BORICUA COLLEGE

Boricua College is an independent, private, liberal arts and science, professional not-for-profit college. With three locations located in New York - Manhattan Campus, Bronx Campus and Brooklyn Campus. Boricua College enrolls approximately 500 full-time students in programs leading to Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Arts, Master of Arts, and Master of Science degrees. Five Ways of Learning and Modes of Instruction In all its academic programs, Boricua College has a unique pattern of diversified modes of instruction and ways of learning implemented through five curricular areas. For most students, going to college means taking courses in an institution of higher education, attending lectures on various academic subjects such as history, physics, or math, and taking examinations on those subjects at the end of each term. At Boricua College, lecture-discussion courses constitute an excellent way for college students to master some kinds of information such as knowledge of specifics, methodology, and universal concepts and themes. Such "theoretical studies," however, are only one of five distinct ways in which students are educated and receive academic credit at Boricua. An explanation of each of the five modes of instruction and the way they are integrated into a singular program of student growth and development is described below. - Individualized Instruction: In the courses that use this mode of instruction and way of learning every student meets individually with their assigned full-time faculty member for one hour per week throughout the academic cycle to plan, implement and evaluate a program of learning determined by the curriculum, and designed to meet that student's educational needs and career aspirations. During the first two years, individualized instruction emphasizes the development of carefully identified generic intellectual skills required for the mastery of the basic principles of knowledge of the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. During the next two years, individualized instruction takes on a more disciplinary character as the student is helped to develop the breadth and depth of intellectual skills and apply them in learning the concepts and literature of his/her field of specialization. In all these courses, a system of instructional modules, developed by the faculty are used as the primary text to guide instruction. - Colloquium: A second unique way of learning at Boricua involves the use of small-group colloquia comprising eight to ten students who meet once a week with their assigned full-time faculty to exchange, share, discuss, and evaluate ideas, issues and problems related to the learning program of the group members. A particular objective of the courses taught through colloquia in the first two years is the development of affective skills necessary for life-long learning and acquisition of knowledge. During the next two years the Colloquium takes on a more disciplinary character as students are helped to develop the breadth and depth of the affective skills and the values inherent in their fields of specialization. - Experiential Studies: This mode of learning involves carefully designed structured experiences of "learning by doing." It aims to develop students' awareness of how simple psychomotor skilled movements evolve into complex professional skills. In the students' first year they participate in structured field experiences under the guidance of their assigned full-time faculty to sharpen their sensory and perceptual awareness and observational skills. They continue on to courses that increase body sensory awareness, physical abilities and complex instrumental skills that integrate the psychomotor with cognitive skills. In the next two years and beyond, the student participates in carefully designed workshops, studio activities and supervised internships related to their academic disciplines and professional goals. - Theoretical Studies: A fourth set of courses lead the student through a body of instrumental methods and knowledge required for problem solving, employing the customary techniques of lectures, discussion, readings and written examinations. In the first two years of Theoretical Studies courses, students learn by applying their intellectual and affective skills to introductory subject matter of mathematics, social and natural sciences, transforming it into personal knowledge. In the following two years and beyond, the student develops further use of intellectual and affective skills by applying them to learning the facts, methods, theories and specialized complex subject matter of the liberal arts and science disciplines and specialized knowledge of the professions. - Cultural Studies: At Boricua College three levels of culture are particularly relevant: (1) the archetypal elements, mostly unconscious, that motivate behaviors and identify a student as a member of "a people (2) historical elements that serve as conscious icons representative of popular aspects of a particular culture; (3) the contemporaneous elements of a culture that are being created in the daily life of a student and his/her peers. Particularly essential to Cultural Studies is the development and application of the affective skills and processes of literacy, receiving, responding, values and the companion internal processes of sensing, emotions and feelings, that together provide content for creating and understanding culture. In the first two years Cultural Studies courses also concentrate on the written and oral communication skills of the student. In the second two years and beyond, the concentration is on the humanities and the arts. In the second two years and beyond, the concentration is on the humanities and the arts. student. In the second two years and beyond, the concentration is on the humanities and the arts.