D2: U.S. Histories Democratic Participation

These outcomes reflect the statutory requirements mandated by CSU Executive Order 405 requiring students to understand U.S. History and an “American Ideals” requirement. A U.S. History/Democratic Participation course at CSUMB gives students the opportunity to examine U.S. Histories and the California and U.S. Constitutions within the context of CSUMB core values, including applied active and project based learning, multicultural and global perspectives, and ethical reflection and practice.

1. Historical Knowledge: Students identify and describe processes, diverse peoples, and events in the histories of what is now the United States nationally, regionally, and globally over a span of at least 100 years, including the study of culture, politics, economics, social movements and/or geography.
2. Historical Research and Analysis: Students become their own historians by demonstrating the ability to gather information, select relevant evidence from the information gathered, evaluate its credibility and use that evidence to explain and interpret the past.
   • Effectively identify relevant scholarly sources on the topic; understand the distinctions between primary historical evidence and secondary historical sources.
   • Select library databases appropriate to the topic. Identify and combine keywords and synonyms to develop a search strategy; effectively execute the search in appropriate library databases.
   • Evaluate the credibility of information sources, using the following criteria: expertise & credentials, purpose & audience, point of view.
3. Constitutional Knowledge: Students identify and describe general principles, major provisions, and political philosophies of the constitutions of the United States and California at the time of their creation and how these constitutions have changed over time as well as the relations of power, interests, and concerns that those changes reflect.
4. Comparative Political Analysis: Students demonstrate basic understanding of how U.S. and California political institutions and practices function at the local, state and national levels in comparison with other forms of governance in the world.
5. Application: Based on analysis of relevant sources, students use tools of political action in an historically informed political project focused on the local, state, or national levels that enables a reflection on the values and assumptions that inform their own and others’ political participation.