1. CTA Full-Cycle Assessment of Critical Thinking in a General Education Seminar Jennifer Blue Beverley Taylor Jan Yarrison-Rice Department of Physics, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio (Critical Thinking Assessment)

2. CTA Ethics & Science Course First-Year Seminar at Miami University –first semester first-year students Topic: Ethics & Science A case-study approach Lots of discussion, small group work, debates and written assignments Improvement of critical thinking skills is an explicit goal of the course

3. CTA History of This Project Assessment project initiated mid-semester Fall, 2004 IRB approval sought Each semester about half of students consented to have their work used After course was over the Assessment Fellows read and assessed three papers per student

4. CTA Miami Univ. Assessment Fellows Cross-disciplinary group formed in Fall, 2003 Read about critical thinking Tried to define critical thinking Created lists of traits of critical thinking Created a variety of rubrics to assess critical thinking Finally settled on the Washington State rubric

5. CTA Washington State CT Project wsuctproject.wsu.edu

6. CTA Washington State CT Rubric 1.Identify and present the problem/question 2.Identify and present students’ own perspective and position 3.Identify and present others’ perspectives and positions 4.Identify and assess key assumptions 5.Identify and assess supporting data/evidence 6.Consider influence of context 7.Identify and assess implications and consequences

7. CTA Activity 1 Use the rubric to assess Example 1. Concentrate on traits 2 and 7 You have 10 minutes You have 10 minutes. Feel free to talk to your neighbors. Scant (1) Min. dev. (2) Mod dev. (3) Sub. Dev. (4) Student’s own position Conclusion

8. CTA Results from Year 1 - Averages Early assignment Midterm Identify problem1.82.76 Student perspective 1.482.14 Other perspectives1.322.10 Assumptions1.241.67 Using evidence1.21.71 Context1.321.86 Conclusion1.281.95

9. CTA Year 1 - Frequency Data

10. CTA

11. CTA Modifying Assignments for Year 2 More focused assignments To specifically teach critical thinking skills Assignments which Broke down CT skills to smaller portions Built from lower level skills to more difficult ones A grading rubric for each assignment to give students in advance Some assignments looking for all skills to see progress We decided that we needed:

12. CTA Activity 2 Use the rubric to assess Example 2. Concentrate on traits 1 and 6 You have 10 minutes You have 10 minutes. Feel free to talk to your neighbors. Scant (1) Min. dev. (2) Mod dev. (3) Sub. Dev. (4) Problem Context

13. CTA Results from Year 2 - Averages Early assignment Midterm Identify problem1.52.5 Student perspective 1.82.5 Other perspectives 1.52.1 Assumptions1.21.7 Using evidence1.41.8 Context1.51.8 Conclusion1.51.9

14. CTA Year 2 - Frequency Data

15. CTA

16. CTA Compare Years 1 and 2 Papers show improvement from early to later in the semester – in both years Re-writing and use of Peer Review was significant in producing that change Instructor more comfortable with grading No real improvement in critical thinking from 2004 to 2005 Students felt the rubrics were very helpful as they worked on their essays

17. CTA Student Perceptions of Rubrics (1) Strongly Agree to (6) Strongly Disagree Having rubric before wrote papers useful 1.12 Having rubric before wrote papers helped organize writing 1.24 Having rubric helped understand my grade 1.88 Rubrics helped incorporate critical thinking into writing 2.35

18. CTA Discussion How do you see this rubric working in your own classes? Will you need to modify the rubric for your course? How? Other ideas?

19. CTA Ideas for Next Iteration of Course Use of bulleted lists for identifying particular critical thinking traits – a quick easy way to assess how students are doing A few assignments throughout the semester in which students draw evidence together from more than one case study Next offering will be to second semester first-year students – will student CT skills be different after 1 semester in college? Your ideas?…Your ideas?…

20. CTA Contact Information Jennifer Blue, bluejm@muohio.edu Beverley Taylor, taylorba@muohio.edu Jan Yarrison-Rice, yarrisjm@muohio.edu Thank you!