Quality Enhancement Plan

(QEP)Helen Burke

Professor of English and Chair of the QEP II Committee

THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

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QEP Goal

To improve FSU Baccalaureate graduates’

ability to think critically in their disciplines

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Why Critical Thinking?

• Data-sets from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) and the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) suggest room for improvement

• FSU Faculty identified Critical Thinking as the key issue for the QEP in a 2012 campus-wide survey of possible topics

• Employer feedback “Nearly all employers surveyed (93%) say that ‘a demonstrated capacity to think critically, communicate clearly, and solve complex problems is more important than [a candidate’s] undergraduate major.”

-Press Release from a national survey of business and non profit leaders by The Association of American Colleges and Universities, April 10, 2013

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What we Mean by Critical Thinking

Definition and Student Learning Outcomes• Definition

“Critical thinking is a habit of mind characterized by the comprehensive exploration of issues, ideas, artifacts,

and events before accepting or formulating an opinion or conclusion.”

Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) Critical Thinking VALUE Rubric.

• Student Learning OutcomesStudents will master the skills associated with superior critical thinking; that is, they will be able to Explain an issue/problem clearly and comprehensively Select and use evidence/information that will enable

them to perform a comprehensive analysis of the issue/problem

Analyze contexts, assumptions, and perspectives when presenting a position on the issue/problem

Formulate a thesis/hypothesis that takes into account the complexity of the issue/problem and the variety of perspectives on this issue

Draw logical conclusions and implications from the analysis

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Strategies for Improving CT Learning: What we learned from the Literature and

other QEPs

• Faculty professional development in teaching and assessing CT is an essential component of any plan that aims to improve CT student learning

• At the upper-division, CT is best taught within the context of the disciplines

• Learning is most likely to occur when the instruction in CT skills is explicit rather than implicit

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Putting our Ideas into Practice: The Summer 2013 Professional Development Pilot

Program

A Critical Thinking Professional Development Program offering monetary awards was set up in Summer 2013

Proposals were solicited from Faculty interested in Improving Critical Thinking in their undergraduate classes.

Faculty from 5 disciplines were selected to participate in the full training program (Biology, Business, Geography, Communication Disorders, Music); 6 others participated on a partial basis (Engineering, Religion, Interior Design, Art History, English, Dance)

Over the summer, participants developed and implemented strategies for teaching and assessing critical thinking in their classes, and they participated in a scoring session that used the Critical Thinking Assessment (CAT) instrument

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What Faculty Said about the Summer Pilot Program

• “Overall, my experience with the pilot has been very positive. The exercise of analyzing how I will assess critical thinking has been very useful to my teaching and I feel it will help our students longer-term. “

• Mike Horner, Associate Professor, Geography

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• “The largest impact of this experience on my teaching has been to increase my understanding and appreciation of the many levels and types of thinking that go into critical reasoning in science.”

Kevin Dixon, Assistant In Biological Sciences

• “I have found this activity meaningful and challenging. I would appreciate being considered as a leader/organizer for future critical thinking faculty workshops and training sessions.

• Richard Morris, Professor ,

Communication Disorders

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Some other things we learned from the Summer Pilot Program

• That in addition to the summer training, we needed to foster broader initiatives for improving CT that already exist at the program level

• That we needed to employ multiple measures for assessing CT learning rather than relying solely on one standardized test

• That we need to think on how we could engage students beyond the direct classroom intervention

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Building on what we Learned:The QEP’s Three Initiatives

• 1) The Faculty Fellows Program • A professional development initiative designed to encourage faculty to improve the teaching

and assessment of critical thinking in high-impact courses (core, gateway, high-enrollment) in bacalaureate programs

• -- 20 awards of $5,000 given annually to faculty to participate in a summer training program

• 2) Disciplinary CT Projects. • A grant-awarding initiative designed to encourage programs to develop and implement their

own, discipline-specific critical thinking teaching and learning practices • - grants of up to $15,000 awarded annually to individual faculty or teams of

faculty (budget: $107,000 annually) • • 3) Strengthening the Campus Culture. • An initiative designed to expand awareness of critical thinking campus-wide• -- Up to $50, 000 annually for activities that promote CT teaching and learning

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The QEP’s Three Initiatives

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Assessment

• Multiple strategies will be employed to measure the improvement in CT student learning and the overall effectiveness of the QEP.

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• -- The AAC&U’s Critical Thinking VALUE Rubric (improvement in treated courses will measured by sampling student artifacts pre and post the CT intervention and scoring them using this rubric)

• --- The Student Perception of Courses and Instructors (SPCI) (responses to #4, “This course challenged me to think critically,” will be documented)

• -- The Career Portfolio ( sample student submissions to the career portfolio will be scored using the VALUE rubric)

• --- The Seminole Future Survey of Employers (responses addressing the CT ability of participating students will be tracked)

• --- National Survey of Student Engagement data (responses to the questions about the level of academic challenge in particular will be documented)

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Timeline for the QEP

Completed QEP document to SACS --December 1, 2013 On-Site Chair visit and consultation --January 17 QEP document revised to reflect on-site chair’s recommendations –

January 31, 2014 Onside visit by SACS Review team---March 24-27 Formal Approval of University reaffirmation – December 2014 QEP implementation begins – Spring, 2015

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Publicizing the QEP: How you can help

The Students and The Outside CommunityUniversity Communications has plan for messaging and marketing to outside

community and to students• roll-out for this media campaign to begin this semester• Presidents’ Retreat on Oct 22 will also focus on Critical Thinking

The FacultyLiaisons have been appointed in each college who will be charged with• Disseminating information about the QEP to the faculty in their college• Soliciting proposals and identifying faculty from their college to participate in the

QEP initiatives

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Questions, Comments?

• My email: Hburke@fsu.edu• Liaison email list will be available shortly

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