ACT
III (Spring, 2007): EDP
301: Assessment and Evaluation in Educational
Settings
Ms. Clark revised two separate assignments for her EDP 301 course. For the first
assignment, students (all future teachers) interviewed a teacher in their field
and evaluated their assessment methods. A rubric was used in which two sections
required the use of critical thinking, including:
1. Critique of assessments used in your field
block building (or district)
2. Summary and conclusions: synthesis and evaluation of information and implications
for the class, school, and district
Critical thinking had not been
explicitly discussed in the class prior to this
assignment, and students were given no instruction
in using the critical thinking guidelines to complete
this portion of their paper. This assignment was
not initially part of Ms. Clark's ACT project.
However, as the result of students' poor performance
on the assignment, Ms. Clark decided to incorporate
this assignment into the ACT project. After returning
the papers, Ms. Clark presented a lecture on critical
thinking. Students applied these skills as a class
to an article they reviewed together. Students
were allowed to rewrite and resubmit their papers,
and the critical thinking scores improved.
For the second assignment, students read an assigned
article. Ms. Clark then provided a lecture on
guidelines for critiquing an article using critical
thinking skills. Students used in-class time to
create an outline of their assignment.
Ms. Clark reported that the students seemed quite
interested in using this approach to critiquing
the article rather than the typical reaction-type
approach. After reviewing the assessment scores,
Ms. Clark concluded that the lecture and direct
instruction were extremely helpful in students'
success in using critical thinking skills. Just
one lecture in using these skills produced a noticeable
improvement in students' critical thinking skills.
Ms. Clark is considering additional ways to
change her lectures and class format to ensure
that critical thinking is a large part in each
of her courses. Her goal is to steer students
away from reaction papers and to teach them to
be critical thinkers.
ACT
IV (Spring, 2008): EDP
444/544: Teaching Social and Affective
Skills
EDP 444/544 was comprised entirely of Special
Education majors, mostly at the junior and senior
level. To improve critical thinking skills, Ms.
Clark used questioning to engage students, beginning
early in the semester. They practiced critical
thinking in the classroom by reviewing case studies
in small groups and answering questions as a
class.
To assess students' critical thinking skills,
Ms. Clark revised a case study assignment that
required students to write a behavior intervention
plan for a child with a social skills deficit.
The revised assignment included criteria from
critical thinking articles, rubrics, and suggestions
from her ACT small discussion group. Students
were provided with a copy of the scoring rubric
ahead of time, along with case study information.
The learning outcomes for the assignment included
being able to:
• Identify other factors that impact
student behavior (home environment, teacher
level of tolerance, learning difficulties)
• Cite
evidence of effectiveness of the chosen behavior
intervention
• Describe
social influences on policy that govern the
code of conduct at their school
• Identify
strategies for improving social skills outside
the classroom
• Compose a plan to address
the social and affective needs of individual
students based upon assessment information, observations,
and student background
Ms. Clark reports that the students did extremely
well on this assignment. Overall, 23 of 31 students
scored in the "Best" category
in their approach to using
critical thinking to address the social skills
needs of their case study student.
In the future, Ms.
Clark plans to incorporate more lower-level
critical thinking exercises into class
activities. She will also revise this assignment
even further by having the class divide into
two groups and review two different sets of
information about the same child. The class will
then discuss the differences, including how
the context of the behavior difficulty as well
as the quality of supporting data influences
the behavior and our understanding of it.
Rubric |
