Outcome Definition and Rubric:

• Definition and Rubric
• Coming in Fall 2019! Rubrics will be available for instructor use in Canvas

Instructor Tools:

Questions are a big part of critical thinking and the following resources should help you when you’re posing your questions to students and when you are supporting students to learn to pose well-formed questions themselves.

Questioning Strategies offers guidance for using questions while you’re teaching. ?It suggests how to prepare questions and how to handle students’ responses and non-responses.

Checking for Understanding Activities includes a list of question stems on pg. 3 to help you write questions to use during lectures and discussions.

Self-evaluation and metacognition are often considered important facets of critical thinking. ?The following resources should help you to support students’ development as metacognitively aware and self-reflective learners.

Structures for Student Self Assessment from the Foundation for Critical Thinking offers suggestions for in-class activities, some of which could be adapted for distance education, that will encourage students to articulate their understanding so that they can engage in self-evaluation and peer-evaluation. ?The suggestions for strategies related to reading and listening may be particularly useful.

Communicating in Math Classrooms includes a video and background essay illustrating techniques for encouraging students to consider and explain their reasoning during problem-solving activities. ?Though based on a math example, the technique could be applied in many classes.

Reading is a necessary precursor to much of the critical thinking we ask our students to do. ?The following resource may help you to anticipate and address difficulties your students will encounter when they are adjusting to the reading required in college courses.

Harvard Report This summary of a (possibly fictional) research study done at Harvard is a reminder that we need to help our students learn to avoid “obedient purposelessness” when reading for classes. “The exercise of judgment in reading requires self-confidence, even courage, on the part of the student who must decide for himself what to read or skip.”

Strategies to Help Students “Go Deep” When Reading Digitally is an article with a few suggestions from UC Berkeley’s History-Social Science Project about how students can be taught to interact with digital texts to find main ideas and to paraphrase in order to digest difficult texts.

Student Resources:

7 Ways to Improve Your Critical Thinking Skills is a brief, informal webpage that tries to explain critical thinking, how it differs from “everyday thinking” and what it takes to think critically. ?It might provide an introduction to your students about the purpose and value of the CT skills you require in your class.

Thinking-Intensive Reading this page offers students tips on how to read critically in order to be ready to use what they have just read.

How to Mind Map a Textbook is a step-by-step guide to creating a set of mind-maps to facilitate note taking and to make it easy to refer back to a visual, well-organized representation of the book you’re reading.

A Simple Guide to Text Annotation includes what type of information to be looking for in the text in order to annotate it and some suggestions for annotation shorthand.

Outcome Definition and Rubric:

• Definition and Rubric
• Coming in Fall 2019! Rubrics will be available for instructor use in Canvas

Instructor Tools:

Librarians are available to deliver instruction sessions tailored to your students’ assignments that will prepare your students to plan their research process, find and select appropriate sources, avoid plagiarism, and accurately cite sources.? You can request an instruction session by filling out this library instruction request form.? Librarians can also create research guides for your in-person and online courses to provide additional structure for your students as they work on research assignments.

Librarians are also available to consult with you about resource-based assignments that you are creating or revising.? Librarians can help you to strengthen the information literacy components of your assignments and to ensure that your assignment requirements are feasible given the materials available in the library’s print and electronic collections.? You can request a consultation by filling out this librarian consultation request form.? You can earn Professional Development credit for the time you spend consulting with a librarian about your assignments.

Student Resources:

Dashboard Information Literacy Tutorials These self-paced, multi-media tutorials developed by Palomar College professors introduce students to concepts including Avoiding Plagiarism, Evaluating Sources, Citing Sources in MLA, APA, or Chicago, and Using Sources in their assignments.

Outcome Definition and Rubric:

Definition:

Teamwork is behaviors under the control of individual team members (effort they put into team tasks, their manner of interacting with others on team, and the quantity and quality of
contributions they make to team discussions.) - AAC&U

• Teamwork dimensions (page 3 and 4 of the 2018 teamwork assessment report)

Instructor Tools:

Quick Guide to Managing Groupwork This guide focuses specifically on applying cultural competence when using team-based projects in your classes.

Group projects are difficult because of ambiguity. ?Novices benefit from guided practice, so you may want to provide significant structure for students the first time they engage in teamwork in your class. In Teamwork is Best — Or is It? the author offers a list of questions to ask yourself about how you have designed the team-based assignment for your students. ?Any element of this list that you have not chosen to structure for your students is one that you may need to devote class time to teaching students how to structure for themselves.

Assessing Groupwork?from Center for the Study of Higher Education gives a clear list of elements to include in well-designed team-based assignments. ?And Assessing by Groupwork?from University of New South Wales, Sydney offers even more detail about how to prepare a team-based assignment, including considering the communication technologies you’re going to suggest that teams should use.

Studies show that (1) fair assessment of teamwork (acknowledging individual contributions), (2) teaching teamwork skills and (3) team formation approaches are key factors in how learners experience team-based assignments, and Bad attitudes: Why design students dislike teamwork describes how to structure these elements well in order to minimize unnecessary barriers to teams’ success.

Student Resources:

Team member roles quiz. ?This quiz is a self-assessment to help students identify what type of role they are likely to feel comfortable in when working in a group and it is followed by examples of how those roles are successfully played for the benefit of the team.

Reflecting on teamwork. ?This worksheet asks students to reflect on their experiences working in teams and could be a good ice-breaker activity when introducing a team-based assignment.

Team Contract. This contract can be used in class to help teams establish their ground rules. ?Students will need instruction on the elements of the contract and examples of answers to the contract questions.

Team Member Evaluation Rubric. ?This template allows a team to create their own list of criteria for evaluating team members. ?Examples of criteria are provided in the form.

Managing Conflict. ?This guide provides steps for talking about and resolving conflicts.

Note: The following materials are Open Education Resources–they can be revised, remixed, and redistributed freely without having to contact the authors for permission.

Ethics of Teamwork module with reading and activities. ?Powerpoints are provided. The purpose of this module is to add structured planning steps to group projects in order to reinforce the skills needed for successful teamwork.

Using Technology to Facilitate Meetings excerpt from Business Communication for Success is a good reminder to students about the tools they can use to meet with their teams when they can’t meet face-to-face and offers suggestions for preparing to use these tools effectively.

Conflict Resolution book chapter from Working in the Food Service Industry The chapter provides examples of how to handle disagreements and how to come to positive resolutions.

Managing Groups and Teams/Conflict

Managing Groups and Teams/Team Personalities