Student Learning Outcomes/Exit Standards
Glendale community college Anthropology department
Anthropology 101:
- Students will be able to describe the genetic mechanisms and dynamics of evolution.
- Students will be able to recognize the place of humans in the animal kingdom.
- Students will be able to trace the geologic record of fossil forms leading to the characteristic structure of modern Homo sapiens.
- Students will be able to identify racial differences and evaluate their significance.
- Students will be able to estimate the future direction of human evolution.
Anthropology 102:
- Students will be able to assess their own culture better by learning of tribal societies and of pre-industrial and non-Western peoples.
- Students will be able to describe the ways in which humans have met their basic and derived needs within their climatic and geographic limits.
- Students will be able to assess ethnocentrism which follows from over-emphasizing one's own culture.
- Students will be able to give an analytical overview of the field, methods, limitations and major concepts in Anthropology for students considering a major or minor in the subject.
Anthropology 103:
- Students will be able to describe the techniques and methods utilized by archaeologists to develop their body of knowledge.
- Students will be able to trace and analyze the pre-history of mankind through the various Stone Ages and to appreciate the steady rate of change which took place.
- Students will be able to assess the often overlooked pre-history of their own Western Hemisphere.
- Students will be able to demonstrate the critical skills needed by more advanced work and possible majors in this field.
Anthropology 104:
- Students will be able to apply the different anthropological theories to understand religious experience and the role that religion plays for human societies.
- Students will be able to compare and contrast religious practices, beliefs, and institutions from a variety of societies with different economic and technological foundations.
- Students will be able to describe the different fundamental categories of religious tradition.
- Students will be able to demonstrate a functional knowledge of the religious fixtures including symbolism, myth, ritual, and ritual practitioners.
- Students will be able to analyze the intersection between religion, healing, and other cultural institutions.
- Students will be able to apply anthropological methods to the study of Western, African, Oceanic, Native American and Eastern religions.
- Students will be able to demonstrate an understanding of syncretic religious traditions such as Voodoo in the United States and abroad.
- Students will be able to demonstrate a familiarity with contemporary American religious practices from a broad array of communities, ethnic groups and immigrant groups including modern Wicca, Pentecostalism, cults, and New Age religious practices.
Anthropology 105:
- Students will be able to summarize theories about the origins of human language.
- Students will be able to describe the historical development of writing systems across the world's major languages.
- Students will be able to compare the nature of human language with various forms of animal communication.
- Students will be able to demonstrate knowledge of the major areas of the study of grammar, including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and syntax.
- Students will be able to perform various computations and exercises pertaining to each of these areas of study.
- Students will be able to demonstrate understanding of the basic machinations of language change and historical linguistics, including comparative reconstruction and various components of language change and the history of English.
- Students will be able to demonstrate knowledge of the process of language socialization, including acquisition and use.
- Students will be able to describe the relationship between language, society and culture and demonstrate understanding of related topics such as dialects, registers, bilingualism, gender, multilingualism, language and education, sociolinguistics and the ethnography of communication.
Anthropology 111:
- Students will be able to describe and apply each step of the scientific method.
- Students will be able to describe and define natural selection and evolution.
- Students will be able to solve simple and advanced Mendelian and population genetics problems.
- Students will be able to outline the most important steps in protein synthesis, and relate those steps to mutational errors and how natural selection is made meaningful on a genetic level.
- Students will be able to identify the important morphological differences in primate taxonomy.
- Students will be able to describe from firsthand observation common behaviors in non-human primates.
- Students will be able to describe and interpret morphological conditions found in hominid fossils.
- Students will be able to identify biasing agents in the fossil record.
- Students will be able to identify human bones and features of bones to interpret both non-human primate and hominid material.
- Students will be able to describe the ways human variation has been examined and critique both how the scientific and social communities have used this data.