Dr. Fernandes developed a critical thinking rubric for use in her ZOO 400, Contemporary Issues, course.  The theme of the course this semester was biomedical research related to the use of human embryos.  One of the goals of the course is to have students understand how biomedical research is influenced by ethical and policy decisions.  Students wrote two papers one a discussion of a policy or ethics issue in biomedical research and the other a scientific paper on the use of stem cells as therapeutic agents.  For the first paper students were required to turn in rough drafts that were reviewed by both a peer and Dr. Fernandes.  Both used the rubric to evaluate the paper on problem statement, thesis statement, perspectives and contexts, examination of arguments, analysis of alternative strategies/solutions, and conclusions/consequences.  She found that the students did much better on the traits that had been modeled extensively in class than on the ones that had not been modeled.   There was no required rough draft for the second paper and scores based on the critical thinking rubric were slightly lower.  In her next offering of the course Dr. Fernandes plans to do more modeling of the critical thinking traits during class meetings.

Assignment

Fernandes Assignment

Rubric

Fernandes Rubric