Assessment Strategies

NEIU’s General Education Program's: While rubrics for such broad skill domains can be applied to many different assignments that were created for course-specific purposes, it is clear that they are most effective when instructors keep the dimensions of the rubrics in mind as they create a certain assignment for their class.  Faculty members will see their value as tools to reinforce the same basic skills across many courses and disciplines in the Gen-Ed Curriculum. Rubrics can be used as both an assessment and a teaching tool. If faculty use them to clarify their expectations to their students, the cohesion of the Gen-Ed Program can only improve.

The most common format of embedded assessment relies on writing assignments (a short paper, an essay test, etc.) that can be analyzed for underlying general skills, not just for the purpose for which they were originally assigned in class. For example, NEIU’s General Education Program goals require students to be able to:

1. Communicate effectively in writing (Goal 1)
2. Use information gathering and analyzing skills (i.e., critical thinking) (Goal 2)

These are broad skills that should be visible in a variety of written products students produce across many of their Gen-Ed courses. NEIU’s General Education Program's General Education Committee has drafted some rubrics it proposes for the assessment of GenEd goals 1 and 2. The three rubrics we are presenting are designed to probe into sub-skills that can reasonably be assumed to constitute writing and critical thinking. Increasingly more universities (e.g., the SUNY system, universities across the Washington State system, the Maricopa Community College system, the Virginia Community College system, the University of Cincinnati, Cal State Fresno, Bowling Green State College, Alverno College, to name just a few) are taking the approach of using rubrics to probe into broad skills and abilities that programs in General Education (but also the major) intend to foster in their students.

The three attached rubrics originate from different universities.

The Writing Rubric: Most of it comes from a rubric presented by Dr. Barbara Walvoord, an English professor and faculty developer at the University of Cincinnati and more recently at Notre Dame University. She has a national reputation as an expert in assessment; her 1998 book “Effective Grading” has been a best-seller that describes in great detail how to use and create rubrics, among other things.

General Education Rubric: Writing

The Critical Thinking Rubric: Two versions of this rubric are attached: a short and a long version. The criteria for the short version were developed at Washington State University, where the rubric has been used extensively by more than 260 faculty since 1999 in the sciences, the arts, humanities, and social sciences (for more information check the website at: http://wsuctproject.wsu.edu). Additional criteria for the long version were developed by Dr. Roger Gilman and Dr. John Casey (Philosophy), who also rewrote the performance level descriptions of both versions.

General Education Rubric: Critical Thinking (long version)

General Education Rubric: Critical Thinking (short version) 

Assessment Tools

Links to Educational Resources about Rubrics