Project "Post Mortem" Review: The Critical Thinking Rubric

         

            In the school where I teach, along with content area, we as teachers assess students on five different school-wide learning outcomes: Collaboration, Critical Thinking, Oral Communication, Work Ethic, and Written Communication.  In faculty meetings, we discussed the idea that critical thinking looks different depending upon the content area; we came to the conclusion that departments should each have their own rubric for critical thinking tasks.  With our principal's approval, over the next three months, departments were tasked with developing their own Critical Thinking rubric to use instead of the school-wide one.  At the conclusion of three months, we had a rubric that was about three quarters done; we never finished it.  We, as an English department, are using the school-wide rubric this year.
            At its onset, the project seemed as if it would be successful.  Each member of the English department was excited about the notion of autonomy in developing our own assessment piece for a department.  We were also excited about being able to meet as a small group instead of as a large faculty unit.  We all bought in to the process we were preparing to undertake.
            The project to develop an English department Critical Thinking rubric tanked for a few reasons.  The first reason was that there was no clear leader to be a type of project manager.for the group.  Simply having a project manager to be able to keep the group organized.  Portny et al. (2008) state that having a project manager who can keep the group on track "dramatically increase(s) their chances of success (p. 6).
            Another reason we did not succeed in the project is that we had a lack of vision for how to accomplish the project objectives, and many weeks were spent repeating the same steps and conversations over and over again.  We had defined what our final deliverable should look like, but we skipped the next step, which Greer (2010) explains as determining tasks and phases (p. 17).  We did not bother to create any type of accountability charts or planning calendars to ensure that every piece of the rubric was generated so that it could be revised and then finalized.  Making that necessary step would have contributed more so to our success.
            A final reason is that the point in the school calendar when we began the project was an inopportune time for we English teachers.  Tenth grade was preparing for graduation qualifying exams.  AP Language and Literature was preparing for AP exams.  Twelfth grade was working on getting seniors ready to graduate.  In short, we were all busy with things which in reality took a greater precedent than completing a rubric which our employment statuses would not have been in jeopardy if we didn't finish.
            It would have been nice to have finished an English Critical Thinking rubric, but it did not happen.  That said, this year has been off to a solid start and with the first trimester ending next week, I can honestly say that I do not think this year would be going much differently if we had finished it.

References

Greer, M. (2010). The project management minimalist: Just enough PM to rock your      

            projects! (Laureate custom ed.). Baltimore: Laureate Education, Inc.

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. 

            (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: 

            John Wiley & Sons, Inc.