By Lisa W. Kay (Eastern Kentucky University)
Abstract
In order to address assessment needs, the university writing requirement, an institutional requirement in applied critical and creative thinking, and the desire to differentiate senior experiences for statistics and mathematics majors, the statistics faculty at one institution converted a one-credit-hour capstone course to a three-credit-hour writing-intensive capstone course, first offered in Fall 2020. The updated course accomplishes these goals by allowing for enough time to include an exam with questions that can be used for assessment purposes, incorporating two written assignments that include feedback and revision, meeting institutional guidelines for the Applied Critical and Creative Thinking (ACCT) requirement, and giving majors a statistics-specific capstone experience that provides field-appropriate career information. Prior to the change, some students had struggled to find writing-intensive courses or ACCT experiences, so providing majors with a way to fulfill both within a major course yields more flexibility in scheduling. Lessons learned and suggestions for future iterations of the course or for offerings of similar courses at other institutions, including selection of guest speakers, coverage of breadth versus depth in special topics, approaches for enhancement of research skills, inclusion of consulting content, use of metacognitive approaches, and incorporation of transparency into assignments, will be shared.