Critical thinking, as defined by the rubric, is "a habit of mind characterized by the comprehensive exploration of issues, ideas, artifacts, and events before accepting or formulating an opinion or conclusion." Consequently, work products which demonstrate pre-decisional work or work products providing recommendations are used to assess critical thinking. The critical thinking rubric describes behaviors for capstone (4), milestone (3), milestone (2), and benchmark (1) levels of performance. In many cases, the rubrics for STEM III work products embed these levels of performance to help you apply critical thinking.
To aid in the application of the critical thinking rubric, students should note key words that distinguish levels of performance. These words are highlighted in the following tables for the critical thinking rubric areas: "Explanation of Issues", "Evidence", and "Influence of Context and Assumptions".
In general, capstone (or advanced) performance is distinguished by words such as "clearly", "comprehensively" and "thoroughly". In contrast, milestone (3) (or proficient) performance is characterized simply as "stated", "described", or "coherent". Finally, work that is milestone (2) (or below basic) uses descriptive words such as "undefined", "ambiguities", and "little questioning". Teams should focus on submitting work products that are clear, comprehensive, and thorough to achieve advanced levels of performance.
The criteria for these ratings have been embedded into the rubric for your project. Your overall critical thinking evaluation will be determined as follows:
Met all advanced criteria according to the rubric for your project.
Met at least the proficient criteria according to the rubric for your project.
Met one or more below basic criteria according to the rubric for your project.
Since there is no extra remediation for STEM III, teams should carefully review the rubric on their project page. See me in advance regarding any questions and for a review of your final presentation and final product before your final presentation. Failure to plan ahead is planning to fail!