We know from Marzano's educational research of the Nine Essential Strategies, that setting objectives and providing feedback to students are both highly effective teaching practices. When instructional goals are focused and explained, students better understand their learning expectations. In addition, the feedback we provide should be specific and timely. Using rubrics with students is an excellent way to incorporate both of these effective instructional practices into our teaching practice.
Teachers at Norton Park Elementary have been using rubrics for several years for their writing instruction and assessment. Their next step in the use of rubrics is to develop rubrics with their students and give students more opportunities for self-assessment.
On October 11, Norton Park teachers participated in a rubrics workshop. A brief overview of rubrics was done. Rubrics have 3 components: ranking, criteria, and indicators.
Rubrics are often confused with checklists, but there is a difference between these two. A true rubric will indicate judgment of quality with a ranking of usually between 3-5 points. However, writing a checklist first is often a great way to define the criteria intended to be included in the rubric.
The criteria are the skills or behaviors that we are expecting students to demonstrate. The indicators demonstrate a range of the skill along a continuum. Rubrics tend to work well with projects that are more complex, like writing, projects, presentations, and math problem solving.
After the overview, the teachers had an opportunity to develop a rubric together as
a team. Because the process of developing student-generated rubrics is a new experience, the content chosen for the rubric was something familiar for the teachers. Most of them chose a routine procedure in the classroom, such as lining up, walking in the hall, morning arrival time, etc. for the development of the first rubric. As we worked through the process, we discovered that sometimes it is hard to define what we are looking for, so developing a rubric prior to having the students generate one will help teachers clarify their expectations.
Teachers were encouraged to take the teacher version of their rubric back to their classroom and use it as a guide as they developed a rubric with their students. The experience of generating rubrics with students using simple content would help lay the groundwork for when they would begin with generating a rubric with writing standards or any other project.
After teachers at Norton Park Elementary met to reflect on their rubric development lesson with their students. many reported that their students were beginning to assess themselves and others, and that their behavior has improved! Additionally, during this literacy work session, teachers were encouraged to look at the current writing rubrics from PICASSO and to modify them with students in the classroom to develop genre-specific writing rubrics to match their grade level standards. The ultimate goal is for students to become more proficient with writing rubrics collaboratively, and using rubrics with automaticity to self-assess their work.
Submitted by : Marcia McComas
