Dr. Shore developed a multi-stage writing portfolio assignment for her PSY 332, Child Development, class.  Students “chose one of three topics, stated an initial opinion, then summarized the main points of a magazine opinion piece about the issue, then summarized the pro vs. con arguments presented by the article, then gave their initial conclusion on the issue, then discussed the article with others who had read it and wrote a final conclusion taking into consideration the group discussion.”  A critical thinking rubric was developed and used to grade the portfolio.  Dr. Shore wanted to use this semester’s class to get baseline data on where the students were in their critical thinking skills so did not do explicit instruction in the skills evaluated by the rubric.  Some of the skills did arise as they read and discussed journal articles, but they were not explicitly linked to the portfolio project.  She felt she learned some very interesting things about where the student weaknesses were.  In addition, she saw significant improvement on the last part of the project which occurred after students had received feedback from her on the earlier parts and after they had a group discussion with other students working on the same topic.

Assignment

Shore Assignment

Rubric

Shore Rubric