Rubrics Are The Way

Instead of grades, we should use rubrics and narratives to provide feedback to our young learners.

Recently, EducationWeek provided suggestions for adult learning leaders if they are interested in changing how they provide feedback to their young learners:

“When designed effectively, grading rubrics can clarify expectations, minimize subjectivity, and standardize grading criteria across multiple teachers, said Kevin Perks, the senior director of Quality Schools and Districts at WestEd, a nonpartisan education research organization. But traditional rubrics can be confusing and unnecessarily complicated, he said.”

“Here are Perks’ suggestions for a simplified, strengths-based rubric centered on a specific learning standard:

Don’t add extra language to the learning standard – A typical rubric is a grid with rows of learning expectations on the left side and columns across the top outlining multiple levels of success – such as poor, fair, good, excellent. Teachers fill in each cell on that grid with a description of performance for each expectation at each level. While the aim is clarity, the result can be confusion, Perks said.

‘Teachers try to figure out the gradation of language to define each level, and they end up creating new language,’ he said. ‘The minute you start adding new language, you are unintentionally adulterating the standard you are trying to teach.’

Replace terms like ‘meets expectations’ with numbered levels of success – Instead of that traditional grid, Perks recommends a checklist-based guide that breaks down the concepts within a learning standard. Teachers check off demonstrated skills and provide written feedback on how students can improve. Instead of vague labels, number performance levels 1-4, with an index defining each level.

‘It’s easier for kids to comprehend and it’s all really oriented around proficiency,’ Perks said.

Consider co-creating your scoring guide with students. Inviting students to unpack a learning standard at the beginning of a unit can jump-start the learning process and help them understand expectations for assignments, Perks said. Teachers should collaborate with students to identify and define all the concepts within a learning standard and discuss how they might demonstrate those concepts in an assignment. That conversation can shape the rubric or help students understand an existing one.

Use examples of strong work. Including examples of successful work alongside scoring criteria can help ensure that different graders apply the same scoring criteria more consistently. For example, the SAT provides ‘anchors’ or example essays for the reviewers to demonstrate various score levels.

Similarly, showing student successful examples of past work can also give them a cleaner understanding of the concepts they are learning and how to demonstrate mastery, Perks said. Students may even benefit from reviewing an example that doesn’t meet expectations and identifying ways it could be improved.”

When we ran our personalized learning lab years ago in Houston, Texas, our learning coaches employed a learning report filled with suggestions made above:

Keep the learning standard simple.

Create an index to help the learner understand where they are on the learning standard continuum.

Inviting students to participate in the learning report creation. (In fact, eventually our learners were able to create their own personalized rubrics, whereby they compared their work with an assessment tool created by themselves.)

Use examples and non-examples of assigned work, allowing each young learner to see what the standard requires and, equally important, mistakes made along the way.

Work to make rubrics individualized to the person and their own relationship to the learning standard. Deep learning depends on personalization and relationships.

A big problem facing our K-12 traditional educational system is the way they assess learning inside classrooms and schools. It’s a big reason why some of us are encouraging all of us to look for a different system of learning – a system that allows each young learner to define, plan, execute, and evaluate their own learning.

Because –

If you own your own learning, you hold a power that no one can take away.

Friday News Roundup tomorrow. Til then. SVB