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Building A Better Mousetrap: The Rubric Debate - 7 views
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reliably score
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this still takes time and practice...it won't happen instantly after the creation of a new rubric...having examples to refer to helps keep the scorers on the same level -
It also helps to have several people score a paper using the same rubric to check the rubrics reliability. -
We did an activity in a workshop I took where we all used the same rubric to score sample writings and even with the rubric in hand, I was amazed at how differently we all scored each of the samples. What I found acceptable, another educator did not and vice-versa. -
When I teach 6 traits classes, one of the most eye opening things that happens is when just as you described, Cindy, two people use the same rubric and they come up with different scores. That is why it is so important to practice scoring together and to have conversations around why you gave the score that you did.
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on what students have actually learned rather than what they have been taught,
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the focus should always be on the student...the content comes second...truly teach your students and the content will follow
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There's a difference between what the teacher has "taught" verses what students have actually learned.
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The instructor’s comments on papers and tests are done after rather than before the writing, so they cannot serve as guidelines, compromising the value of writing comments at all.
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raise the need of remediation
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and now there's a current study covering for-profit colleges' success rates and federal student loan defaults...it is imperative that we guide the students towards success...colleges can't afford to just weed out the undesirables without being held accountable in some manner
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state writing test,
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this is very common in states like Florida where FCAT Writing is pushed from 3rd grade until 10th grade...that 5 paragraph format must be mastered if the student ever expects to graduate! Sad, but true!
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Rubrics, Halden-Sullivan contends, reduce “deep learning” to “checksheets.”
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I would argue that large class sizes do the same...rubrics helped me survive through having too many students and too many essays to grade. Keep class sizes under control and give teachers adequate prep time and we'd be more than willing to provide deep and reflective feedback to each and every student.
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That is so true. Dealing with lots of students is a huge handicap for great teaching. I also think that we can design rubrics that allow for the freedom to write, not restrict it. -
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Again, I will maintain that it is within the space defined by a rubric that we have the freedom to create unlimited, reflective and insightful writings, artwork, power points, and other projects or assignments. Rubrics are only as confining as one lets them feel.
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A holistic rubric
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It's not really. A-F grading combines information from all sorts of criteria into one rating.
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establish “performance benchmarks” for the “behavioral objectives” appropriate to each year in the program
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Rubrics I have used and built contain both performance and behavorial components. -
Being in special education, my first job involved teaching student with behavioral goals in their IEPs. I had to develop rubrics to effectively track their daily behavioral goals and then average the daily scores to post in the weekly updates within their IEP.
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well-designed rubrics help instructors in all disciplines meaningfully assess the outcomes of the more complicated assignments that are the basis of the problem-solving, inquiry-based, student-centered pedagogy replacing the traditional lecture-based, teacher-centered approach in tertiary education
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Rubrics are useful for all curriculums and as a support for projects. The connection to the Iowa Core is evident.
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This has a great connection to constructivism as we assess students' ability to solve problems and work through issues. -
Quite often, rubrics have helped me better define my goals and objectives for an assignment. In this way, the rubric has probably helped me more than my students.
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That has been my experience as well. Having the rubrics keeps me more consistent in my expectations, as well as giving the students more concrete guidelines as to what is expected of them.
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self-assessment;
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Getting students to think about their learning is what makes rubrics so valuable!
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So valuable. One of my personal goals of teaching has always been to facilitate my students out of their need for me. In other words, helping them learn the skills they need to evaluate where they are and where they need to go next.
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struggle blindly,
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In looking backwards I feel my students were looking at instruction blindly. Rubrics take care of this!
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Rubrics that are prescriptive rather than descriptive will promote thoughtless and perfunctory writing
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Skills for creating better rubrics are necessary. Where will teachers get these?
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I would like to see some examples of prescriptive versus descriptive rubrics
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signify critical thinking
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Adapt
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Also see the INTEL assessment tools at http://www97.intel.com/pk/AssessingProjects
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they should articulate the vital features that they are looking for and make these features known to the student
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Leaves out the "guesswork" for a student in trying to figure out teacher/professor expectations.
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Agree - the clear vision of the desired results should result in attainable success. Can't imagine trying to meet the target without knowing what the rubric requires (or what the target is). -
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As one of my colleagues says, we shouldn't play "Guess what is in the teachers head?" when it comes to assessment.
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I like that analogy. I believe it is very important that our students know exactly what we are expecting from them, without stifling creativity by expecting cookie-cutter results.
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IT is good to know we are in agreement with the use of rubrics and the sharing of them with students. I hope that more teachers will follow and use them, rather than drag their feet and remain using 30 year old methods...
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the criteria must be made clear to them
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Thus, the importance of well written rubrics with clear criteria. The terms, a few, some, well-thought out, critical, etc., mean different things to different people. Discussing, explaining and providing examples are crucial if such terms are to be used in a rubric.
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A rubric that tells students, as a typical example, that they will get an A for writing a 1000 word essay that “cites x number of sources and supports its thesis with at least three arguments” will lead students to perceive writing as a kind of “paint-by-number” endeavor (Mathews).
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This is a good point. . .and one that I struggle with in writing rubrics. In efforts of not being too subjective and/or vague, it is easy to become very prescriptive and create "formulas".
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I don't agree that the rubric creates a 'paint by number' result. Coming from the art field previously, I have witnessed and created art that fulfills rubrics and 'requirements' for competitions. In a field that is highly subjective, the need for a rubric defines the space within which we are allowed to create. It is what we do within that space that defines the quality of our work.
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consistently and accurately
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This is what we strive for to assess the desired elements while being consistent.
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consistently and accurately still takes time and a great deal of collaborative work among educators....something that is many times lost in the equation
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student input when constructing rubrics
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I've found this works well when students have learned specific skills that will be used on a final product. They can determine which skills should be on the rubric and to what extent they should be able to show their skills while problem solving how and where.
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I've found that when students help design the rubric they may actually be more demanding than I would be.
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I had a colleague who constantly negotiated rubric content with her students as a central part of her writing instruction. When she left the district, I was surprised to see the "new" teachers take the rubrics as part of some sort of "prescribed" curriculum. These organic documents suddenly became canonical.
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it is no longer appropriate to assess student knowledge by having students compute answers and apply formulas, because their methods do not reveal the current goals of solving real problems and using statistical reasoning.
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In interviewing businesses a couple of years ago as to what they are looking for in future employees, we heard over and over again that they were looking for 1. team players and 2. problem solvers.
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I think the students are more motivated when they can see real-world uses of what they are learning.
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At our school when having these discussions, it is hard to convince teachers who have been teaching a long time to change from lecturing to more of a facilitator role in their classes. How do we make this change? Is this what is being taught at universities to the incoming teachers?
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shared with students prior to the completion of any given assignment
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‘some rubrics are dumb.’
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Wow, I've said those exact words. Some rubrics I've accessed online are worthless. Yet, just because they are online and easy to access, I am sure there are teachers out there using them.
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Denise, you are so correct. There are many things online that are not worthy of sharing or using in our classrooms, but yet because of the easy accessibility I'm sure it is still happening.
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general” or “specific.
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I greatly prefer specific rubrics. What thoughts do the rest of you have?
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Totally agree. Specific rubrics are much easier to hone in on the specific "skills" that are being sought. I believe that some people shy away from them because of the time factor however.
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I think it depends on the purpose of the rubric, but I tend to like specific ones better than general ones.
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In his article, "What's Wrong, and What's Right with Rubrics" Jim Popham makes a great case for why general rubrics better support teaching and student learning of important targets.
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facilitate, rather than obviate, student learning
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If we are just using rubrics to put something in the gradebook, we are losing the power of "facilitating student learning."
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The formative rubric is a good step in this process of facilitating student learning. If we give the student the means to improve their work with the rubric, we are giving them tools to work with.
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...if the rubric is not used throughout the project or assignment, it is of very little use in a quality assessment process
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five-paragraph essay
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guide their own learning
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and teacher improvement.
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. . . and might I add, not only should it facilitate student learning, but it should also help the teacher improve.
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instructors plan on grading student thinking and not just student knowledge
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In the "past," the emphasis was on grading student knowledge. Now we are looking at assessing student thinking, as well.
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it maintains the traditional gap between what the teacher knows and what the student knows
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This puts the teacher in a position of power . . . the authority figure . . . the sage on the stage.
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It would be great if all learning would be a collaborative effort. I've learned so much from my students over the years. I try to keep them in a partnership position as much as possible.
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Well-designed rubrics
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writing under the influence
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rubrics that are outside of the students “zone of proximal development” are useless to the students.
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Again, this gets back to the "kid-friendly" language that needs to be used in a rubric, so that students can use the feedback to improve their learning.
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Can a rubric be written to benefit students with special needs and the talented and gifted? What happens when we have multiple grade levels and performance levels in a classroom?
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. Rubrics can be designed to measure either product or process or
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This is key and perhaps why there is so much debate about rubrics. They are often developed to assess the final product and the process piece is often forgotten. If, especially in the case of writing, process is important, then criteria for assessing needs to be included in the rubric. . .or a separate rubric developed just for "process".
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Well said. I think any tool can be good or bad and cannot necessarily be reduced to a generalization. We need to take care that we write them to encourage rather than discourage creativity, and that we use them in ways that encourage rather than discourage creativity.
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jargon used must not only be understandable to the student but also be linked specifically to classroom instruction.
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I've seen rubrics that are hard to figure out as the teacher! The "jargon" has to be user friendly for all involved!
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credit
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Clearly defining the purpose of assessment and what you want to assess is the first step in developing a quality rubric.
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This is a straight forward comment but one that gets missed by teachers. I think sometimes I want to make sure I've covered everything in the rubric but I really need to focuse on the purpose and that will make my rubric better.
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we need a meta-rubric to assess our rubric.
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the habits of mind practiced in the act of self-assessment
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In order for self-assessment to work, it must be a true habit of mind. It must be haitually refined.
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For example, Illinois State Board of Education’s (ISBE) scoring guidelines for writing measures four separate attributes of composition: Focus, Support, Organization, Conventions.
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Look at some actual examples of student work to see if you have omitted any important dimensions.
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“Perhaps the greatest potential value of classroom assessment is realized when we open the assessment process up and welcome students into that process as full partners” (qtd. in Skillings and Ferrell). When students are full partners in the assessment process, as Mary Jo Skillings and Robin Ferrel illustrate in their study on student-generated rubrics, they tend to “think more deeply about their learning.”
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It is imperative to involve students in their own learning. While direct instruction has been preached in the field of special education, there is a missing piece of this practice. This missing piece is the involvement of the student to "own" their knowledge and to demonstrate how they have learned, what matters, and where they will utilize it.
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Addressing Equity Issues at the Classroom Level,” reports that extensive use of rubrics can help minimize students’ educational disparities and bring fairness into assessment on numerous levels: “In short, explicit performance criteria, along with supporting models of work, make it possible for students to use the attributes of exemplary work to monitor their own performance.”
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Using rubrics does equalize the playing field for both students and teachers, thereby allowing students to see that there are no 'favorites', that their efforts and their results are what is being assessed.
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build your own rubric from scratch
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Although it takes time and feedback from students, I create my own rubrics. The rubric must measure what is required by benchmarks, but also must measure what is necessary for the student to generalize into his/her personal life.
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most important here is not the final product
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those students who had “stylistic voices full of humor and surprises, produced less interesting essays
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This same thing happened to me. A few years agoI started a commercial project for my Spanish 2 students. Over the years, my rubric has become more restrictive because of previous students' inapprpropriate content. What I have noticed is that the commercials aren't anywhere near as interesting and creative as they were when my rubric was less detailed.
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Does the rubric relate to the outcome(s) being measured
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category should be defined using description of the work rather than judgments about the work
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Just like quality feedback that promotes learning uses descriptive, not evaluative language, so should rubrics.
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extra credit
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It is so enjoyable to work with those students who have the capability to see through the structure of the instruction. It can be aggravating as well when they point out the flaws in our own practices, but very beneficial if we can be humble enough to acknowledge it. How do we prepare more of our students to approach learning this way, or is it just a gift a talented few have?
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When instructors do not explicitly delineate the qualities of thought that they are looking for while grading, they reduce learning to a hit or miss endeavor, where “assessment remains an isolated […] activity and the success of the learner is mostly incidental”
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If only some of my instructors would have heard of this when I was younger...'I coulda been somebody!' Isn't it common sense that teachers should be upfront with students regarding expectations?
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a system designed to measure the key qualities (also referred to as “traits” or “dimensions”) vital to the process and/or product of a given assignment,
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Unfortunately, many educators see rubrics simply as a way to assign a grade to a project.
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points along a scale
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Technically rubrics do not contain "points", as in number of items to count. The scale contains levels, also known as an ordinal scale. A Level 4 on the rubric is not necessarily twice as good as a Level 2, as it would be if the numbers were points.
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In my opinion, this is a case of us being sloppy with language, and it makes for perhaps the most misunderstood aspect and misuse of rubrics.
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“use an existing one ‘as is
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User beware! There are LOTs of crummy rubrics available on the internet.
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Works Cited
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Two other great resources to consult that have been written since this was published: "How to Create and Use Rubrics for Formative Assessment and Grading" by Susan Brookhart (ASCD, 2013) and "Creating & Recognizing Quality Rubrics" by Judy Arter & Jan Chappuis (Pearson, 2006).
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Rubrics are fairly new to our schools and constructing a good one is still a challenge. As teachers we tend to make the rubric's verbiage hard for students to really understand. Rubrics need to be in student friendly language and with only the necessary categories 4-6 max. We tend to have 8 categories with 4 to 5 possible grades (4,3,2,1) which is extremely confusing to students so they throw out the rubric and do their best hoping it cuts the mustard.
Pearson Prentice Hall: eTeach: Turning A Four-Point Rubric Score into A Letter Grade - 2 views
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I have completely changed the way I enter grades for students. I don't even allow students to take a 0 or forget to hand something in. No effort is not allowed.
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