Dr. Mike Fulton and Dr. Jennifer Schneider Pattonville School District

1. The Role of Rubrics in Assessment by Design: Do You Think Like An Assessor or Like An Activity Designer? Dr. Mike Fulton and Dr. Jennifer Schneider Pattonville School District

2. When thinking like an assessor, we ask- What would be sufficient and revealing evidence of understanding? Given the goals, what performance tasks must anchor the unit and focus the instructional work? What are the different types of evidence required by desired results? Against what criteria will we appropriately consider work and assess levels of quality Did the assessments reveal and distinguish those who really understood from those who only seem to? Am I clear on the reasons behind learner mistakes? When thinking like an activity designer (only), we ask-- What would be fun and interesting activities on this topic? What projects might students wish to do on this topic? What tests should I give, based on the content I taught? How will I give students a grade (and justify it to their parents)? How well did the activities work? How did the students do on the test? Two Approaches to Thinking about Assessment

3. Continuum of Assessments • Performance Assessments • Academic Prompts • Quiz and Test Items • Informal Checks for Understanding

4. Performance tasks • Complex challenges that mirror the issues and problems faced by adults. Ranging in length from short-term task to long-term, multistaged projects, they yield one or more tangible products and performances. They differ from academic prompts in the following ways: • Involve a real of simulated setting and the kind of constraints and opportunities an adult would find in a similar situation • Are based on a specific purpose that relates to the audience • Typically require the student to address an identified audience (real or simulated) • Allow students greater opportunity to personalize the task • Are not secure: task, evaluative criteria, and performance standards are known in advance and guide student work

5. Performance tasks examples • CA W3A 8th grade: Compose a variety of texts, using narrative, descriptive, expository, and/or persuasive features in various formats, including workplace communication (e.g., business letter with a correctly addressed envelope, email communications) • SC VII1B Physics Scientific inquiry relies upon gathering evidence from qualitative and quantitative observations • H2A 2nd grade Identify healthy food choices (see MyPyramid.gov) in each of the five food groups (sorting play food or pictures into food groups. Compare and contrast the effects of nutrient-dense and empty-calorie foods on the body (e.g., soda/skim milk, chips/apple; cookies/carrots)

6. Academic Prompts • Open-ended questions or problems that require the students to think critically, not just recall knowledge, and to prepare specific academic response, product, or performance. Such questions or problems • Require constructed response to specific prompts under school and exam conditions • Are often “ill structured,” requiring the development of a strategy • Involve analysis, synthesis, and evaluation • Typically require an explanation or defense of the answer given and methods used • Require judgment-based scoring based on criteria and performance standards • May or may not be secure • Involve questions typically only asked of students in school

7. Academic Prompts- Examples • CA 4th grade released item Read this sentence from the article. “Eliza Scidmore was there, watching her dream take root in the ground.” What does “watching her dream take root in the ground” mean? Explain your answer, using information from the article. • MA 8th grade released item Joe has a sales job that pays him $3,000 per month and he also earns 10% of his monthly sales as a commission. On the line below, write an expression that can be used to find Joe’s total earnings for a month. Let d represent his sales for the month, in dollars. expression_____________ One month Joe’s total sales were $34,000. What was the amount of Joe’s earnings for that month?_______________

8. Quiz and Test Items • Familiar assessment formats consisting of simple, content-focus items that • Assess for factual information, concepts, and discrete skills • Are convergent, typically having a single, best answer • May be easily scored using an answer key or machine • Are typically secure (i.e., items are not known in advance)

9. Informal Checks for Understanding • Ongoing assessments used as part of the instructional process. These assessments provide feedback to the teacher and students. They are not typically scored or graded. • Teacher questioning • Observations • Examining student work • Think-alouds

10. From Criteria to Rubric • Rubric is a criterion based scoring guide consisting of a fixed measurement scale and descriptions of the characteristics for each score point. Rubrics describe degrees of quality, proficiency, or understanding along a continuum. • By what criteria should performance be judged and discriminated? • Where should we look and what should we look for to judge performance success? • How should the different levels of quality, proficiency, or understanding be described and distinguished from one another?

11. Analytic-divides a product or performance into distinct traits or dimensions and judges each separately Holistic-provides an overall impression of student’s work Two Types of Rubrics

12. Rubric on Writing Good Rubrics Based on Nancy Osborne's Rubric on Writing Good Rubrics

13. Examples of Top level descriptors • Development of Big or Important Ideas: The paper is clear and focused. I hold the reader’s attention. Relevant anecdotes and details enrich the central theme • Organization: The organization enhances and showcases the central idea or theme. The order, structure, or presentation of information is compelling and moves the reader through the text. • Word Choice: The words convey the intended message in a precise, interesting, and natural way. The words are powerful and engaging. • Voice: The writer speaks directly to the reader in a way that is individual, compelling, and engaging. The writer crafts the writing with an awareness of and respect for the audience and the purpose for writing. • Word Choice: The words convey the intended message in a precise, interesting, and natural way. The words are powerful and engaging.

14. Designing and Refining Rubrics Based on Student Work • Gather samples of student performance that illustrate the desired understanding or proficiency • Sort student work into different “stacks” and write down the reasons • Cluster the reasons into traits or important dimensions of performance • Write a definition of each trait • Select samples of student performance that illustrate each score point on each trait • Continuously refine

15. Rubrics for Comparison http://www.sci.edu/classes/ellertsen/rubrics/gradingrubric.html

16. Rubrics for Comparison http://www.tlt.ab.ca/projects/Div3/Grade9/diversity/report-rubric2.html

17. Rubrics for Comparison