1. Thinking Critically about Critical Thinking Jun 26, 2015 9:00 am – 2:30 pm UCEN-107 Special Guests: Julie Stein, CSU East Bay Gregory Maximilian Aisemberg, COC Philosophy Andy McCutcheon Rebecca Eikey

2. Goals  What value do Institutional Learning Outcomes have?  Why develop measurements for the ILOs?  What is Critical Thinking?  What would a Critical Thinking Rubric for COC look like?  How do rubrics support student learning?

4. COC Mission As an innovative institution of excellence, College of the Canyons offers an accessible, enriching education that provides students with essential academic skills and prepares students for transfer education, workforce-skills development, and the attainment of learning outcomes corresponding to their educational goals. To fulfill its mission, College of the Canyons embraces diversity, fosters technical competencies, supports the development of global responsibility, and engages students and the community in scholarly inquiry, creative partnerships, and the application of knowledge.

5. “A collaboration between educators, students, policymakers, and business and community leaders.”

6. How is the Workplace Changing? “Human work will increasingly shift toward two kinds of tasks: solving problems for which standard operating procedures do not currently exist, and working with new information—acquiring it, making sense of it, communicating it to others….” Frank Levy and Richard Murnane, “Dancing with Robots” (2013) Learning Agility

7. The LEAP Initiative Promotes Essential Learning Outcomes A Guiding Vision and National Benchmarks for College Learning and Liberal Education in the 21 st Century High Impact Practices Helping Students Achieve the Essential Learning Outcomes Authentic Assessments of Student Learning Probing Whether Students Can APPLY Their Learning – to Complex Problems and Real- World Challenges Seven Principles of Excellence, including Inclusiveness Diversity, Equity, Quality of Learning for All Groups of Students

8. Goal: Raise Quality of Education  Large-scale collaboration  Transformational change  Educational alignment

10. Narrow Learning is Not Enough Knowledge of Human Cultures and the Physical and Natural World Focused on engagement with big questions, enduring and contemporary Intellectual and Practical Skills Practiced extensively across the curriculum, in the context of progressively more challenging problems, projects, and standards for performance Personal and Social Responsibility Anchored through active involvement with diverse communities and real-world challenges Integrative and Applied Learning Demonstrated through the application of knowledge, skills, and responsibilities to new settings and complex problems The Essential Learning Outcomes

11. Overview of ILO Development at CSU East Bay 11 2010 2012 Development of Institutional Learning Outcomes (ILOs) 2013 2014 2011 ILO Adoption Blackboard Outcomes Implementation Campus-Wide Assessment Critical Thinking

12. The California State University East Bay Institutional Learning Outcomes (ILOs) express a shared, campus-wide articulation of expectations for all degree recipients. Graduates of CSUEB will be able to:  think critically and creatively and apply analytical and quantitative reasoning to address complex challenges and everyday problems;  communicate ideas, perspectives, and values clearly and persuasively while listening openly to others;  apply knowledge of diversity and multicultural competencies to promote equity and social justice in our communities;  work collaboratively and respectfully as members and leaders of diverse teams and communities;  act responsibly and sustainably at local, national, and global levels;  demonstrate expertise and integration of ideas, methods, theory and practice in a specialized discipline of study. 12 Overview of ILO Development at CSU East Bay

13. Outcomes Build Upon Each Other Proposed Six ILOs 1.Effective Communication 2.Critical Thinking 3.Working with Others 4.Information Literacy 5.Quantitative Literacy 6.Community Engagement Institutional Program, Degree, Certificate Course Outcomes

14. COC ILO Survey Results In General - Average Response Rate for Email Surveys = 24.8% Responses Invited to Participate Response Rate Overall12284415% Adjunct Faculty6459511% Full-Time Faculty3717921% College Planning Team 62227% Division Deans4757% Learning Resources6875% Student Services51631%

15. COC ILO Survey Results Survey PromptResponse Familiar with proposed ILOs?44% = yes 56% = not Satisfaction with proposed ILOs?~70% = satisfied or very satisfied Agreement that ILOs reflect COC? ~80% = agree or strongly agree Consider remaining categories?~20% = yes Areas missing in the ILOs?~15% = yes

20. Activity: Ranking of ILOs  Working as individuals  Rank the proposed ILOs according to importance.  Where 1 = most important and 8 = least important.

22. ILO Activity – Definitions  Working in teams on definitions of ILO  Each group will have a definition of a proposed ILO  Edit/refine the definition and post into Discussion Board in Bb  Present to entire group  Debrief

23. Break 11:00 am -11:10 am

24. How Rubrics Measure Student Attainment of Outcomes A rubric is a faculty-developed scoring guide for use in assessing student work along specific dimensions. It contains a set of criteria specifying the characteristics of a learning outcome (e.g. the ILO) and the levels of achievement for each characteristic. Level of achievement Criteria

25. How Rubrics Measure Student Attainment of Outcomes  Articulates what learning faculty want their students to achieve actually looks like  Helps clarify “fuzzy” outcomes: e.g. “demonstrate effective critical thinking”  Can measure virtually any student work (e.g. paper, e-portfolio, project, audio or video presentation, performance, blog, etc.)  Helps students: clear expectations, specific feedback, better potential future performance

26. The Difference Between Course Grading, PLO Assessment and ILO Assessment SLOPLOILO Who designs the assessment(s)? What is purpose? Assessment affects student grade? What happens with the results?

27. The Development of the Critical Thinking Rubric at CSU East Bay 27

28. The Development of the Critical Thinking Rubric at CSU East Bay 28 Results and Faculty Response  Improved student learning when students were provided with a rubric  Recognition of the value of involving faculty in all steps of the process  Reinforcement of the importance of designing well-crafted, meaningful assignments with clear, carefully crafted prompts  Concern about the applicability of one rubric across disciplines “During the course of the critical thinking rubric project, the quality of work submitted by the students was much higher than in quarters past. I also feel that the rubric helped me to grade the papers more consistently and helped me to hold the students to a higher standard, which helps them to reach higher levels of achievement in their future courses.” Hospitality, Recreation, & Tourism faculty

29. AAC&U VALUE Rubrics  As part of its VALUE (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education) project, AAC&U worked with faculty and other academic and student affairs professionals in an exhaustive process of gathering, analyzing, synthesizing, and drafting institutional-level rubrics for the Essential Learning Outcomes.  32,729 individuals participated in consortia approach  5661 institutions use the VALUE rubrics

30. VALUE Rubrics Contain the most common and broadly shared criteria or core characteristics considered critical for judging the quality of student work in that outcome area. Reflect faculty expectations for essential learning across the nation regardless of type of institution, mission, size or location.

31. Faculty Activity & Debrief Goal: Develop a Critical Thinking Rubric using AAC&U’s as a staring point. Write changes on CT Rubric Posters.

32. How Rubrics Support Assignments and Help Deepen Student Learning 32 At what levels can rubrics be used?  To evaluate student work demonstrating a particular student learning outcome ( SLO ) = individual faculty member use in grading  To assess selected student work demonstrating a particular program learning outcome ( PLO )=program faculty use for curriculum improvement  To assess selected student work demonstrating a particular institutional learning outcome ( ILO )=university faculty committee use for institution-wide assessment

33. How Rubrics Support Assignments and Help Deepen Student Learning  For faculty, rubrics:  Can be developed and measure virtually any student work (e.g. paper, project, audio or video presentation, performance, e- portfolio, blog, etc.)  Provide a clearer picture of strengths and weaknesses across a class  Can make faculty life easier and grading more consistent, accurate, and unbiased  Reduce the time spent grading by referring to substantive quality descriptors, without writing long comments  For students, rubrics:  help to better understand faculty expectations and standards; this can result in reduced anxiety and improved learning  Monitor progress as they work towards clearly indicated goals  Use instructor feedback to improve their performance  Discourage arguments about grading practices

34. Activity: Critical Thinking Assignments  Peer-Review & Sharing  Working with a partner share your example of a Critical Thinking Assignment.  Explain to your partner why you chose this assignment as an example of Critical Thinking.  How does this assignment demonstrate Critical Thinking?  Identify two specific terms from the VALUE Rubric that this assignment addresses.  Would you change any elements of the assignment or the value Critical Thinking VALUE Rubric?  Report out

35. Signature Assignment Update  How might Signature Assignments help strengthen connections between course level SLOs and ILOs?  For those who have used Signature Assignments,  How has it gone?  Best advice to share?  Did you use your own rubric?  Would you consider modifying a VALUE Rubric?  Plans for the future?

36. Signature Assignment Examples  Pan’s Labyrinth https://pathbrite.com/portfolio/PbqH9cPV49/4- multimodal-project https://pathbrite.com/portfolio/PbqH9cPV49/4- multimodal-project  eMolecule http://morphinemadness.weebly.com/ or http://jinlutchmanemoleculeproject.weebly.com/ orhttp://morphinemadness.weebly.com/ http://jinlutchmanemoleculeproject.weebly.com/

37. Identify some golden nuggets you have learned today. Share with a neighbor and then we will report out.

38. Questions?

39. Next Steps  Revision of ILO descriptions  Revision of ILO Rubrics  Additional feedback  Survey  Disciplinary experts

40. Use of ePortfolios http://facultyeportfolioresource.weebly.com/eportfolio-examples- to-show-your-students.html