to this problem, including solutions appropriate to the cultural context of the problem.

  • Construct sound or cogent arguments of their own supported by data that are clear, accurate, and relevant.

  • Credit properly ideas developed by others.

*Argument in this case being defined broadly to include logic, mathematical proofs, natural and social scientific reasoning, and media and other verbal and nonverbal messages.

Mathematics (3 Credits)

Student Learning Outcomes:  Students will be able to

  • Demonstrate the ability to apply the basic processes and concepts of logic to specified situations.

  • Demonstrate the ability to apply the notations, operations, and representations of set theory to specified situations.

  • Demonstrate the ability to analyze and interpret situations using the principles of counting and probability.

  • Demonstrate the ability to apply the basic concepts of statistics. This may include collecting data; representing data using tables and graphs; and finding measures of central tendency, variation, and position.

  • Demonstrate an understanding of the standard normal distribution and z-scores and how to apply them to a specified situation.

  • Demonstrate the ability to communicate and interpret a solution to a mathematical problem in words, either orally or in writing.