Critical and Creative Thinking:

Accreditation and Institutional Change

Iain Crawford

Department of English, University of Delaware

The College of Wooster, 2002-3 “More than 50% of our seniors go on to graduate

school” – Department of Chemistry, 2002 Self-Study Report to HLC

HLC sanction: monitoring report in 2005

HLC sanction: focused visit in 2006

Dearth of institutional engagement in assessment of student learning

Promoting a Culture of Assessment

2005 Ohio5 working group (funded with planning grant from Teagle Foundation): Denison; Kenyon; Oberlin; Ohio Wesleyan; Wooster

Developed proposal based upon using Primary Trait Analysis to assess critical and creative thinking as essential outcomes of liberal learning

Led to 2006-2009 project funded by Teagle ($297,000)

Research QuestionsWhat tools might we develop to assess

fundamental and related outcomes of a liberal arts education?

Can we effectively assess development of critical and creative thinking in the classroom?

What are faculty and student perceptions of critical and creative thinking?

How do student perceptions of these change during their college years?

Research MethodsDeveloped rubrics to assess faculty and student

perceptions of critical and creative thinking and learning across the curriculum

Administered surveys to faculty and students across the participating colleges

Evaluated results through statistical analysis of data and discussion in faculty working groups

FindingsDevelopment and utilization of generic rubric

Critical and creative thinking found to improve for many of the traits assessed

Greatest gains occurred in interdisciplinary courses

Students generally associated creative thinking with activities outside the classroom; felt that classroom pedagogy was often a barrier to creative thinking

Over the course of their college careers, students increasingly believe that creativity can be taught

Faculty were less likely to agree that college provides time and space for creativity

Project Websitehttp://www3.wooster.edu/teagle/default.php

Outcomes at WoosterChanges to mission statement:

The College of Wooster is a community of independent minds, working together to prepare students to become leaders of character and influence in an interdependent global community. We engage motivated students in a rigorous and dynamic liberal education. Mentored by a faculty nationally recognized for excellence in teaching, Wooster graduates are creative and independent thinkers with exceptional abilities to ask important questions, research complex issues, solve problems, and communicate new knowledge and insight.

Outcomes at WoosterCreation of Graduate Qualities:

Independent Thinking, through the ability to:

Engage in critical and creative thinking

Devise, formulate, research, and bring to fruition a complex and creative project

Embody the intellectual curiosity, passion, and self-confidence necessary for life-long learning  

Outcomes at WoosterEvolution in Institutional Culture:

“The project resulted in a major shift in the way we portray ourselves” (Nancy Grace, Project Director)

Increased understanding of the value of assessment to enhancing liberal learning

Increased awareness of the value of rubrics in assessing student learning

Creation of space for new generation of faculty to develop more outcomes-focused approaches to student learning

Preparing for 2013 Accreditation Visit

Update from Self-Study Group:

We do much more assessment than we did 10 years ago and we do it much better than we did 10 years ago.

There is room for assessment efforts to be better integrated.  For example, we have only recently begun to work on an institutional feedback loop—using assessment conducted at the departmental and program level to make institutional planning decisions.

In addition, we may have reached an assessment plateau. This means that assessment is very much part of our culture now and we understand what we are doing.  As a result, we are ready to look over our policies from a place of knowledge and decide on a direction for the future.  Some policies may need to be changed and roles and responsibilities more clearly delineated.

http://selfstudy.spaces.wooster.edu/progress-updates/

Implications for Institutions and Accreditors?

Getting beyond the panopticon -- how do we break out of the discipline and punish paradigm?

What do we talk about when we talk about assessment?

How can the assessment cycle encourage and promote continuity of campus efforts?

How do we connect the culture of accreditation with campus culture, particularly with a richer understanding of faculty work and values?

Creativity and Critical Thinking:RepresentationsReportsReflections

Donna HeilandNEASC Annual MeetingBoston, MADecember 2012

“It was on a dreary night of November … when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.”

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus: The 1818 Text, ed. James Rieger (1974; U of Chicago Press, 1982).

Still shot from Frankenstein (1931), at http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/frankenstein/images/19752110/title/stills-photo

“This prayer … I made in Latin verse. The lines were not very good, but I knew them not to be very good: I made them easily, and concluded myself to be unimpaired in my faculties.”

Samuel Johnson, quoted in James Boswell’s Life of Johnson (1791), ed. R. W. Chapman. (Oxford: Oxford World’s Classics, 1980), pg. 1241.

Portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1772). Original in the Tate Gallery; this image from Wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Samuel_Johnson_by_Joshua_Reynolds.jpg

Latin Verse to Liberal Learning

Johnson makes and then evaluates lines of poetry

Creativity and critical thought

What is the connection between these two activities?

From Samuel Johnson's  A Dictionary of the EnglishLanguage (1755) Internet Archive, cited on tElora Writer’s Festival website (http://elorawritersfestival.blogspot.com/search?q=kindle)

Liberal Learning Outcomes

AAC&U’s LEAP OutcomesKnowledge of Human Cultures and the Physical and Natural WorldIntellectual and Practical Skills

Including “Critical and creative thinking”

Personal and Social ResponsibilityIntegrative and Applied Learning

(http://www.aacu.org/leap/vision.cfm)

From Creative and Critical Thinking: Assessing the Foundations of a Liberal Arts Educationhttp://www3.wooster.edu/teagle/vendiagram.php

Critical Thinking

What is it and how do we cultivate it?

How well are we doing and how do we know?

CLA & CLA in the Classroom

“Systematic Improvement of Undergraduate Education in Research Universities” (Spencer-Teagle project)

“A Longitudinal Study of Critical Thinking and Postformal Reasoning: Assessing Undergraduate Outcomes Within Disciplinary Contexts”

Campus projects, including Creative and Critical Thinking: Assessing the Foundations of a Liberal Arts Education (Ohio 5)

(all supported by the Teagle Foundation, in whole or in part)

Creativity

What is it and how do we cultivate it?

Individuals

Systems

How are we doing and how do we know?

Creative and Critical Thinking: Assessing the Foundations of a Liberal Arts Education (Ohio 5, Teagle funded)

Double Majors: Influences, Identities, and Impacts (Steven J. Tepper and Richard, Vanderbilt University, Teagle-funded)

Creative Campus

Strategic National Arts Alumni Project

Creativity as an Integrative Process

Tepper / Pitt study points to need for integration across majors

AAC&U project on integration of student learning over the course of a college career

Creativity as a Recursive or Iterative Process

Based on Mihalyi Csizszentmihalyi, Creativity: Flow and the Psychology and Discovery and Invention (1996. NY: Harper, 1997). Pgs. 79-81.

Frankenstein Re-Visited: The Critical Path to Creative Success?

Danny Shanahan, The New Yorker, September 13,1999. www.cartoonbank.com

Immersive Learning

Creative Inquiry and

Selective Initiatives on

Creative Inquiry

Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class (New York: Basic, 2002).

Steven S. Tepper, “The Creative Campus. Who’s No. 1?” The Chronicle of Higher Education.

October 1, 2004.

The Five Ohio Colleges, “Creative and Critical Thinking.” Teagle Foundation, 2005.

“Creativity Imperative,” Peer Review, Spring. 2006.

“Mapping the Creative Campus,” Virginia Ball Center for Creative Inquiry, Ball State University, August 1 – 4, 2006.

Creative Campus Research Conference. Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy. Vanderbilt University. November 9 – 11, 2006.

American Association of Colleges and Universities. Liberal

Education and America’s Promise (LEAP). 2005.

Peter D. Hart Research Associates, Inc. How Colleges Should Assess and Improve Learning. American Association of Colleges and Universities. January 9, 2008.

George Kuh, High Impact Educational Practices. American Association of Colleges and Universities,

2008.

1. First-year Seminars and Experiences.2. Common Intellectual Experiences.3. Learning Communities.4. Writing-Intensive Courses.5. Collaborative Assignments and Projects.6. Undergraduate Research.7. Diversity/Global Learning.8. Service Learning, Community-Based Learning.9. Internships.10.Capstone Courses and Projects.

The Birthplace

Immersive Learning

• 15 hours of credit

• Substantial budget

• Project-based seminars

• Collaborative

• Interdisciplinary

• Community Partners

• Final Showcase

of

Virginia Ball Center Alumni Survey

• 97% indicate that VBC was the single most important experience in their college education.

• 68% indicate that VBC contributed directly to their ability to find or design a creative professional life.

Creative Inquiry(2000 - )

Immersive Learning (2007 - )

Faculty – 4Students – 60

Faculty – 1,000Students – 20,000

• Immersive Learning as signature educational experience.

• Increase participation by 10% per year.

• All 49 departments participate.

Strategic Plan

Ball State’sby 2012

Characteristics of

Immersive Learning

• Academic credit• Collaborative learning• Product-driven• Interdisciplinary teams• Community-based• Learning outcomes• Define career path

• 2006 – 07– 1,680 students– 26 departments

• 2007 – 08‒ 2,613 students‒ 38 departments

• 2008 – 09 ‒ 2,726 students‒ 35 departments

• 2009 – 10‒ 2,848 students‒ 44 departments

• 2010 – 11‒ 4,052 students‒ 45 departments‒ 45 departments

Progress onBall State’sStrategic Plan

Final Report on the Strategic PlanImmersive Learning, 2012

• 12,239 Students

• 755 Projects

• 70 out of 92 counties

Nature at Play

• Environmental Science

• Creative Writing• Graphic Arts

• Elementary Ed.• Landscape

Architecture• Computer Science

• Martha Hunt, Landscape Architecture

• Computer Game for Elementary School Students

• Storer School, Minnetrista Center

• Honor Award in Student Collaboration, The American Society of Landscape Architects

FacultyStudents

Product

PartnersRecognition