Winter Quarter 2008
Our mission at South Puget Sound Community College is to engage our community in learning for life. As part of that philosophy, we believe that strong general education content helps students develop the intellectual skills that will make them more effective life-long learners. Additionally, we believe that all students need to develop a broad range of abilities that will not only make them more effective in their professional pursuits, but will enhance their capacity to relate well to others in their daily lives. One aspect of this philosophy is that our students will learn to think logically and critically. We deeply value this important outcome, and like all of our outcomes, we need to assess it to ensure that our students are gaining the skills we want them to achieve.
An interdisciplinary task force, a subgroup of the Assessment and Research Council, developed the attached assessment rubric. This group was tasked with identifying the dimensions of critical thinking that we at South Puget Sound Community College want our students to achieve in our courses. This rubric is intended to be a comprehensive evaluation tool that can assess multiple opportunities for critical thinking in a variety of contexts. It is not expected that all of the dimensions, which were turned into outcomes, will be accomplished in a given course, but a valid demonstration in critical thinking should include at least two of these outcomes.
As part of each department’s assessment plan, this rubric will be used to evaluate a demonstration in critical thinking of the professor’s choosing; e.g., research paper, lab project, or oral presentation. The professor will identify which of the five outcomes are appropriate for that demonstration, and evaluate the student’s work using the descriptions given at each level within the rubric. A score of 1 indicates no level of critical thinking, while a score of 4 indicates a full demonstration of critical thinking. The professor will enter their data into a spreadsheet which will be provided by the Office of Institutional Research. This method of data collecting will allow for analyses at the course, program, and institutional levels. The Office of Institutional Research will provide a research report after all the data has been collected and analyzed.
Thank your for your contribution to the College’s ongoing efforts to provide a quality education for our students.