How do I go about creating a rubric?

1. How do I go about creating a rubric?

2. Specific steps for creating a rubric: • Start with the intended learning outcome. What characteristics of student work would give evidence for student learningand understanding of the knowledge or skills you are trying to assess. • Gather a large and diverse range of student work (from previous years is fine) which illustrate the desired understanding or proficiency • Examine the work to decide: • Indicators- identify the important traits or dimensions of performance • Select samples of student work to illustrate each score level on the indicators • Write a value neutral definition of each indicator • Describe the actual student work at each level in the rubric indicators- start with proficient • Continuously refine the rubric

3. Step 1 • Rubrics must be created using backwards design principles- • what is the intended learning you are trying to measure? Which Standards & benchmarks (or reporting outcomes)? • What have you explicitly taught that the students are demonstrating? • Separate content knowledge, skills, and understandings from ATLs (these can be assessed, but are reported separately)

4. Step 2 • Gather a large and diverse range of student work (from previous years is fine) which illustrate the desired understanding or proficiency • Sort student work into stacks and write down the reasons for your categories • Using the 6 facets of understanding can be helpful when developing criteria (pg 155 Understanding by Design workbook) • Rubrics should be developed and refined afterreflecting on actual samples of student work (where possible). • This avoids you having a rubric which doesn’t quite fit what you’re looking at.

5. Step 3 • Examine the student work to decide: • Indicators- identify the important traits or dimensions of performance • What are you looking for? These should be spelt out. • They must be linked to the outcomes, S+B or enduring understadnings • Select samples of student work to illustrate each score level on the indicators • This will allow you to describe exactly what you will be assessing

6. Step 4 • Write a value neutral definition for each indicator • What are the broad indicators students need to complete?

7. Aligning rubrics to the grading scale • It is advisable to use a level system which matches our grading system. For example: • Write 7 levels • makes translation into report easy, but it’s really difficult to write that many levels –NOT recommended • Combined levels • E.g. grades 6/7 in the level, grades 4/5 in the same level, etc. • The difficulty with this is helping the students understand the difference between 6 and 7 in the same indicator • 4 levels: • levels 1-4 can be easily translated into a grade 1-7

8. Step 5 • Proficient level should be identified first- it is the expected standard of what we want students to achieve at their grade level. • Exemplary and concern levels are identified afterwards • Use positive language at lower levels- hitting levels lower than proficient is an ok place to start for students, they should be able to see where they can grow

9. Step 6 • Continuously refine the rubric • Highly likely that the first draft of a rubric will inadequately measure the intended learning- it will need revision and refinement to ensure it measures as accurately as possible • Rubrics change with instruction- as you teach and develop a better understanding of student learning the rubrics may change to reflect this. • Students can also ‘help’ determine the criteria and the indicators for a rubric. However, they must have a very good understanding of what the standards and benchmarks are. They must be taught how to do this. This is not easy and takes time to do well.

10. How do I know if I have a good rubric?

11. Checklist for a Good Rubric • Aligns rubric with the intended learning from the unit plan • Have been developed and refined after reflecting on actual samples of student work • Written in student friendly, positive language – the students can easily understand the expectations at various levels • Written in first (my work is… ) or second person (your work is…) • Levels should be determined by the task and aligned in some manner to their final grades (ideally with an even number of levels) • Describes the features of the final product (not the procedures leading to the final product) • Wherever the rubric starts use positive language- reflecting readiness rather than lack of

12. Using rubrics with students • Must be explained to students in the class when the task is assigned. • Students should be guided to examine the rubric and what it means for the development of their work. • This may mean some adjustments are made to the rubric during the explanation • Can be used with students as they work on the taskto check and evaluate their work. • Teachers can ask students to self assess where they are on the rubric and how they can move up the continuum • Self assessment- students should be required to assess themselves on the rubric prior to submitting the work. • Goal setting- if the work is formative or has links to future tasks students should reflect on the rubric using their self assessment and the teacher’s feedback and use the rubric to set specific goalsfor improving learning (this should not be about the number but the descriptor) • Rubrics can also be used to write reports- if the descriptors are clear samples of this can be cut and pasted into the report.

13. Further Reading • Wiggins and McTighe-Understanding by Design (2nd ed) pp 172-190 • Hampton, Murphy and Lowry- Using Rubrics to Improve Student Writing. pp2-7 • Brookhart - How to Create and Use Rubrics for Formative Assessment and Grading. pp 7-11 • Principal’s Training Center- “Assessment Leadership in the International School” • Bambi Betts- conversation and document review (Jan 2013) • Bill Powell and OchanKasumaPowell – conversation and document review (March 2013)