WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
CIIA > SHOWCASE INDEX > SHOWCASE 2007
Center for Instructional
Innovation and Assessment

INNOVATIVE TEACHING SHOWCASE

2007
2008
Robert Mitchell
Julia Sapin
Kathleen Saunders
Goals Contents
GOALS
Saunders
Julia Sapin
Department of Art

Institutional Goals

Listed below are selected learning outcomes in the area of critical thinking that Western Washington University is actively integrating into its curriculum. Each learning outcome is listed with its definition, along with a description of how Julia Sapin's teaching strategies meet each of these student learning outcome goals.

 

Critical Thinking


Learning Outcomes Definition Course Outcomes
Identification Accurately identifies and interprets evidence. In reading articles for seminars, students learn structural analysis of academic writing that helps them locate and interpret the evidence. Blogging assignments further encourage articulation of those discoveries.
Alternative Consideration Considers major alternative points of view. In reading articles for seminars, students learn structural analysis of academic writing that helps them locate and interpret the evidence. Blogging assignments further encourage articulation of those discoveries.
Accurate Conclusions Draws warranted, judicious, non-fallacious conclusions. The blogging assignment linked to role-playing in the introductory-level surveys involves students in decision-making processes by giving them  the intellectual foundations they need to make the decisions, and setting up situations in which they can test these new intellectual waters. For example, they read Confucius' Analects (Book One) to decide which Chinese object we are studying best represents Confucian ideals and thus should be saved from the incoming typhoon that will hit the museum where the object is (supposedly) stored.
Justification Justifies key results and procedures, and explains assumptions and reasons. The above role-playing assignment, through the shared blogging function, calls on students to explain their rationale and thus leads them to articulate the process of their decision-making.

Source: Adapted from the California Academic Press's Holistic Critical Thinking Scoring Rubric (HCTSR).

 

Writing


Learning Outcomes Definition Course Outcomes
Rhetorical Knowledge Focuses on a clear rhetorical purpose and responds appropriately to the needs of varied audiences and situations. Art History 490, Exhibition Theory and Practice, prepares students to consider the different audiences they serve in a gallery or museum setting. This is a big shift for students used to writing for the teacher. We study the kinds of information average museum visitors need to help them engage with visual material.
Critical Analysis Develops, examines, situates, and communicates a reasoned perspective clearly to others. In writing research papers, students learn to articulate and support their arguments. Art History 450, Colonization and Cross-Cultural Encounters, is a particularly effective forum to develop the skill of critical analysis, for the arguments they are presenting typically develop beyond conventional wisdom so they must communicate their arguments very clearly in order for them to be followed succinctly.
Composing Processes Understands writing as a recursive process that involves drafting, re-thinking, editing, reconceptualizing. All three of the writing-intensive courses, as well as the introductory writing course, encourage re-drafting and re-writing as a way of expanding thinking about a topic. Students learn to see writing as part of the process of learning, not solely as the finished product.
Convention Knowledge Uses appropriate conventions for documentation and for surface features such as syntax, grammar, usage, punctuation, and spelling. Students learn the value of being able to use language skillfully to create polished professional writing in the context of preparing writing for a "real" purpose. For example, Art History 490 requires multiple drafts to re-cast the essential points of a 3-4 page research paper into a 50-word wall label.

Source:
Adapted from Western Washington University's Learning Outcomes for Writing II.