I encountered my first rubric a year ago in my English 489 class. We looked at many different rubrics and analyzed them as to whether they were effective or not. I was perplexed. Since the majority of my education took place in the late 80's, early 90's, I was definitely of the generation that you got a grade, comments, and that was it. If you had questions about your grade, you had a conference with the teacher, and they told you why your grade was the way it was. You promised to do better. So in regards to rubrics, I LOVE them. Rubrics take away all the ambiguity, all the confusion, and a teacher plainly lays out- "this is what you are going to be graded on." Students have a clearer vision, parents have a clearer vision, and everyone can refer back to the rubric to see whether goals were met or not quite achieved.
However, a problem arises for me when we start to say that, "Thinking-centered rubrics seemed to help students think more deeply" (Andrade, 2000). In the example Andrade uses, she states that some students were given a rubric to make an argument, defend it, and then consider the other side of the argument. Other students were not given a rubric. Those who were not given the rubric generally did not put into their papers the counter argument. I would argue that this doesn't mean some students are thinking more deeply than others, it just means that for the students with that particular rubric, they knew to put it in there. In essence, they were told to put it in there so they thought about it.
Another aspect I really liked about this week's reading was incorporating pre-assessments to get a general idea of how much students already know about a topic/class before the class begins. I like this because it serves as a guidepost of who may need more basic work, and who is ready for advanced material. I also like the idea of portfolio's because you can show off all of the work you have done from the beginning of the class till the end. In an ideal world, I would also like to utilize the example of having students and the teacher develop their rubrics together, but this may be a bit too far fetched for me. I see the struggles my mentor teacher has to go through just to get his kids to pay attention, stop talking, and figure out subject/predicates and doubt that a collaborative discussion the way Andrade is envisioning would be possible.
On a final note, I would like to start a new movement: PSTRUOA. It stands for Please Stop The Rampant Use Of Acronyms. I can't be the only one feeling these are getting out of hand. They now even use words within the sentences rather than starting the sentences. Acronyms are supposed to help you remember things. I still can't remember what GRASPS means! Peace out!
Yo, Jason! While reading your blog post, I noticed you and I had a similar type of education. There were no rubrics when I was growing up either, nor did teachers ever give any specific comments that would disenchant the arbitrary scores I would receive. Even when I got a comment like “Good job!” I never knew whether it was because of something that I wrote specifically or if they enjoyed my command over punctuation. This got me wondering if my teachers even bothered to read my papers at all. Now that my days of becoming a teacher are nearing, it’s good to reflect on my past experiences, lest I make the same mistakes my teachers made while I was still in high school.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your feelings toward wanting to do things like create rubrics with students beforehand, but the more time I spend in classrooms I wonder how many of my ideals that I have as a student of education will immediately be dissolved my first week of teaching. I agree with you about not seeing writing rubrics until I started seeing them when I was in classes here at UIC and at other high schools around the cities, but I know whether or not I can use my students in class to help me formulate them or not I know that I will have them. Rubrics help students organize their thoughts coherently and some may disagree with me, but I do not think putting structure around how an academic paper should look is all that oppressive either. I feel safer teaching what organization looks like in a paper and once a student shows me that they know the use of the organizational tools, then I will happily let them go against the organizational grain in their writing. I think writing is one of those things where you should know the rules before you start breaking them.
ReplyDeleteJason, I enjoyed reading your post and agree with much of what you said. As I was reading Andrade's article, I was also thinking to myself that the author was jumping to a lot of conclusions regarding how rubrics influence student learning--which was later noted in the discussion section. I used rubrics quite a bit in middle and high school, and remember liking them because they let me know what the teacher wanted, but I never abstracted the standards and thought of them as useful tools to apply in other settings. I think it is a big leap to look at increased student performance when using rubrics and then make the assumption that the better performance occurred because students were suddenly enlightened by the benchmarks of the rubric, heightening their level of scholarship. As you put it, "they were told to put it in there so they thought about it." This isn't to say that some students don't take the time to think about how these criteria could be applied in other settings, why they are important, how these criteria contribute to better work, etc., but I think on the whole this isn't quite how it works. In response to your statement about developing rubrics with the class, I've never seen a teacher try to do this in my time observing, but when I was a student my teachers did it and the class was pretty responsive. I think students appreciate autonomy and transparency, and doing an activity like that is responsive to those needs. I think it's worth trying out even in a setting where students may seem disruptive or disinterested.
ReplyDeleteJason,
ReplyDeleteI also feel that rubrics are very helpful in the sense that they really help students understand what is expected of them as they have something to reference to as they complete their assignments. I remember in high school, whenever my teachers would give rubrics for an assignment, I would feel more at ease knowing what was expected of me without having to guess or keep asking my teacher for clarification. The only thing I would be worried about with rubrics is that there is a possibility for them to take away room for creativity as it draws most of the student's attention to the specific requirements that are written out for them. However, I feel that it is really just a matter of how they are structured and worded as well as what type of assignment it may be for. Some assignments may need more rigid guidelines and requirements, but it's always good to keep an eye out for giving students opportunities to decide what they think is the best way to show their understanding on their own.
Jason,
ReplyDeleteI can see where you're coming from here referring to student created rubrics as realistic or not, and I think imagining these types of things can be difficult while working with another teacher. Right now we don't have our own classrooms nor our own students. I feel that you really have to establish a certain dynamic from day one in your classroom in order to accomplish what you want to as a teacher. If your students know that every day before a new essay you spend 25 minutes collaborating as a group to make the rubric, it is something that is now worked into your schedule and is something the students are familiar with. Creating the rubrics with your students gives them a sense of ownership and responsibility that will ultimately help you as the teacher. Don't give up on the idea! You may just have to wait until you're working with your own future students. :)
There was a couple of things in which I would like to bring up. I do agree that rubrics are 20 times better than getting a grade and a "Good Job!" sticker. However, in the chapter they mentioned that rubrics also create some students that will "give the teacher what he/she wants". I thought this was interesting. Does this mean that the student have higher knowledge? Or does this mean that the rubric wasn't holding higher expectations on student learning?
ReplyDeleteI feel as if rubrics should create a clear understanding of the subject but also drive students to go above and beyond. It would be a great thing to have rubrics guide student learning as to what is expected but is there a way to use rubrics as a tool to intrinsically motivate a student to go above and beyond? I would like to hope that there is.
Just how there are pros and cons to nearly everything in life there is also about rubrics. Yes, they're great when it comes to explaining why the student received the grade he/she received, as well as it makes the grading process for teachers way easier. The teacher can check for understanding and check off if the student met the requirements. The downside to this is that students at times provide what the teacher wants to see, which can ultimately take away from the creativity of students since students will alter their work to meet the teacher's demands. In the end rubrics have been great to this day a great thing to do as future teachers is to also be flexible with rubrics to meet every students need and perhaps mutually create a rubric with your students.
ReplyDeleteAs a few of my other classmates have commented, I also must agree with you on the greatness of rubrics, and also would like to add my 2 cents on the conclusion drawn from Andrade's article. I have always thought that rubrics were great in the sense that it requires you to have structure and it makes you analyze the set of criteria to ensure that your assignment is complete, valid, and up to standards. I don't believe however that simply having a rubric makes students learn more, become critical thinkers, and engage in more self-assessment and metacognition. I am guilty of using rubrics only as a checklist and making sure I referenced one or two of the criteria in my final product. I don't necessarily believe this made me a better learner, or critical thinker, especially considering that half of the time I would not see the rubric until a few hours before my assignment was due, or even after I had finished my assignment. On the other hand however, I do believe that having a rubric IS better than not having one at all. If used, I believe you will either produce the same quality product as you would without one, or a more structured, coherent, and overall better product. I dare say that I believe you could never do worse with a rubric, than completing an assignment without one.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Jason, rubrics are great! They help a lot and allow you to hit all the points you need to hit. I can tell you that I definitely have done better on papers when there are Rubrics than when there aren't any rubrics. So I believe it can affect our students the same way. I definitely see student/teacher created rubrics to be possible. But I believe this depends on the grade level. I mentioned in another post that I have actually done this before, but this was at the collegiate level. I think it is definitely possible with high school students. The students have to understand the importance of making the rubric together.
ReplyDeleteAs far as Acronyms go... I agree. There are A LOT of them. However when you actually learn them it makes a lot of sense. I can't tell you how many times I've used PEMDAS in math during high school. It works, we just have to learn them all!
Hi Jason,
ReplyDeleteAs a student who had their education in the late 1990's to 2010's, and being fortunate enough to go to school districts which highly recommended the use of rubric, I got to fully enjoy the benefits of them. Rubrics, as the others have already mentioned before, really do even out the playing field for many students as it provides students with a clear message of what they are expected of doing on a particular assignment. This clear message allows students to formulate a "plan of attack" and allows them to focus in on the most important parts. The problem with rubrics tends to be that they become too narrow and students then do their assignment without having any room for their own creativity and simply write what their teachers want to hear. I thus really liked the article this week that argues that for good rubric to be both specific at what they want the students to be able to do as well as open towards allowing students towards approaching the assignement in their own creative way. Though this may be hard to do as a teacher and will require a lot of "front-loading" time, the benefits will be resonated in the students' work.
I agree with you Jason and with everybody else: rubrics are great and very useful. They might not make students learn more but they sure allow for self assessments and improvements. I remember my first encounter with a rubric; it was at a community college, the instructor told us to do this assignment and to use the rubric as a guide. I started writing my paper without even looking at that rubric because I did not realize what it was. When I finally did look at it it helped me to know exactly what I needed to include in the paper and I also had a pretty good guess of what my grade would be. The other great thing about using rubrics is that it doesn't dictate on how to complete an assignment and thus the students can be as creative as they want,
ReplyDeleteI do agree that I think it's great to assess your students before making a rubric so that you can figure out how much they know and how to make adjustments for their rubrics. I didn't really consider at first how rubrics can help students figure out what to put into their papers. I thought they were just limiting, but I didn't consider that they could help you expand your thinking. I believe that portfolios are also great! They really allow the teacher to see if the students have progressed throughout the year. It's a great way to assess your students and even be able to pinpoint exactly when they have improved and where they need improvements.
ReplyDeletejason, I agree we need to stop the rampant use of acronyms, its a sick game. I thought one point you made in your blog stood out to me, that students being told what to put in their paper made them think about something they may or may not have otherwise, and therefore had it not been in the rubric would have docked a lot of students grades. I think this acts more as an argument for rubrics, or for rubrics that allow more freedom as some other responses have already pointed out. I agree some teachers take rubrics too far and really put a damper on the creativity and autonomy of an assignment, there should really be rubrics for rubrics. I think it emphasises out the importance of a good rubric, one that focuses on what students should be learning or developing skill wise, rather than what a teacher would specifically prefer to see in a paper. If the learning goal of the assignment is unclear in the rubric, it might not be a good rubric.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteJason,
ReplyDeleteAs a teacher-in-training who has had many of his assumptions regarding instruction challenged over the course of the past year, I absolutely love the idea of using rubrics as often as possible. I have learned the hard way that, in order to prove themselves successful as learners, students require the sort of clarity that rubrics--when well-crafted--offer. I believe, too, that it is important that we collaborate with both our colleagues and students when crafting the rubrics we intend to use. We can only benefit from developing a better understanding of what our students need from us in the way of clearly delineated criteria.
I don't really know how to respond to this post. Are rubrics good things? I mean, if you're interested in knowing what a grading authority expects you to produce and if you're also interested in meeting the highest standard, then yes, it would seem to make logical sense that rubrics are good things. And what's the problem of giving the teacher what she/he wants? What if what they want is for students to engage in writing and reading in such a way as to make them think hard about its relation to our relationships with other people, our environment?
ReplyDeleteBut then again maybe that point is wrong all together. Who needs education tied to virtue when, in this age of accountability, rubrics are just as ubiquitous as those motivational posters tacked up on the walls of damn near every high school classroom. But couldn't we rid ourselves of some irony if we replace the motivational posters with a slew of rubrics tacked on the wall instead? Is it really internal ambition to be a better writer or reader that we try to perform well? Or is it that these grades are tied to our ambition for success to advance onto the next level merely for the sake of advancing onto the predicted stages of life, onto the next compartment of adult life--from school, to college, to work, to marriage, to more work, a vacation here and there, and then, finally, death. Maybe I'm just feeling too existential this afternoon, but there's probably a rubric to assess my sanity that I ought to consult.
Hi Jason. I also come from that schooling generation when rubrics didn't exist and was confounded by their existence, and the necessity of developing them when beginning this program at UIC. That said, I have found them to be excellent tools for assignments in our education courses, because if you open up the rubric, you pretty know exactly what the teacher is looking for. There is no ambiguity, accusations of unfairness or favoritism go away/diminish and the entire process is made more transparent. And yes, I think with teacher input/guidance, students can also be given a voice in the formulation of a rubric.
ReplyDeleteThe problem arises in simply getting the experience and the practice of formulating "good" rubrics.. something I suppose we will all experience "the hard way" when we do our student teaching and beyond.
I also think a problem arises with the "core" of many history classes (at least in the way they used to be taught, and the way they continue to be taught, at least at the college level) . that is - writing papers. A very basic "rubric" is easily developed for a history paper and most students already understand what it is. Summarize the main thesis/point of a book/text, formulate an argument (for e.g. whether you agree/disagree and why) and use evidence (preferably cited from within the texts used) to support your agument. Right there you can make a 4-5 point scale rubric on whether this is effectively done. Then it becomes a matter of how much weight you want to give to overall presentation, grammar, spelling, etc. and I think we'd agree that it would be best if students knew ahead of time on how these will be weighted going on (and perhaps even given input on how to weight them.. I'll bet you all the tea in China, the students will always vote to de-emphasize grammar/spelling, proper structure, etc) since many of them lack writing skills. (which is a discussion for another day) .
Of course, given what I have seen on approaches to teaching history in HS classrooms today, the paper is really disappearing or being de-emphasized (another discussion for another day), but I do think that alternative ways of assessments, even summative assessments are a great idea, and frankly should be more widely incorporated. This is something I will have to learn on the fly, being "old school" educated, but I like the concept. For e.g. in one the classes I am observing.. students are making maps of their neighborhood and then presenting them to class. There is a basic rubric on making the map (such as use of compass, a scale, and basic landmarks. This teaches them how to read, use and make their own maps (perhaps an anachronism in the age of GSP, but useful for the class) .
I quite like the idea of using some sort of baseline assessment, but that can be tricky, especially in terms of time. For e.g. do I really have the time to see how much of a map they can make when I have several days alloted for them to make "these" maps?
Last, good luck with your attempt to eliminate acronyms. This foolishness started in the 80's and has only developed many more tentacles since then. Believe or not, for quite a while (perhaps even still today) it was touted as a way to help students "remember" and "connect" things they were supposed to memorize. (and some people with a particularl ideological inclination might say they're simply another way we have "miltarized" our society) :)
I want to provide a small amount of pushback on snapshot or photoshoot. Like it or not, snapshots have oversized importance in people's lives. For e.g. standardized tests which will enable one to go to a certain college, or to college at all are a snapshot. If you screw up a major/important project or presentation at work, you may lose your job based on a "snapshot". Life isn't fair... and students should be made aware of such facts... and not dismiss snapshots, like them or not.
ReplyDeleteGreat post!
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of rubrics because your students know exactly what they are being graded on and what they are expected to discuss. There is no questioning of why didn't I get full points. I don't agree with students and teachers coming up with the rubric together. I only think it should be used between a teacher and struggling student. I don't think high school students or some college can go to that deep thinking level.
Excessive acronym need to stop also
Hi Jason,
ReplyDeleteI really like the way in which you interrogate the claim that thinking-centered rubrics help students think more deeply. Indeed, I agree that it is very likely that students just knew to put in a counter-argument, so they put it in there. And indeed, the counter-argument requirement in particular always feels like a check-box to me. As a college writing tutor at Malcolm X and at DePaul for four years, I saw countless papers at all different levels that were required by their rubrics to include a counter-argument. More often than not, this argument is the most poorly developed part, it lacks engagement with the rest of the paper, and generally feels like the student is conforming to a requirement rather than actually addressing the binary of her own argument.
Indeed, we need to get better at how we think through, teach, and engage with the counter-argument with our students. To extrapolate this out to other content-areas, the point is that when assessing students, the rubrics we give ought to reflect the content we teach. It is unethical to ask for a counter argument again and again when we do not teach what a counter-argument looks like in a meaningful and student-relevant way. Just because you put it on a rubric, doesn't mean that it is now fair to assess students on that supposed skill. Thank you for your post!
Great post Jason,
ReplyDeleteI think you bring up a great point in your title "Rubrics: Quality Assessments, or Just Giving The Teacher What He/She Wants?" and your take on the Andrade "counter-argument" example. It does seem, I agree, that Andrade stacks the deck with her example. Of course, students receiving the rubric add the counterargument because they know they will lose points without it. But, because the rubric gives general instructions and tasks the students to do the actual thinking/activity, I don't see it as merely "giving the teacher what she wants" in a foreclosed or authoritarian way. A bad example of giving the teacher what she wants would be a rubric demanding students print a set of vocabulary words 5 times each. But in this case, I think the rubric is open enough to allow for the students to do the very real work of objectively critiquing their own perspective without negative or closed impositions on the students learning. If that is giving the teacher what she wants it is productive for students.
First of all I love your movement (PSTRUOA). They have gotten a little out of hand. As far as rubrics are concerned, just like with everything else I think they can be a great tool, but should not be used as a crutch. There are always going to be exceptions to the rule. Also we have to look at what the goal is within our assessment. If we are trying to give credit for effort put into an assignment then a rubric can be tough to use independently. Outside of that I think it keeps us as teachers honest, and gives us backup for our grades.
ReplyDelete