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Core Competencies and ILO Statements

In Spring 2007, the El Camino College Academic Senate approved a set of core competencies which represent a broadly-defined knowledge base and/or set of skills that students are expected to demonstrate as a result of their educational experience at the college.  Revisions to the core competencies, now referred to as Institutional Learning Outcomes (ILOs), were approved in 2010, 2014, and 2021. 

Current ILO Statements (as ratified by the Academic Senate in Fall 2021):

1. Clarify The Path

El Camino college ensures students can find, access and understand information available to help guide them toward their educational goals, including major requirements and related careers. The information is available in these forms:

  • Web-based (Program Pathways Mapper, program web pages, meta-major information, Student Support Hub on Canvas);
  • Events (career events through the Career Center or meta-major communities);
  • College personnel (advice-seeking through counseling or advising with professors);
  • Communications through text or email (ECC Connect, meta-major and special programs communications).

2. Enter The Path

The college guides students to make informed decisions about their program of study and use appropriate supports to help them enroll in and succeed in their gateway courses:

  • Students are confident about their choice of major and the career goal that the major leads to;
  • Counselors help students design and develop their comprehensive educational plan;
  • Students are able to enroll in their courses with minimal obstacles;
  • College personnel guide students to appropriate supports (e.g.math study center, Reading and Writing Studio, SRC, FYE);
  • Degree-seeking students pass college-level math and English as well as their major’s gateway courses in the first year to pave the way for their subsequent course of study.

3. Stay on The Path

The college supports students to persist in their chosen learning path and see it through to completion.

  • Needed support services exist and are equitably available and accessible.
  • Students are aware of and use relevant support services as needed;
  • Students understand and follow their comprehensive educational plan;
  • Students complete their chosen educational goal(s).

4. Ensure Learning

The college empowers students to learn the needed skills and content in their chosen courses and programs of study through relevant assessment practices as well as periodic evaluation of its assessment systems.

  • In identified gateway and high impact courses, the college is closing equity gaps in success and retention, as well as achievement of learning outcomes.
  • Students are achieving the stated outcomes at the course and program levels as demonstrated by assessment of SLOs and PLOs;
  • The assessment process and outcomes are continually reviewed to ensure alignment with outcomes in other courses, transfer destinations, and need of industry partners.
  • Students have opportunities to apply the skills they learn in the classroom in active learning opportunities as well as outside the classroom in the form of projects, portfolios, internships, study abroad, and more.

The college assesses its ILOs on a 4-year cycle, with a one ILO statement scheduled for assessment in any given academic year. 

Click here for additional information regarding the history of learning outcomes assessment at El Camino College.