Developmental assessment and rubrics DEVELOPMENTAL vs STANDARD MODEL

Developmental assessment and rubrics

DEVELOPMENTAL vs STANDARD MODEL Standard model • Assessment occurs after instruction is complete • Teachers don’t question each others’ data or strategies • Teach whole class at once, with a bit of help for the lower kids and a bit of extension for the top kids if possible • Compares students to norms and focus on what students cannot do • Deficit thinking: students must be at a certain year level norm and I must correct all the deficits they have Developmental model • Assessment is used to improve teaching • Teachers hold each other accountable based on their data and teaching strategies they use • Targeted teaching as much as possible – ideally individually but even 3 -5 levels is usually sufficient • Compares students to criteria and focuses on where students are ready to learn • Developmental thinking: assessment tells me where a student is in their development and I teach them from there

• Students: Why use rubrics? • know how to get better • get higher quality feedback on their performance • assessment data used as information rather than as judgement

• Parents: Why use rubrics? • Know what their child can do, not how they compare • Know the next thing their child is ready to learn • Sees more motivated students – especially those at the top and at the bottom

• Teachers • • • Why use rubrics? more consistent marking quicker to mark you don’t have to write as many comments more detailed information for reporting rewarding professional discussions between teachers promotes development • linked to skills not what is “normal” • the teacher knows where a student is ready to lear • can target teaching intervention to use with that student or group of students

The problem of badly written rubrics • most rubrics are badly written • confusing students, teachers and parents • they are hard to mark • lots of time put in to them without much gain • can’t use them to find students ZPD or “goldilocks zone” • They don’t teach

Ten rubric writing guidelines https: //reliablerubrics. com/category/assessment-rubrics/what-is-arubric/guidelines/

Quality criteria should… 1. Allow teachers to infer development. Don’t count (e. g. some, many) • counts don’t show quality • they discourage students from experimenting • it isn’t true that more of something means higher quality • e. g. spelling rubrics that have “no words spelt incorrectly” can make students just use easy words

Quality criteria should… 1. Allow teachers to infer development. Don’t count (e. g. some, many) • Retells story in sequence with 2 -3 omissions

Quality criteria should… 2. Not use ambiguous, subjective or comparative language (e. g. appropriate, suitable, adequate) • Leads to inconsistent marking • No agreement on what appropriate” means • Doesn’t help students know what is required

Quality criteria should… 2. Not use ambiguous, subjective or comparative language (e. g. appropriate, suitable, adequate) • Writes about some main points

Quality criteria should… 3. Discriminate between quality, not steps in a sequence • just doing more steps doesn’t equal better quality • each step can be done to a higher quality

Quality criteria should… 3. Discriminate between quality, not steps in a sequence • Writes introduction and conclusion • Writes introduction, conclusion and three paragraphs

Quality criteria should… 4. Have one central idea • If you have more than one idea, and a student can do one but not the other, how do you mark it?

Quality criteria should… 4. Have one central idea • Text introduces a compelling claim that is clearly arguable. Text has a structure and organization that is carefully crafted to support the claim

Quality criteria should… 5. Describe observable behaviour - what students do, say, make or write • That way teachers don’t have to infer

Quality criteria should… 5. Describe observable behaviour - what students do, say, make or write • Understands the need for evidence

Quality criteria should… 6. Use positive language • Don’t need to say what students can’t do – this is implied by the higher criteria • Not helpful to say what students can’t do

Quality criteria should… 6. Use positive language • Blog post has no style or voice

Rubrics should… 7. Have bottom criteria something all students can do and top criteria a stretch for top students • Think: “what can a high ability student do? ” Write a criterion just above that to push all students • Think: “what can a low ability student do? ” Write a criterion just below that level to be able to record all students

Rubrics should… 8. Not be weighted • Comes from the problem of converting rubric into a score. This confuses different purposes for assessment • Teachers sometimes use weighting to show much time/effort to spend on sections of assignment. • Do this via instruction, not the rubric

Rubrics should… 9. Have 4 or less criteria per skill • Too hard to mark • Marking is more inconsistent • Also probably only have 5 skills maximum • Students can’t use too much feedback

Rubrics should… 9. Have 4 or less criteria per indicator

Rubrics should… 10. Use student-friendly language • Students can use the rubrics for e. g. self-assessment • Parents and other teachers can understand the rubrics

Rubrics should… 10. Use student friendly language • Description of identifiable performance characteristics reflecting development and movement toward mastery of performance

Tips • Use learning taxonomies • Bloom’s, Dreyfus, SOLO, Krathwohl • Use student work • To help describe levels • Bottom level = something everyone can do • Top level = stretch for top students

Potential issues • Teachers don’t agree on what should be on rubric, or what order the criteria should be • So… an opportunity for good discussions about what is being taught • What if students don’t do things in the order that the rubric says? • Your rubric needs changing. • Less experienced teachers, or teachers writing rubrics alone suffer this problem more

Potential issues • It takes too long to make rubrics • It does get a lot quicker • Once written, using rubrics greatly reduces time marking • it gets quicker, making rubric saves time writing long comments • It doesn’t give grades • You can convert by converting rubric count to a grade

Examples

Year 8 History

How to interpret: The highlighted box shows your current skill or understanding. You have also shown everything in the boxes below the highlighted box. To improve, try and show the skill or understanding in the next box up. weighs up how useful the source is describes artistic style of source judges the purpose identifies patterns or themes in the source analyses purpose applies evidence to a suggested hypothesis analyses reasons why source is or isn’t useful lists detailed features of the source describes purpose explains evidence used discusses usefulness of source lists general features of the source suggests a plausible purpose Describes what is in the source Identifies the purpose of source analyses evidence recognises evidence Uses information as evidence lists information about the source Discusses the usefulness of the source

Year 8 History Rubric with examples

History composite rubric

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