General Education Assessment

Critical Thinking/Problem Solving
Assignment Criteria

The assignment requires the student to:

1. Identify the challenge presented or the problem to be solved.
   The student's response to the assignment should do at least one of the following:
   • Demonstrate a clear understanding of the assignment's purpose
   • Clearly identify the issue or problem
   • Accurately identify the core issues
   • Appreciate the depth and breadth of the challenge or problem
     
2. Analyze, review, organize, contextualize, and/or collect information about the  problem.
   The student's response to the assignment should do at least one of the following:
   • demonstrate fair-mindedness toward the problem or challenge
   • understand/explore/consider multiple perspectives
   • identify and evaluate relevant significant points of view
   • examine relevant points of view fairly, empathetically
   • gather sufficient, credible, relevant information: observations, statements, logic, data, facts, questions, graphs, themes, assertions, descriptions, etc.
   • include information that opposes as well as supports the argued position
   • identify and accurately explain/use relevant key concepts
   • accurately identify assumptions (things taken for granted)
   • make assumptions that are consistent, reasonable, and valid
     
3. Develop possible solutions to the challenge or problem.
   The student's response to the assignment should demonstrate at least one of the following cognitive skills:
   • distinguish between information and inferences drawn from that information
   • Propose solutions, develop hypotheses, or develop a thesis
   • follow where evidence and reason lead in order to obtain defensible, thoughtful, logical conclusions or solutions
   • make deep rather than superficial inferences
   • make inferences that are consistent with each other
     
4. Analyze, evaluate, and/or apply selected solutions to the problem .
   The student's response to the assignment should do at least one of the following:
   • identify the most significant implications and consequences of the reasoning
     (whether positive and/or negative)
   • distinguish probable from improbable implications
   • evaluate own performance and make corrections

Institutional assessment of general education outcomes
Assignments submitted should also meet the following criteria:

1. Artifact size: one page minimum, ideally three pages or more.
2. Assignment must accompany artifact.

Assurances to students:

• submitted artifacts will be recorded by L number only
• submitted artifacts will be reviewed by people outside the area of study
• this assessment is independent of the student's grad, which will be awarded by the class instructor
• all student artifacts will be shredded at the end of the assessment cycle to protect anonymity of students

Assurances to faculty:

• Faculty are invited (not required) to submit artifacts
• Results of the assessment will not be used for faculty evaluation
• Results will not be reported by CRN or by L#
• Reports of results will occur in Fall term following the assessment year
• Faculty will have opportunities to discuss overall results of the assessment