Are We Helping Students Think Critically? Ways to Evaluate Assignments and Assess Students' Responses
by Laurie Fath, Director, Center for Teaching Excellence
“Critical Thinking is the process of purposeful, self-regulatory judgment. In this
process we give reasoned consideration to the evidence, context, conceptualizations,
methods, and criteria by which those judgments are made."
“The Delphi Report.” Critical Thinking: A Statement of Expert Consensus for Purposes
of Educational Assessment and Instruction. American Philosophical Association. 1990.
Fostering the development of critical thinking (CT) is a major focus in higher education today. Employers, governing boards, faculty members, and graduates routinely advise greater emphasis on developing this facility. In Virginia, the main impetus for such action has come from the State Council on Higher Education (SCHEV), which recently mandated that all state institutions assess their students’ CT abilities, along with fi ve other core competencies (writing, oral communication, IT literacy, scientifi c reasoning, and quantitative literacy). Th e choice of how to approach this complex measurement, however, has been left up to each institution. Here at Mason
we are in the process of grappling with this task. Karen Gentemann, Director of the
Institutional Assessment, is working with faculty members and administrators from
across the university to determine the most eff ective way to measure CT.
To help us with the process, and to bring an outside perspective, Karen invited Dr.
Bill Condon from the University of Washington to deliver a day-long workshop
on “Critical Th inking in the Classroom: Making it Happen.” Condon is the director
of a U.S. Department of Education FIPSE-funded “Critical Th inking Project”
and a nationally known leader in the fi eld of writing in the disciplines and critical
thinking. About 45 faculty and library staff from across the campus attended the
September 17 workshop, which was focused on making CT an explicit component
of teaching, developing assignments that elicit CT, and recognizing when students
have engaged in CT. Th e following are key ideas, tips, and insights from that workshop
that may be helpful in your own teaching:
1. Think about the ways in which students practice and demonstrate critical
thinking in your discipline. Discuss these with your colleagues. Decide how you will incorporate these into your own classes, writing assignments,
and the departmental curriculum. At the workshop, participants
cited the following as evidence of critical thinking in their students’ written
work (though all may not be present in all disciplines or assignments):
Identifying the problem and limiting its scope
Problem solving
Giving evidence for claims, and evaluation of that evidence, including visual
evidence
1.
Incorporating multiple sources/perspectives
Identifying assumptions behind approaches and
beliefs
Bringing disparate pieces into a meaningful
whole
Tolerating ambiguities
Understanding that there may be diff erent cultural
logics
Refl ecting on one’s own processes, procedures,
logic, and assumptions (thinking about one’s
thinking)
Being aware of the impact of one’s thinking and
writing on various audiences
Th e clarity of the writing assignment strongly aff ects
the quality of the student submissions. You need
to know in advance what kinds of critical thinking
you want students to demonstrate and how the assignment
fi ts into the larger course goals. Once you
have defi ned the purpose and parameters of the assignment,
you can use this information to develop
a new grading rubric, or modify an existing one.
Students are more likely to reach the goals you’ve set
for them if they understand the goals themselves, and
how you will assess their achievement of the goals.
At Washington State, Condon and his colleagues
determined that incorporating their CT rubric
into instructional expectations improved students’
scores in CT by more than a factor of 3 over those
courses that didn’t use the rubric in instruction.
In teaching and assessing CT, one size does not fi t all.
Diff erent disciplines have diff erent needs, and different
approaches to CT. Th e ways in which you ask
students to demonstrate CT and the ways in which
you measure it must be appropriate to the discipline.
At the workshop, the nuances in how diff erent crossdisciplinary
groups articulated similar concepts highlighted
the variations of viewpoints across disciplines,
and illustrated why a single rubric for assessing CT
in writing may not be workable across disciplines.
However, an easy way to begin is to use an existing
rubric (of which there are many) with its basic
set of criteria. From these basic criteria, disciplines
can make adjustments to meet their local needs. Th e
Washington State CT rubric was adapted by diff erent
groups on their campus to be locally appropriate.
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Here is one sample critical thinking assignment out of six created in the workshop
by small groups from a mix of disciplines and backgrounds. Assignment
directions were more detailed than there is space here to represent:
Critical Analysis of Media Information Assignment
In this (300-level) course, we think about the infl uence of media and
evaluating information. Now it’s your turn to think and write about
how you make decisions. Choose a controversial issue treated by the
media today for which there is confl icting expertise or information
(preferably an issue that you are interested in). Analyze the challenges
involved in examining confl icting claims made by experts reported
in the media from your perspective, and compare and contrast with
those identifi ed in course readings.
Identify and describe the issue and its context
What are your assumptions and criteria involved in your decisions
about what to believe?
Identify and include a range of useful sources.
What conclusions can you reach about the diffi culty non-experts
confront in the face of confl icting claims made by experts, as
reported in the media?
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Information on the Washington State Critical Th inking Project,
including their basic rubric for assessing CT, adapted rubrics
from diff erent disciplines, and data on student outcomes from
courses using the rubric, can be found at:
http://wsuctproject.ctlt.wsu.edu.
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