Skills Student Learning Outcomes and Rubrics

Skills Student Learning Outcomes and Rubrics   |TOP|

Collaboration: Effectively work on a team. 
Collaboration Rubric (PDF)

Students will be required to complete one large or several smaller group projects conducted over a significant portion of the semester. For GE purposes, collaboration assesses the teamwork of an individual student, not the team as a whole. Therefore, it is possible for a student to receive high ratings, even if the team as a whole is rather flawed. Similarly, a student could receive low ratings, even if the team as a whole works fairly well. This rubric is designed to measure the quality of the process, rather than the quality of the end product. As a result, evidence of the student’s interactions on the team must include the student’s own reflections about their contribution to the team’s functioning and evaluation of the student’s contributions to the team’s functioning by the instructor.

• Helps the team move forward by articulating the merits of alternative ideas or proposals.
• Engages team members in ways that facilitate their contributions to meetings by both constructively building upon or synthesizing the contributions of others as well as noticing when someone is not participating and inviting them to engage.
• Completes all assigned tasks by the deadline; work accomplished is thorough, comprehensive, and advances the project; proactively helps other team members complete their assigned tasks.
• Actively promotes a constructive team climate.

Critical Thinking: Comprehensively evaluate issues, ideas, artifacts, or events before forming a conclusion.
Critical Thinking Rubric (PDF)

• States an issue clearly and describes it comprehensively
• Uses appropriate evidence that includes relevant context(s), which facilitates a comprehensive analysis or synthesis of the issue.
• Develops a position that thoroughly takes into account the complexities of an issue, limits of the position, and synthesizes others’ points of view.
• Develops conclusions, implications, and consequences that are logical and reflect an informed evaluation based on strength of evidence.

Ethical Reasoning: Apply ethical principles and codes of conduct to decision making.
Ethical Reasoning Rubric (PDF)

• Recognizes ethical issues when presented in a complex, multilayered (gray) context and can recognize interrelationships among the issues.
• Names the major ethical theory or theories used, presents the gist of said theory or theories, and thoroughly and accurately explains the details of the theory or theories used.
• Applies ethical theories to a complex issue accurately and considers the full implications of the application.
• States a position in-depth and effectively defends against other ethical perspectives.

Information Literacy: Identify the need for information; access, evaluate, and use information effectively, ethically, and legally.
Information Literacy Rubric (PDF)

• Defines the scope of the research question or thesis with clarity and appropriate depth.
• Accesses information by using effective, well-designed search strategies and the most relevant research tools.
• Chooses a variety of quality sources appropriate to the scope and discipline of the research question, incorporating seminal works and essential theorists/thinkers by using multiple evaluative criteria.
• Organizes and synthesizes information from sources to fully achieve the intended purpose, with clarity and depth.
• Completely and accurately cites all information sources used by appropriately paraphrasing, summarizing, and quoting.

Integration: Apply knowledge from experiences and multiple disciplines to new, complex situation. Fostering students’ abilities to integrate learning--across courses, over time, and between campus and community life--is one of the most important goals of higher education. Integrative learning occurs as students address real world problems, unscripted and sufficiently broad, to require multiple areas of knowledge and multiple modes of inquiry, and benefiting from multiple perspectives. Integrative learning is central to personal success, social responsibility, and civic engagement in today’s global society.  
Integration Rubric (PDF)

• Connects examples, facts, or theories from multiple disciplines and applies them to new, complex situations.

Oral Communication: Effectively prepare and deliver a formal oral presentation. Students must give individual formal presentations; group presentations are acceptable if every student presents. Presentations must be at least 5 minutes in length.
Oral Communication Rubric (PDF)

• States a thesis that is compelling, precisely stated, appropriately repeated, and strongly linked to the supporting material.
• Organizes the presentation in a clear, consistent, and cohesive manner. 
• Uses language that is imaginative, memorable, compelling, appropriate for the audience, and enhances the effectiveness of the presentation.
• Uses delivery techniques that make the presentation compelling and the speaker appears polished and confident.
• Uses a variety of supporting materials that significantly enhances the presentation.

Problem Solving: Design and evaluate an approach to answer an open-ended question or achieve a desired goal.
Problem Solving Rubric (PDF)

• Constructs a clear and insightful problem statement that includes all relevant contextual factors.
• Identifies multiple approaches for solving the problem that applies to a specific context.
• Proposes one or more solutions/hypotheses that are sensitive to contextual factors and the ethical, logical, and cultural dimensions of the problem.
• Evaluates solution(s) thoroughly and insightfully and does all of the following: considers the history of the problem, reviews logic/reasoning, examines feasibility of the solution, and weighs impacts of the solution.

Quantitative Literacy: Work effectively with numerical data. Students with strong Quantitative Literacy skills understand and can create sophisticated arguments supported by quantitative evidence for various purposes and audiences. They can analyze quantitative data, perform calculations to answer questions, make judgments based on data, and clearly communicate how data can be used to support a position in an appropriate format (i.e., words, tables, graphs, and mathematical equations).
Quantitative Literacy Rubric (PDF)

• Calculations are correct, solve the problem, and are presented clearly and concisely
• Skillfully converts data into an insightful mathematical portrayal in a way that contributes to a deeper understanding.
• Uses the quantitative analysis of data as the basis for deep and thoughtful judgments, drawing insightful, carefully qualified conclusions.
• Uses quantitative information in connection with the purpose of the work, presents it in an effective format, and explains it with consistently high quality.

Written Communication: Write effectively for multiple purposes and audiences. For GE purposes, written communication focuses on how a specific written text or a collection of texts responds to the writer’s intended context, audience, purpose, and writing task. Develops relevant and compelling content that is appropriate for the intended audience and purpose and illustrates the writer’s mastery of the subject.
Written Communication Rubric (PDF)

• Develops relevant and compelling content that is appropriate for the intended audience and purpose and illustrates the writer's mastery of the subject.
• Successfully follows and executes a wide range of writing practices particular to a specific discipline, audience, purpose, and writing task.
• Skillfully integrates high-quality, credible, relevant sources that are appropriate for the discipline, audience, purpose, and writing task to develop the writer’s own ideas.
• Uses language that skillfully communicates meaning to readers with clarity and fluency; consistently follows appropriate grammatical conventions

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