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, taking examinations on those subjects at the end of each term to receive credits for successfully completed courses, and graduating when a sufficient number of credits is achieved. At Boricua College, lecture-discussion courses are an excellent way for college students to master some kinds of information. Such "theoretical studies," however, are only one, of five distinct ways in which students are educated and receive academic credit at Boricua College. An explanation of each of these modes of instruction and of the way they are integrated into a singular program of student growth and development, follows.

Individualized Instruction

At the core of academic programs at Boricua is a way of learning called Individualized Instruction. For this unique part of the College's program each student meets individually with a Faculty Facilitator for one hour each week of every learning cycle, to plan and evaluate an individualized program of learning designed to meet that particular student's educational needs and career aspirations.

During the student's first two years of enrollment at Boricua, individualized instruction focuses on such core intellectual skills as comprehension, application of theories and concepts, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation: those skills required for the mastery of all substantive academic disciplines and fields of knowledge. In Boricua these courses are called Cognitive Science. Employing instructional modules, the Facilitator carefully guides the student through a self-paced program designed to equip the student with the necessary intellectual competencies for life-long learning as well as introducing them to the subject matter of the liberal arts. During the junior and senior years of enrollment, individualized instruction takes on a more focused disciplinary character as the student is guided through the breadth and depth of the concepts and literature of their chosen field of specialization such as education, human services or business.

The Faculty Facilitators who are responsible for the guidance of the student's total learning program are the full-time members of Boricua College's faculty, specially selected and trained for this demanding and important work.

Colloquium

A second way of learning, also unique to the Boricua College experience, is the weekly Colloquium. Throughout the term, eight to ten students meet each week with their Faculty Facilitator to exchange, share, discuss and evaluate various issues and problems related to the learning program of the group members. Within that context each student has the opportunity to be a lecturer, that is, provider of knowledge, as well as a receiver of knowledge. Each student then shares with the colloquium group their perceptions, skills, values and knowledge. The student progresses each cycle through various levels from an introductory understanding of group dynamics and group learning to assuming greater leadership and providing deeper comprehension and analysis of subject matter within the group.

A successful colloquium is one where each member participates fully in the establishment of each week's agenda for discussion based on the established syllabus; has an opportunity to share knowledge, and learn the general affective skills of receiving, responding and organization of values systems; and as the group participants become a cohesive group with a definite culture, shared norms and values, knowledge is carefully evaluated, created and assimilated.

In the first two years, a series of small group colloquia are planned to develop affective competencies and take students through increasingly higher levels of self-awareness that lead to their assuming greater leadership roles in their families, peer groups, and community.

In the final two years, while still emphasizing the affective domain, colloquium takes on a more disciplinary character as students discuss the values, skills and knowledge of their major area of study.

Experiential Studies

A third way of learning in which all Boricua students participate throughout their college careers involves structured experiences designed to bring the students to a high level of practice in the world of work. In the freshmen year, the focus is on broadening the experience of the student by emphasizing sensory and perceptual development. Through a series of planned visits the student will sharpen his ability to observe, record and to study how the artist, social scientist and natural scientist works, and their settings of practice, products and findings. The student is also required to get in touch with their bodies through physical development. Here the student may participate in a physical education workshop, nutrition workshop, yoga, martial arts, aerobic or other guided exercises designed to increase body and sensory awareness and improve health.

In their sophomore year, instrumental skills development, the student is required to practice a set of skilled behaviors necessary for problem solving. The purpose of this phase is to help the student articulate and behaviorally integrate the values, skills and knowledge of a field of study, under controlled conditions. Courses such as science labs, introduction to computers, music and art are offered.

The junior and senior year of the experiential learning program is direct practice in a professional setting. Central to these internships and apprenticeships, called practicum, is an understanding between the College and the host agency by which they become partners in the training of the intern. The understanding includes the types of assignments the intern will receive within the agency. As part of the understanding, the College and host agency designate a Field Supervisor from the professional staff of the agency who orients interns to the work, structure and style of the organization. In addition, the Field Supervisor assigns specific work, tasks, and guides the intern to readings and other information relevant to the field, and assists him and his Facilitator in evaluating the experience.

Theoretical Studies

Each cycle or academic term, Boricua College offers a wide array of academic courses called Theoretical Studies. Each course employs the customary techniques of lecture, discussions and written examinations and is designed to lead the student systematically through a topic or body of knowledge in mathematics and the social or natural sciences. Course offerings change from term to term, and are announced several weeks in advance of each learning cycle. They are taught by Adjunct Faculty employed by Boricua College. Among the courses offered during a typical learning cycle at Boricua are:

Sociology	Mathematics	Human Physiology
Anthropology	Statistics	Earth Science
Psychology	Computer Language	Survey of the Social Sciences
Economics	Accounting	Survey of the Natural Sciences

Cultural Studies

Boricua College believes that the educated man or woman is not only a person of broad learning who can put knowledge to the service of effective action in the world, but a person who can express aesthetic perceptions of the world in acts of artistic expression, language use, and the humanities. In the importance it attaches to the development of the artistic or expressive side of human nature, the College perpetuates one of the deepest values in Boricua culture. Each learning cycle therefore, the College offers its students several learning opportunities in languages, the humanities and fine arts focusing on the unique experience, language and history of Puerto Rico and other Spanish-speaking areas of the Western Hemisphere. The adjunct faculty who teach Cultural Studies courses are drawn from other colleges and universities and from New York's rich array of working artists and craftspeople. Among the courses offered during a typical learning cycle at Boricua are:

English Composition	Latin American History
English and American Literature	American History
Spanish Composition	History of Western Civilization
Latin American Literature	Art History
Puerto Rican History	Philosophy

The Integration of Learning Experiences

No goal is more important to the work of Boricua College than its students' success in integrating their ways of learning into a coherent pattern of educational growth and personal development. Three features of the College's program are directed toward that goal.

• The Learning Contract. The task of learning begins with an integrated plan embodied in the student's Learning Contract. At the beginning of every academic cycle, each student along with a Faculty Facilitator plans their personalized Learning Contract for the term. The contract specifies the student's educational goals for the cycle, how the five ways of learning will be utilized to achieve those goals, and how the student's progress will be evaluated at the end of the term.
• The Assessment Portfolio. Boricua maintains for each enrolled student a comprehensive portfolio each academic cycle containing the student's learning contract, all exercises, examinations, other work produced, and the faculty evaluations or assessments of the student's achievement for the term. This portfolio becomes the documentary basis for both the student and the college to evaluate the full range of the student's educational progress at Boricua.
• The Student-Facilitator Partnership. Neither detailed planning nor comprehensive documentation and assessment can insure the integration of a student's learning experience at Boricua without the work of the Faculty Facilitator—the key figure in the College's educational program. Performing a faculty role virtually unknown in traditional institutions, Boricua Facilitators are responsible for the educational development of twenty students with whom they meet individually, and in small groups, each week of the learning cycle.

In a transactional process, the Facilitator and students work to achieve a synthesis or gestalt of the skills, knowledge, values and experiences the student encounters at Boricua.