Critical and Creative Thinking

All UCORE courses require students to demonstrate designator learning outcomes that advance WSU’s Critical & Creative Thinking Learning Goal, totaling a minimum of 34 credit hours in UCORE-designated courses that include instruction and/or engagement with Critical Thinking and a minimum of three credit hours in UCORE-designated courses that include instruction and/or engagement with Creative Thinking (see the UCORE Curriculum Map (PDF) and UCORE Curriculum webpages). At the first-year level, the first-year experience course [ROOT] and foundational requirements advance Critical Thinking. At the senior-level, the senior capstone experience course [CAPS] advances Critical & Creative Thinking. Students also complete ways of knowing requirements, which advance Critical Thinking, during the UCORE curriculum (note: [ARTS] courses require students to demonstrate Critical Thinking and may require students to demonstrate Creative Thinking as appropriate to the course and discipline).

Note: Announced in May 2022, revised designator learning outcomes were approved by the UCORE Committee to help clarify what students, regardless of major, should be able to know and do upon the successful completion of a course in that designator. Additionally, effective Fall 2023, UCORE added the [EQJS] designator to the “Ways of Knowing” component of the curriculum, with the requirement that students complete courses in at least six of the seven Ways of Knowing designators.

Current Evidence of Student Learning Related to Critical and Creative Thinking

Click on the headings for current evidence of student learning from key assessments associated with Critical and Creative Thinking in the context of the UCORE curriculum: