[COPLAC-IR] a small heads-up

Mon Oct 17 07:42:53 CDT 2016

Hi everyone,

Is there an updated website for the CAT?  The tntech.edu website has not worked on my computer since this CAT conversation started.

Thanks!

Brian R. Lashley, Ph.D.
Assistant Director of Inst. Res.
Eastern Connecticut State Univ.
Willimantic, CT
860-465-5596

[PIR logo_16%_April 2014]

From: coplac-ir-bounces at lists.onenet.net [mailto:coplac-ir-bounces at lists.onenet.net] On Behalf Of Turrentine, Cathy
Sent: Friday, August 19, 2016 10:24 AM
To: Hui-Min Wen <hwen at ncf.edu>
Cc: Schmidl-Gagne, Kimberly <kgagne at keene.edu>; Smeaton, George <George.Smeaton at keene.edu>; COPLAC-IR at lists.onenet.net; Dolenc, Patrick <pdolenc at keene.edu>
Subject: Re: [COPLAC-IR] a small heads-up

Thanks for the question. We have used CAT in a selection of courses from all academic schools and at all levels.

All of the questions are real-world scenarios. (Do you accept this advertising claim? Is this interpretation of a simple graph the only reasonable explanation? Is this “expert” opinion logical? What information do you need to make a complex decision?) Some of the questions look like our first-year quantitative literacy curriculum. They are a very good natural fit for sciences, social sciences, and many of our professional studies programs. The question content does not come directly from arts or humanities, but I have used it in some of those classes and so far I haven’t seen any reason that it doesn’t work.

One of the things I like most about CAT is that, once faculty have used it, they can be trained to overlay their own course content on the CAT question format, creating CAT Apps for their own courses. There is a growing national bank of CAT Apps, available online. Several Keene State faculty built their own CAT Apps this summer in disciplines across campus. Faculty who write CAT Apps can validate them with pre/posttests of the CAT and then, if the data align properly, the faculty member can legitimately use the CAT App (with philosophy content, or history, or women’s studies) to measure the very same critical thinking skills going forward.

Cathy

**************************************************
Cathryn Turrentine, Ph.D.
Director of Institutional Research and Assessment
Keene State College
Hale Building, 3rd Floor
229 Main St.
Keene, NH 03435-1506
603-358-2117

The Office of Institutional Research and Assessment provides evidence to inform decision-making and leads the College’s efforts to assess student learning.

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From: Hui-Min Wen [mailto:hwen at ncf.edu]
Sent: Friday, August 19, 2016 10:07 AM
To: Turrentine, Cathy <cturrentine at keene.edu>
Cc: COPLAC-IR at lists.onenet.net; Schmidl-Gagne, Kimberly <kgagne at keene.edu>; Smeaton, George <George.Smeaton at keene.edu>; Dolenc, Patrick <pdolenc at keene.edu>
Subject: Re: [COPLAC-IR] a small heads-up

Cathy:

Thank you for the heads-up.  Is this critical thinking test more appropriate for science students?  Do you assess humanities students with this test?

Hui-Min

On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 9:50 AM, Turrentine, Cathy <cturrentine at keene.edu<mailto:cturrentine at keene.edu>> wrote:
Colleagues –

I am writing with a small (and positive!) heads-up for you. You may soon receive a call or email from your president, chancellor, or provost, and I want you to have some background information about it.

If they attended the COPLAC meeting in June, they heard a presentation about the Critical thinking Assessment Test (CAT), and received a follow-up email message today from my Keene State faculty colleague Dr. Patrick Dolenc (see below). The presentation and email message offer an opportunity for COPLAC schools to learn about CAT together by administering it to a small group on each campus and sending teams to a scoring workshop next summer. Besides introducing your own campus to CAT, this project would begin to establish some baseline data about critical thinking skills of students in public liberal arts colleges nationally, data that could be valuable to all of us.
So you may soon receive a call or email from someone further up the organization chart, asking whether you can take this on this year. Please consider saying yes. For Keene State College, CAT has been a wonderful tool for assessment, faculty development, and improvement of teaching and learning around critical thinking skills. I am happy to recommend it.

Attached is the brief summary about CAT that Patrick handed out at the COPLAC conference. If you want more information you can find it here: https://www.tntech.edu/cat<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3a%2f%2fwww.tntech.edu%2fcat&data=01%7c01%7clashleyb%40easternct.edu%7ccfa4a0649b4f4be674aa08d3c83cbb56%7c00bc4ae8576c45e3949d4f129d8b670a%7c0&sdata=i0r1Tpz5g82CheNhaI7no5zL38RsJep70XD4KRrn24o%3d>.  And if your institution decides to participate in this opportunity and you want to discuss how it works for us, feel free to give me a call.

Cathy

**************************************************
Cathryn Turrentine, Ph.D.
Director of Institutional Research and Assessment
Keene State College
Hale Building, 3rd Floor
229 Main St.
Keene, NH 03435-1506
603-358-2117<tel:603-358-2117>

The Office of Institutional Research and Assessment provides evidence to inform decision-making and leads the College’s efforts to assess student learning.

[cid:image001.png at 01CC10BB.D050B260]

As you may recall, when we were in Cedar City (Utah) in late June I announced an opportunity to explore the Critical thinking Assessment Test (CAT) across COPLAC institutions in the spring 2017 semester with a collaborative meeting next summer to score the tests and discuss the results.

As the fall semester approaches, I am building a distribution list of the appropriate people on the campuses that have decided to join this pilot.  Would your campus be interested in participating in this project? If so, can you provide me with contact information for the person (or people) that I should communicate with as the project unfolds?

Thank you for you assistance with this, I hope that your campus decides to join this exciting project.

Patrick Dolenc

Professor of Economics

Keene State College

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--

Hui-Min Wen, Ph.D.

NCF Data Administrator

Director, Institutional Research & Assessment

New College of Florida

5800 Bay Shore Road

Sarasota, FL 34243-2109

Tel: (941) 487-4601

Fax: (941) 487-4201

E-mail: hwen at ncf.edu<mailto:hwen at ncf.edu>
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