The Professor Magda Vasillov General Education and Assessment Committee Rubrics for Lunch November 19, 2009 Gina Cicco, Ed.D.

 Introduction Why use critical thinking rubrics?  Our Rubric Bloom’s Taxonomy  Putting the Rubric to Work Examples for practice Group activity  Discussion  Conclusion Questions & comments

 Primary objective of a college education Defining critical thinking Measuring critical thinking ability Promote thinking and learning  Help students reflect on and improve their thinking and writing abilities (metacognition)  Help teachers teach and evaluate, instructional tools

 Provides a more global assessment of performance than the checklist-based method  Clarify expectations and learning objectives for various types of assignments  Allows for faculty and peer assessment and an ongoing exchange of feedback

 First three categories are hierarchical  Basic knowledge: memorizing facts, figures, and basic processes  Secondary comprehension: understanding and illustrating the facts  Application: generalizing the facts to other contexts and situations

 Last three categories are not hierarchical, require knowledge and comprehension of content, and are considered higher-order skills  Analysis: understanding why the facts are the way they are; breaking problems down  Synthesis: making connections between different elements on one’s own  Evaluation: critically using one’s knowledge to ascertain the quality of information

 Hostos Draft Hostos Draft  tical%20Thinking.pdf tical%20Thinking.pdf  AAC&U Value Rubric  us09_criticalthinkingrubric.pdf

 Easy to use and to explain  Make teachers’ expectations very clear  Provide students with informative feedback about their strengths and areas in need of improvement  Support learning  Support the development of skills  Support the development of understanding  Support higher-order thinking

 Please read the assignment…  Use the rubric to score the sample assignment…  What feedback/comments would you provide this student?  Discuss in small groups…

 Discussion  Questions  Comments  Suggestions  Thank you… please provide your feedback so we can improve the rubrics!!!