OLLIE Iowa

Standardized test only give a certain amount of information for teachers to see.  Often times, it's a guessing game for kids.  In the classroom, students can be creative and add their style to the assessment with different opportunities to present the information.  

I like seeing teachers use a combination of testing approaches. I think kids get burned out filling in ovals, students like to be creative and can show that better through other means beside multiple choice or darkening ovals.

This entire realm is both challenging and time-consuming. In order to have a high level of confidence, assessments usually need to be used many times and checked for validity and reliability…especially if they are being used as a summative assessment.This entire realm is both challenging and time-consuming.

As obvious as this statement is, and even though "doing science" has been an expectation in the Iowa Core (and now the NGSS), there is a general lack of 'performance assessments' in science - especially at the elementary level.

I'm not typically in the classroom, so I'm asking... why is that? Is it because performance assessments aren't readily available, not easy to score, not easy to administer, messy to set up, time consuming? If these are true, I see lots of barriers in the way of performance testing. Even though they may be more authentic and reliable.

I have found many districts concentrate on reading and math at the elementary level...as a result, science is on the back "burner".

Mary, I absolutely agree! The publishers of the elementary reading series' are caught up in trying to include the required amount of non-fiction reading material for the students and so they have focused on material that is also grade level appropriate to what should be studied in the science and social studies curriculum at each grade level. Teachers are beginning to use the reading series' material as a substitute for real science and social studies lessons as a way to "save time" in their day and still cover all the required material. This does not bode well for the science and social studies learning of our younger students.

Figure 1& 2: can be seen in this version of this article: ( http://goo.gl/9S26Q )

Thanks Clair!

Strange that only "Number Sense" has 4 items worth 10 points! Could one question be weighted or did they really assign each correct answer 2.5 points?

This is my contention with MAP testing. As an AEA consultant, I think it's wonderful for tracking student progress, and making instructional decisions for students, but I have found in more than one school I work with that the teachers receive this data from the testing and then have no idea what it means or what to do with it. It is so sad! They have received training on how to use the results, but by the time the test takes place and they receive the data, they have forgotten how to access it and what to do with it, so in essence the test was a waste of time because it's not going to bring about instructional change for the students in the classroom

I once read a study where students with behavior disabilities saw an improvement in their behavior when they began to track and chart their actions in a spreadsheet. When they could see the change in a chart it became a positive goal to make improvements and watch the trendline go up. Monitoring and taking responsibility.

It is difficult to think we are betting on these practices.

Great point. I have always said, when we are assessing, we are not instructing. I have found as an educator, it's during the test that students will ask the most questions. I consider it low stakes testing when I can tutor them one on one and as a result, some of the best learning takes place.

I have found it interesting that we give semester tests, yet very few supervisors, parents, administrators, or students want to know the overall level of student performance....they just want to know the "grade". As a result, I see a need for doing summative testing a bit differently.

How would you do summative testing differently? This makes me think about the cumulative projects I have my students complete. Very rarely do students come in to find out how they did. I think I need to move the end date of those projects up a couple of days so I can sit down with the student and go over the project before the last day of class.

As an educator, I have found that having students self-assess is a lesson in itself. So many students think they are excellent, even after seeing many of their peers doing the same task with varying degrees.

I agree that we must teach our students how to self-assess. In some classrooms we have never asked them to do this, so we can't expect them to fully grasp the concept unless we provide ongoing support while they learn to self-assess.

I give a lot of written assessments in science, but have failed to make goal setting explicit. I think this could be really effective at getting students to view the feedback differently, especially if the student had to talk with the teacher about the goal.

How do we get our students to care when taking these tests (i.e. Iowa Assessments) so we can truly monitor their knowledge?

Is it possible to over-assess? If new assessments are being added, will students get burned out from being tested?

Yes! I definitely think students get burned out from testing. My district did away with a few non-required standardized tests and the students did better on what they were required to complete, because they felt it was more necessary and appreciated that they weren't being forced to do all of it.

I think this is key - writing the learning targets in student/parent friendly language. I have started to transition mine into "I can" statements.

I would have liked to see more specific discussion about the creation of selected-response format questions. I know "concept inventory" type questions that were developed using student misconceptions from previous written assessments are extremely valuable at assessing student learning, especially when compared with traditional questions from a textbook publisher.

I wish this were the case. So often I work with schools that are giving multiple forms of assessments in an attempt to insure that students are learning the core material and will do well on the Iowa Assessment only to find that the teachers have no idea how to interpret the scores and data they receive from the tests. This leads to no instructional decisions being made for the student after taking the tests and the testing being nothing but a waste of time.

This is so true!! Unless a teacher provides feedback in some way - whether in a conference style or a written style - the student will have no idea how to improve. Too often high school students receive a composition paper back with a letter grade and no comments or only spelling corrections underlined. This does not help the student to know what it is that was done poorly - other than the spelling - or how to improve on the next paper. I firmly believe that even papers that are considered to be "A" papers need to have feedback given - what was done well, what areas might the student extend themselves in next time, what areas could be better even though they were sufficient for this assignment.

Better - ask the student, "How could this statement be more complete? Are you missing something in this component of the rubric?

Resource: "The Power of Feedback" by John Hattie & Helen Timperley (2007) in Review of Educational Research.

This seems necessary if we are to achieve the highest level of assessment making sure we are actually assessing the learning targets appropriately, but I struggle with the fact that teachers have the time in their busy schedules or will take the time to create a test plan for every assessment they give.

Sadly, I feel assessment literacy is lacking in education. We not only need to focus on the assessments we give our students but also on training our educators and classroom teachers on assessment creation and effective use of assessment results.

It's too bad that these tests are being used to make so many decisions in the education system when they are not fully assessing the students learning and mastery of skills.

Habit #6 - "Successful students strive for accuracy and precision". An especially important skill for STEM students (showing my bias here).

So, does a rubric help this, or hurt this?

AHA #2!

It's important that we remember to use the rubric not only to assess the final product but also during the process to guide learning and help the student grow.

I'd even say it is more important to do it during the process. Do students really need a rubric if they are only going to see it at a point where they can't do anything to improve their work? Perhaps... maybe they could carry over that assessment to the next activity. But methinks they will simply disregard the rubric after they see the score.

It's sad that teachers are pressured to get their students to pass standardized tests that they don't always take the time to think about how what they are teaching their students is really helping them learn to solve real problems.

Rubrics should not be a scoring sheet for grading although that is how they are most commonly used. They need to be "facilitated" by the teacher and student to increase effort, understanding and performance throughout an assignment or project.

Parents, teachers, students, administrators, etc. should all be able to understand the rubric and what is expected.

Students and parents can be very vocal with teachers about grades questioning a teacher's discretion. With quality rubrics and rubric eduation, this could be nearly eliminated.

This is where rubric education is crucial for educators. Writing a vague rubric doesn't do the student or teacher any good, but having it too many dynamics can lead to confusion. It is necessary to get input and modify rubrics in order to achieve the best results.

This would be a hard area to be non-judgmental because every student is at a different level with risk-taking, creativity, self-expression. What might be a big risk for one student, may be a minimal risk for another.

Leaves out the "guesswork" for a student in trying to figure out teacher/professor expectations.

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).

If we don't know the target, how can we meet it, right?

As one of my colleagues says, we shouldn't play "Guess what is in the teachers head?" when it comes to assessment.

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.

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...

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.

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".

Sometimes when we quantify we simplify.

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. 

Yes, problem solving is certainly at least as important as computation.

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.

I think the students are more motivated when they can see real-world uses of what they are learning.

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?

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.

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.

I greatly prefer specific rubrics. What thoughts do the rest of you have?

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.

I think it depends on the purpose of the rubric, but I tend to like specific ones better than general ones.

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.

If we are just using rubrics to put something in the gradebook, we are losing the power of "facilitating student learning."

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.

...if the rubric is not used throughout the project or assignment, it is of very little use in a quality assessment process

I cringe when I read or hear about the 5 paragraph essay!

At what age/grade do you think students are able to do this?

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".

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.

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.

Wow!!

In order for self-assessment to work, it must be a true habit of mind. It must be haitually refined.

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?

Unfortunately, many educators see rubrics simply as a way to assign a grade to a project.

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.

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.

User beware! There are LOTs of crummy rubrics available on the internet.

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).