Trinidad State Junior College Embedded General Education Assessment for Arts and Humanities and Social/Behavioral Sciences :

ANT 101, 111

ART 111, 112

GEO 105

HIS 101, 102, 201, 202

HUM 121

MUS 120, 121, 122

PHI 111, 112

POS 105

PSY 102

SOC 101

THE 105, 211, 212

Question:

“Write a short essay comparing and contrasting the two [ideas, theories, genres, …] that you have examined in this course.”

The instructor should edit this question to make it appropriate to the course while still preserving the compare/contrast two ______ aspect of the question.

Rubric:

4 - clear comparison and contrast of both [ideas, …]

3 – connection between two [ideas, …], but lacking clarity

2 – mere description of two different [ideas, …]

1 - response, but little connection to questions

0 - unrelated response or no response.

Note that the rubric does not include reference to writing style, grammar, spelling, etc. To the extent that those do not damage clarity, they should not affect the scoring. These things are clearly important, but are assessed by the English department using a different instrument. The principal goal in this assessment is to determine to what extent students can “make connections between the past, present, and future.” This program area goal is an elaboration of the general education goals: “explain and defend ideas verbally and in writing” and “examine ideas using critical reasoning.”

Instructions to the Instructor:

1. Embed this question into one exam during the semester.
2. Grade it and use for some portion of the exam for that student.
3. Submit the grade and name (or S-number) for each student (or the original) to the Assessment Coordinator for recording. Do this no later than the last day of the semester.

Results