Formative Education
Formative education engages the whole person, guiding young people toward purposeful lives, fulfillment, and more ideal selves and societies. Formative education helps create communities that encourage exploring the different dimensions of intellectual, emotional, interpersonal, and spiritual development.
In keeping with the Jesuit tradition, we encourage our students to ask questions such as: What brings me joy? What will give my life meaning and purpose? What does the world need me to be?
Dedicated to Formative Education
Boston College is committed to helping everyone in its community to integrate the intellectual, social, and spiritual so as to live life fully.听In its Strategic Plan, the University outlines its commitment to enhance formation鈥攑art of Jesuit education since St. Ignatius founded the order in 1540鈥攁mong students, faculty, and staff to further the University鈥檚 mission and strengthen its institutional culture.
-
Formative Education Online
Cultivating wholeness, purpose, and community in virtual environments
This Practice Guide summarizes the key insights from 38 Dean-nominated faculty members.听 This document offers a set of pedagogical strategies used by 亚色影库 colleagues to foster holistic student development in both in-person and online environments. The guide is organized thematically into three interrelated components of formative education at Boston College: wholeness, purpose, and community.
-
City Connects
City Connects is an LSEHD support program that provides an evidence-based strategy to address out-of-school challenges that diminish a child鈥檚 ability to learn and thrive, especially in high-poverty urban school districts.
-
Dean Wortham's Vision
鈥淲e鈥檙e working on transforming human beings,鈥� says LSEHD Dean Stanton Wortham. His vision for LSEHD is to shape young people鈥檚 development, leading them to live lives of meaning and purpose.听
-
Addressing the Challenges of Measuring Meaning & Purpose
In a first-of-its-kind conference and workshop, LSEHD hosted scholars from a range of disciplines to discuss strategies for measuring the impact of undergraduate education on students' personal growth.听
-
The Whole Child, Whole Person Summit
LSEHD and ASCD convened an international audience of teachers, principals, superintendents, and education professionals for the Whole Child, Whole Person Summit.
Key Initiatives at LSEHD
“Education鈥檚 true goal is to prepare young people to adopt ways of living that incorporate values, ideas, and practices that will allow them to become decent, fulfilled human beings.”
Examples of Formative Education Experiences
Boston College has established many approaches, courses, and programs to ensure that students, faculty, and staff learn and grow in keeping with nearly 500 years of Jesuit educational tradition.
Academic Programs for Students
Core Curriculum
Boston College鈥檚 Core Curriculum meaningfully connects the living tradition of the Jesuits with the best and most relevant ways of knowing in our time, establishing a foundation for intellectual development and preparing engaged, effective world citizens.
Cornerstone
The Cornerstone program offers first-year students special courses, including the Freshman Topic Seminar and The Courage to Know, in which they are encouraged to reflect on their lives as students and to get to know their academic adviser.听听
Capstone
In the Capstone program, seniors and second-semester juniors review their education and preview upcoming long-term commitments, focusing on their personal development in relationships, society, academics, spirituality, career, and personal skills.
Perspectives
The Perspectives program offers interdisciplinary courses inspired by the Jesuit tradition of providing,听through the study of the听liberal arts and reflection on the common good,听a humanist context for听professional and scientific education.听
听
PULSE
The PULSE Program educates students about social injustice by placing them in direct contact with marginalized populations and social change organizations and encouraging discussion on classic and contemporary works of philosophy and theology.