A rubric is a scoring tool that lists the criteria for a piece of
work and also describes levels of quality for each of the criteria, usually
on a point scale. Rubrics are used in many different ways in middle school
classrooms. Laura started week three of our summer "Topic of the Week"
by asking readers to comment on how and why they use rubrics in the classroom.
Laura wrote:
"I worked with a group of teachers all day [recently] developing rubrics
for all the computer applications we teach. These will be available to all
teachers in our building. We're working on consistent expectations. At the
end of the day, a teacher asked how this related to the student's grade.
Some felt the use of rubrics made students' grades lower. There was a great
deal of heated debate as to whether rubrics should be used in determining
a student's grade on a project. I'm interesting in how others are using
rubrics."
How are you using rubrics? What's the connection between rubrics and academic
standards? And what's the relationship between rubrics and class grades?
Can rubrics help create consistent expectations, and perhaps help "make
an A an A" in the same grade/subject across the school?
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Deb explained how she used rubrics in the Science Fair process.
I used a rubric in our science fair process. The rubric was developed among
the teachers, but was shared with the students up front. We used it to score
projects and presentations. Students scored each other and we discussed
the scores as a group. The score was your grade because the Science Fair
was our work for one whole marking period.
I thought the rubric was very helpful because it spelled out the expectations
for all concerned. We used to do an activity where we brainstormed as a
class about what a 4 would look like, a 3 etc. I developed a generic rubric
and left the right side of the page blank, after we brainstormed about what
the evidence of excellence would look like, we filled in the right side
for the particular project.
Parents seemed to appreciate the rubrics too. The mystery of why their child
received a grade was solved.
-Deb
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Cheryl requested a copy of Deb's Science Fair rubric and Deb promised
to help her locate it.
Deb: Do you have a copy of the science fair rubric that you could share?
Hi,
I'm pretty sure John put it online as part of my diary. I'll try and find
the link.
-Deb
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John dug into the MiddleWeb archives and located Deb's Science Fair rubric
as well as several of Deb's diary installments that addressed the use of
rubrics in the classroom.
You're right, Deb!
Science Fair rubric:
http://www.middleweb.com/scifairrubric.html
Several of Deb's 1999 diaries about using the rubric can be accessed at:
http://www.middleweb.com/msdiaries99/MSDiaryDB12.html
http://www.middleweb.com/msdiaries99/MSDiaryDB14.html
http://www.middleweb.com/msdiaries99/MSDiaryDB17.html
-JOHN
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Leighann told MiddleWeb readers how rubrics help make teachers accountable
for scoring projects and assignments fairly. She pointed out further advantages
of this assessment tool that ultimately assists students in their endeavor
to meet assignment criteria.
Whenever I give my kids a writing assignment that will be revised and also
be a major project, I give them the rubric (scoring guide). I believe it
keeps me more accountable to grading fairly. When a student gets a poor
grade, I simply have to ask, "Did you follow all aspects of the scoring
guide?" They can look at their paper and look at the scoring guide
and they can't lie. They have to admit they left something out, or didn't
proofread.
I always allow them to redo the work so it does fit the scoring guide. What
I would like to do (attention Ellen Berg) is develop a specific scoring
guide for the essay, paragraph, speech, etc. Everyone in the Communication
arts department would grade in the same ways and the kids would not have
to get used to a different grading system when they enter a different grade.
So yes, I do believe that scoring guides, or rubrics can create consistent
expectations school wide.
-Leighann
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Sharon pointed out the advantages of regulating the formats of rubrics
within individual schools so that these students become more proficient
in their ability use the rubrics to meet assignment expectations.
At my previous school, we had a binder that held thinking skills, graphic
organizers, and rubrics that were introduced at a certain grade level and
time of the year and reinforced in the following grades. We all used the
same organizers and rubrics (we were allowed to tailor them to meet our
needs) so the students were familiar with the expectations of all teachers
in the building. I find rubrics extremely helpful if they are specific.
I have seen some that are way too general. I don't understand how using
rubrics would lower a student grade?
-Sharon
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John directed readers to resources that provided further information
on the benefits of implementing rubrics into classroom assessment.
Visit this page on the MiddleWeb site for an article about using rubrics
in the middle grades -- and be sure to scroll to the bottom for links to
some other good resources, including an Educational Leadership article.
http://www.middleweb.com/rubricsHG.html
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John's comment about the "Standards in Practice" program prompted
Nancy to share here personal experiences with this model in the Corpus Christi
school system.
We used the Standards in Practice model for looking at student work from
January to May. Once a week in team planning and once a month in-departmental
planning, one teacher brought a set of student-papers for one assessment.
We followed the SIP process to the letter, including creating a rubric for
the assessment, which may have been different than the one the contributing
teacher used. We found it to be very beneficial in terms of helping us examine
the effectiveness of our assessments.
-Nancy
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Laura cautioned readers concerning the pitfalls of equating the "5"
scoring level on a rubric with an "A".
The rubrics I've been hearing about are more like specific area contracts.
You do something to this level and you have a 4 or 3 points for it. I understand
that use. What we were looking at is like 6-trait writing.
Rarely will younger students have all 5's. Some teachers use this rubric
to grade from. A student writing at a level 3 would get a 18 points out
of 30 possible. The teachers in my meeting were working from the contract
type rubric and our curriculum director was working from a performance assessment
rubric. She doesn't want our parents to think a 5 is an A.
-Laura
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Writing quality rubrics is tricky business, said Linda, a middle school
teacher.
Working with rubrics the past three years has taught me many things. One,
it is very hard to write a good rubric. I think I have a good one and then
I find a flaw. It's either too wordy for the kids or not specific enough.
However, it has really helped my students focus on what is important in
a piece of work. Second, the kids need the rubric before they finish drafting
so they can include all the needed items. Without looking at the rubric
beforehand, their scores are lower. The kids noticed this right off. Third,
rubrics helped me focus on the work at hand and not on who wrote this and
is it his/her best work. Just some random thoughts
-Linda
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Leighann added to Linda's thoughts by explaining how her students are
so conditioned to using rubrics that they can't even begin a project without
this useful scoring guide in hand.
I completely agree. Kids are definitely more successful when you tell them
about the project AND hand them the scoring guide (rubric) at the same time.
My kids were so conditioned that once I didn't have the scoring guide when
I told them about a project and someone said, "Mrs. Fuller, if we don't
have our scoring guide, how do we really know how we'll be graded?"
It makes success more tangible--the kids aren't trying so hard to read our
minds! :)
-Leighann
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Myrna shared her belief that rubrics help to boost the number of students
that meet success in their learning.
Laura
Teachers at my school love rubrics- they allow for some differentiation
so that many more students can get the "A". The rubrics have been
helpful in planning as they force teachers to clearly define their expectations.
-Myrna
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A.Hacker introduced the concept of teaching students to assess each other's
work using rubrics.
Using rubrics has helped me a great deal. As an English teacher, I am always
looking for ways to help in the grading of essays, reports, etc. By establishing
rubrics for myself AND the students to follow, the grading is streamlined.
At the beginning of the year, I develop the rubrics and give them to the
students before their work is due. That way, they know what I am looking
for and can correct their work before it comes my way.
After a time, I let the students use the rubric to grade one another. They
look at each other's paper and then give feedback on what else needs to
be done. Many of my students found this especially helpful.
My last step is to have the students develop a rubric for an assignment
after the lessons have been taught. By that time, they have worked with
several of my rubrics and have some experience with how the writing rubrics
work. They generally cover all of the issues that I would have, in terms
the students easily understand.
As far as lowering or raising student grades--I believe the rubrics have
helped my students become better writers. They know what to expect, and
how it should be presented from the rubrics.
Writing, and rubrics, are not the only means I have of grading / teaching
my students. Looking at the differing modalities of learning, how could
it be? But I do use them often enough that the students are familiar with
them.
As to whether or not an A is an A -- I think so. Rubrics are used across
the board in the English department. I know that my colleague in the seventh
grade developed a few that he shared with me, and I him. He and his family
have moved back Stateside, so I will have a new colleague next year, but
I anticipate the same willingness to share from her as well.
-A. Hacker
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Brenda reiterated how rubrics have forced her to plan assignments and
projects with the "end in mind".
One of the things I like the most about rubrics is that it forces me to
decide what I am looking for in an assignment before I hand the assignment
out to the kids. It's more work at the beginning but less work during (the
kids are clearer on my expectations so I have less questions) and at the
end (if its a well-written rubric, the marking is quicker and easier).
In my pre-rubric days I didn't always work that out until I was marking
the assignment or project, which was totally ridiculous because if I was
unsure about the benchmarks (another novel concept...) how clear did I think
they would be? It was more of a guessing game for the students. My standard
used to vary from the first paper to the last (either I'd get harder or
easier because I wasn't clear on my own standard!)
My oldest son is in 4th year university and from his experience it appears
that professors are still functioning in the pre-rubric days. Each fall
it is a guessing game of what the professor actually wants in his/her projects-
tough for the kids who have gotten used to rubrics...
I'm always surprised how many teachers don't hand the rubric out to the
kids with the assignment benchmarks. It is as useful for the students as
it is for teachers.
-Brenda
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Julie connected this discussion on rubrics to a previous MiddleWeb discussion
that centered on the importance of educators creating tools that help support
middle school students succeed in their learning.
Remember our discussions about nurturing and
hovering and how that is developmentally appropriate in middle school?
I have found that rubrics/scoring guides really enable to students to understand
the assignment/ project better, do more of the work and have a better product
at the end. They also enable students to see where they are and what they
need to do next to improve. It's the getting better piece that can be so
hard to configure. These tools really help!
-Juli
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Bev mentioned one of the unfortunate misuses of rubrics, developing the
rubric "after" the students hand the assignment in.
Juli is correct concerning rubrics and hovering. I've been working with
a handful of other language arts middle school teachers on a bit of professional
development planned for pre-school time in August. I brought up the hovering
concept at break and they leapt on it, easily perceiving the difference
between hovering and "molly-coddling."
We went on to discuss rubrics and I can see the major difficulty will be
convincing non-English teachers (and some of them, too) that the rubric
should be devised before the project is even broached with the kids. Current
practice for many around here is to use the rubric for grading purposes
and often teachers don't develop it until the assignment is turned in. The
rubric as a tool for the kids has yet to be implemented widely here, as
does involving kids in the design of rubrics. That's a powerful engagement
tool don't you think?
Judicious use of rubrics does ease the grading chore--but rubrics can be
a diagnostic tool for the teacher, too, providing info on teacher effectiveness
and student learning. That's the message more teams of teachers need to
understand. Unfortunately, they don't happen to be on MiddleWeb!
-Bev
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Laurie explained how rubrics assist her in setting clear guidelines for
her students as well as streamline the marking process.
I have only been using rubrics for the past 2 years, but what a difference
it has made both in my ability to mark projects more fairly and to set clear
guidelines for my students. I always give the kids the rubric with the written
project guidelines so they know ahead of time what they're being graded
on. We then have a discussion of what a "perfect score" would
be (I find the majority of kids want to know, "How do I get an "A"?).
I have the kids present their projects in class, then I grade them as they're
presenting. They like knowing immediately what their grade is, and I find
I don't have to grade a pile of projects at night. I use them in both reading
and math class.
-Laurie
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Laurie continued by stating her belief that rubrics have helped raise
the quality of writing in her classroom.
I forgot to add I use rubrics to grade essays. I am a special ed. teacher,
who, through my colleague's generosity, shared his Language Arts essay guidelines
and rubrics throughout the year. He is a regular ed. teacher on my team,
and has taught me a lot about rubrics and essay writing. This has made my
students perform higher, not lower, and has enabled me to have information
to put on their ed. plans, which is terrific.
-Laurie
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Deb asked readers to share how they have involved students (and possibly
parents) in rubric development.
I'm wondering how other folks have engaged students in rubric development
and whether anyone has involved parents.
-Deb
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Involving students in the creation of rubrics is a gradual process. Linda
explained the steps she has followed.
We loop our students in grades seven and eight. In grade seven, I begin
with giving them rubrics to use to write their papers. Then they move on
to using them to grade sample papers (usually on an overhead), and finally
on using rubrics to peer respond to each other's papers. At the end of the
year, after seeing so many examples of various types of writing, they were
able to develop a generic rubric for writing in a whole-class brainstorm.
As eighth graders I will push them to develop more rubrics for each type
of assignment using the one before as a model but adding in the specifics
that as special to each assignment. Right now they are very good at finding
fault and good points in others' work but not so good with their own.
-Linda
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Linda shared how including students in the evaluation of a project helped
students to look at their efforts more critically.
I personally think that rubrics are great! But.... if you're trying to "make
an A an A" all over the school, you'll need to get the input and support
of your fellow teachers. As with all grading systems, it is possible to
make one rubric 'hard' and one 'easy'.
What I like about the rubric is that it forces me to identify what I am
looking for in a particular project BEFORE I give the assignment. It also
makes it (or should) very clear just what is expected. When the grade is
given, you and the student can look at the rubric to see how the grade was
determined.
This is my first year teaching and I have used rubrics about five times.
I was frustrated with the results (but still think that they're a good assessment
tool). I think that my students need more experience with them - I don't
think that they've had to use them much and so didn't quite get the concept.
A well-written rubric forces the student to evaluate their work. When I
gave one assignment that used a rubric, I laid it out so that there was
a column for them to write their own evaluation of each criterion. I think
this is important; it teaches students to look at their efforts critically.
I can understand the debate. My best wishes to you as you work it out.
-Linda in Me
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Using parents in assessment was an idea that Bill considered using. His
MiddleWeb posting elaborated further on this idea.
I gave serious thought to involving parents once, and allowed myself to
be talked out of it. The fear was that parents were more likely than kids
to have strong negative reactions if their ideas were not included. I go
back and forth on that one; my own experience at my school this year has
been quite positive, but I know there exist parents who are much more confrontational.
I did involve students once, and it worked out well. The 6th graders were
working on a French language field guide for our area, for use by next year's
6th graders, and when they were about three days into the project I asked
for their input on what would be the characteristics of a successful and
useful field guide. They very quickly came up with quality and accuracy
of information, accuracy of French translations, quality of images (with
credit being given for effort in the case of hand-drawn images), and overall
layout.
I used these five traits to assign the final grade, and I found it as useful
and helpful as did the kids. Furthermore, and I know this may or may not
be a direct result, no one complained about their grade.
-Bill
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A.Hacker related how rubrics can be used to inform parents of their child's
upcoming assignment requirements, which consequently opens up the communication
line s between, home and school.
My involvement thus far has been limited to sending them a copy of the rubric
and having them work with their student to be sure their student has followed
the rubric before turning in their work. For the most part, their responses
have been very positive. They like knowing what is expected and how they
can help.
I hadn't considered having the parents help to write the rubrics, as they
are not in the classroom with the students. I have posted rubrics on the
Internet so that parents will have easier access to what is happening in
my classroom. As I am always looking for ways to involve parents, I need
to mull this one over a bit.
-A. Hacker
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Keith shared his belief that rubrics allow students to think about "how"
to demonstrate learning.
We use rubrics exclusively for project evaluations. On long projects we've
found it helpful to access certain elements along the way - notes, resources,
plan, draft, etc. - I'd agree that it cuts down on the grading as we can
do most of the evaluations as a part of the regular classroom day.
Do rubrics lower grades? From my experience, I'd have to say yes. A four-point
rubric means that in a category, students have a 25% "lowering"
of their grade in each category. The problem is that we have bred a generation
of parents that think the soul reason to go to school is to get a grade.
We tried one project this year with categories with point values of 20 pts,
16 pts, 12 pts, and 8 pts.
I didn't like this as it seemed like we got back to "grading"
papers and injected a more subjective level by allowing someone to get 18
pts or 17 pts. Another teacher preferred this scale because it made "grading"
easier. The bottom line for me is that it's gotten so I can't even start
a project or involved assignment without a rubric. As a teacher it's the
evidence to me that our team has thought through what it is we want students
to learn and the evidence that they will supply to demonstrate this.
I've had students create their own rubrics on several occasions. This allows
them to think about how to demonstrate learning. The process for me is at
the start of a unit we'd look at the state essential learning and see what
it was that the state expected students to learn. Teams of students would
think about how this might look and generate a list of ideas on the rubric
(of course we have used them a number of times prior to this). We spend
another day compiling a list of elements and then try to hammer them into
categories to form an assessment rubric. I think students might prefer just
having me do this, but I like them to think more about what it is that they
are going to learn at the outset rather than focusing on how to get an "A".
As a last note, I visited a school a few weeks ago that use the SAME rubric
to assess research projects from grades 6-8 (MLA style) - my gosh I was
impressed by this. I got to "validate" students that presented
their portfolios at this school during this visit and could easily see the
growth, understanding, and learning that took place as students talked about
their improvements over the years. I think this particular element was extremely
powerful to both staff and students. As well, students had their project
evaluated by two teachers. I thought if we could do one thing at our school
next year to get everyone moving in the same direction this would be the
way to go.
-Keith
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John's posting directed readers to an article that addressed how rubrics
move assessment beyond the superficial "fluff" to the real guts
of in-depth writing.
Keith's excellent comments reminded me of an interview I did with a
middle grades history teacher in CA a couple of years ago:
http://www.middleweb.com/CSLBfinal/CSLBfinal3B.html
One thing he said:
"By using standards in the grading process, you are able to look past
the good writing and concentrate on what they know. Three or four years
ago, I would look at a paper, and if it was neat and double-spaced and had
no spelling errors and was pretty well thought-out, I would probably give
them a pretty good grade, even though the paper was full of generalities
and did not reveal much deeper understanding."
In this school, teachers met with parents at "principal's coffees"
and explained standards-based rubrics and classroom assessment. This school,
by the way, had lots of upper middle class parents who EXPECTED their kids
to get A's.
-John
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John also shared an interesting article that documented how one school
used rubrics to involve parents in the education process of their children.
I wrote about a school in Louisville (Conway MS) where the principal and
faculty tried a very interesting experiment. Here's an excerpt. I should
add that before this activity, the principal did a workshop with parents
to help them understand what a rubric is. As I recall, he used an example
from their home life. I think he worked with them to develop a rubric that
could be used to assess a student's success in cleaning his/her room. Not
a bad one!
Here's the relevant portion of the article:
(Marsha) Kennison, a UPS employee and long-time parent volunteer, is Conway's new PTSA president. She brings valuable experiences to the job - including membership on the district-level Middle School Coalition.
...As Conway's educators reach out to the community, parents have to accept their share of responsibility for student success. "Teachers are struggling to find ways to help students take more ownership for the work they do in school," Kennison says. "They're realizing that they can't do it alone. Parents have to realize that, too."
Evidence of Conway's "reaching out" can be found in a groundbreaking activity carried out last February. The school invited parents to spend a morning examining examples of student work with teachers. Kennison, Linker and science department chair Beth Sanders helped organize the session. Students at every grade level completed a KERA "released" science question that required them to demonstrate an understanding of scientific research methods.
The over-arching purpose of the activity was to generate a dialogue among teachers about expectations, grading, and the definition of "quality work." "And then we thought, why not get the parents in on the conversation?" St. Clair says. More than 20 parents showed up for the teacher workday. After an introductory session led by Sanders and Kennison, teachers and parents spent the morning together in small groups analyzing more than 700 student papers.
"The language arts teachers and the math teachers were just as intimidated by the idea of analyzing a science assessment as the parents were," Sanders says. "So we spent some time discussing sample papers and talking about quality until we were pretty well agreed in principle on what was outstanding work, what was good work, and what was not-so-good work."
Some parents were quiet and a little nervous at first, "but once they heard teachers expressing their own difficulty in interpreting the work, they felt more comfortable," Sanders says. "Everybody was learning together. We got on a first-name basis, and we joked and relaxed. We weren't talking about 'your' kid - we were discussing everybody's work. The papers were blind, so nobody knew who was who."
The parents went away with a much better idea of what JCPS, through its academic standards, expects student to know and do. "If you're a parent, how do you know what your kid can do, and what they're expected to do? It's hard for parents to answer those questions sitting at home."
For (principal) Steve St. Clair, the activity accomplished a double purpose. As a strong advocate of standards-based teaching, St. Clair campaigns tirelessly among his faculty, urging them to post examples of complete, standards-based lessons on Conway's walls. Displays that meet St. Clair's approval include the special standards addressed by the lesson, the rubric (a guide telling students what they must do to
earn top grades), and samples of "Top Cat" work - student efforts that meet the district's highest expectations. The professional development day (and others like it) was one more way to advance the discussion among teachers about the meaning of "quality work" at Conway.
But the parent involvement added extra flavor and meaning, St. Clair says. Not only did teachers and parents explore the school's most important product - student work - together, they got over what many in the school describe as the "intimidation factor."
"We often hear that parents are intimidated by teachers. That can stand in the way of parent participation," St. Clair says. "But we have to work with the comfort level of the teachers, too. I know that some of them feel just as intimidated by parents coming into the school as the parents feel when they come. I think teachers have to be used to seeing folks in here all the time."
After the parent participants left the February meeting, teachers gathered to consider the event and discuss the school's academic direction. "They talked about different issues we face as a school and a community," Linker says. "The teachers were asked, 'what do you see as the answers?' And over and over, their answers were, 'Let's get those parents in here. We need to let the parents know what's going on."
"It did my heart real good," Linker remembers. "That day was like a dawning for both sides. We all just want our kids to do well. And the parents went out and shared the positive experience with the community."