Group items tagged

they can provide information about student progress not typically available from student information systems or standardized test results. The classroom is also a practical location to give students multiple opportunities to demonstrate what they know and can do, adding to the accuracy of the information available from that level of assessment.

demonstrate

Sound Assessment Design

Assess learning targets requiring the "doing" of science with a multiple-choice test.

Figure 1 shows a 3rd grade math test plan

Effective Communication of Results

results communicated in tim

Will the users of the results understand them and see the connection to learning

results provide clear direction for what to do next?

Students learn best when they monitor

Ongoing classroom assessments

Periodic interim/benchmark assessments

Annual state and local district standardized tests

betting

summative tests, the reason for assessing is to document individual or group achievement or mastery of standards and measure achievement status at a point in time.

Teachers should design the assessment so students can use the results to self-assess and set goals.

Use a reading score from a state accountability test as a diagnostic instrument for reading group placement.

annual accountability purposes

sacrificed to testing

students

selected-response formats

etter instructional decision

it is not capable of informing the student about the next steps in learning.

You can improve it by explaining why you think that will happen

effective feedback

the assessor should organize the learning targets represented in the assessment into a written test plan

Assessment literacy is the foundation for a system that can take advantage of a wider use of multiple measures

Most assessments developed beyond the classroom rely largely on selected-response or short-answer formats and are not designed to meet the daily, ongoing information needs of teachers and students

I once gave extra credit to a student who realized that without providing a shred of meaningful content she could meet all the requirements of a state writing rubric he posted in his classroom. As required she used the word “persuade” and two synonyms, composed a clear topic sentence and closing sentence, and made no spelling or grammatical errors. But she did it without saying anything coherent

Rubrics can be designed to measure either product or process or both; and, they can be designed with dimensions describing the different levels of that “deep learning” so valued in WAC programs.

by designing a rubric on a PC that allows for the easy insertion of assignment specific traits.

Is the description of criteria judgemental?

However, these critics of rubrics, while their critiques should be considered, mistake the design of specific rubrics with the concept of rubrics in general. Rubrics that are prescriptive rather than descriptive will promote thoughtless and perfunctory writing; such rubrics are as limiting to the development of rhetorical mastery as the five-paragraph essay.

Moreover, some teachers have noticed how students who were good writers become wooden when writing under the influence of a rubric. Dona Patrick, an elementary school teacher noticed that while her sixth grade students did well on their state writing test, those students who had been natural writers, those students who had “stylistic voices full of humor and surprises, produced less interesting essays when they followed the rules [as outlined in a rubric]” (Mathews).

Rubrics can be designed to measure either product or process or both; and, they can be designed with dimensions describing the different levels of that “deep learning” so valued in WAC programs.

cross the board; meanwhile, the teacher that uses specific rubrics is always composing new descriptions of quality work, but their students have cle

Consequentially, when rubrics are published in the classroom, students striving to achieve the descriptions at the higher end of the scale in effect guide their own learning. We must keep in mind, however, that other aspects of good pedagogical practice play into student success: rubrics that are outside of the students “zone of proximal development” are useless to the students.

Usually a numerical value is assigned to each point on a scale. You can weight dimensions differently if you feel that one dimension is more important than another. There are two ways in which you can express this value judgment: 1. You may give a dimension more weight by multiplying the point by a number greater than one. For example, if you have four dimensions (content, organization, support, conventions) each rated on a six-point scale, and you wish to emphasis the importance of adequate support, you could multiply the support score by two. 2. You may devise scales of unequal length, which would mean that the shorter scales would count less than the longer ones. For example, organization, support, and content could each be rated on separate 6 point scales, while punctuation and / or spelling could be rated on separate 3 point scales. A paper that was well organized and punctuated would yield 6 for organization and 3 for punctuation. A paper that was perfectly punctuated but poorly organized might yield a 3-3 score.

Or you can build your own rubric from scratch—convert existing revision or discovery heuristics into rubrics; convert comments that used to show up on A, B, C, D, and F papers into descriptive phrases, or start completely anew. The Chicago Public Schools web-site offers simple guidelines to follow when designing your own rubric. If you visit the web page I cut and pasted this from, you will find that each item is hyperlinked to a full explanation of the step.

Clearly defining the purpose of assessment and what you want to assess is the first step in developing a quality rubric. The second step is deciding who your audience is going to be. If the rubric is primarily used for instruction and will be shared with your students, then it should be non-judgemental, free of educational jargon, and reflect the critical vocabulary that you use in your classroom.

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.

they should articulate the vital features that they are looking for and make these features known to the student

The result is many students struggle blindly, especially non-traditional, unsuccessful, or under-prepared students, who tend to miss many of the implied expectations of a college instructor, expectations that better prepared, traditional students readily internalize.

rubrics, in effect, dehumanize the act of writing. According to Thomas Newkirk, an English professor at the University of New Hampshire, “rubrics promote ‘mechanical instruction in writing’ that bypasses ‘the human act of composing and the human gesture of response’” (Mathews).

if we have assigned ourselves the task of getting a good rubric to use, we need a rubric to judge our performance—that is, we need a meta-rubric to assess our rubric.

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” (Montgomery).

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” (Montgomery).

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” (Montgomery). T

Moreover, some teachers have noticed how students who were good writers become wooden when writing under the influence of a rubric.

A rubric with two or more separate scales is called an analytical rubric, as it takes apart or breaks up the rating system for each trait; a rubric that uses only a single scale is called a holistic rubric. A holistic rubric is more efficient and the best choice when criteria overlap and cannot be adequately separated; an analytical rubric, however, will yield more detailed information about student performance and, therefore, will provide the student with more specific feedback.

A rubric with two or more separate scales is called an analytical rubric, as it takes apart or breaks up the rating system for each trait; a rubric that uses only a single scale is called a holistic rubric. A holistic rubric is more efficient and the best choice when criteria overlap and cannot be adequately separated; an analytical rubric, however, will yield more detailed information about student performance and, therefore, will provide the student with more specific feedback.

The issue of weighting may be another area in which you can enlist the help of students. At the beginning of the process, you could ask a student to select to select which aspect she values the most in her writing and weight that aspect when you assess her paper.

While many educators make a compelling argument for sharing rubrics with students, others worry that doing so will encourage formulaic writing. That “rubric” is listed in most thesauruses as a synonym for “formula” does nothing to dismantle such fears. Well-designed rubrics, though, should not do this; unfortunately, most state issued rubrics used in secondary school standardized testing are poorly designed rubrics that list specific static elements encouraging students to simply make sure their essays have those features.

What decisions will the assessment inform?

begin with a clear picture of why he or she is conducting the assessment.

Are results communicated in time to inform the intended decisions?

Specific, descriptive feedback linked to the targets of instruction and arising from the assessment items or rubrics communicates to students in ways that enable them to immediately take action, thereby promoting further learning.

it's important to know the learning targets represented in the written curriculum.

Most assessments developed beyond the classroom rely largely on selected-response or short-answer formats and are not designed to meet the daily, ongoing information needs of teachers and student

Educators are more likely to attend to issues of quality and serve the best interests of students when we build balanced systems, with assessment-literate user

It calls attention to the proper assessment method and to the importance of minimizing any bias that might distort estimates of student learning.