All Rubrics Are Not Created Equal

Over the last several years, I have been contemplating the role of assessment in our classroom. In Let Them Assess, I shared where our journey began. I shared one of our first student-created rubrics. It's simple, but (at the time) effective. However, one thing that bothered me with the rubric was how subjective they would be. Yes, I would have my students score one another, justifying any score they would give their peers. However, my students became so adept at justifying (and debating) their choices, they could argue two sides of any one claim. That's when I realized that we needed to take the time to re-evaluate our rubrics. Were they truly and deeply measuring what my students were mastering? Or, were they so vague that they were open to the scorer's personal opinion? Were students being scored accurately in a way that showed mastery of standards? Or, were entities that are not standards being thrown into a grade?

With these questions mulling around,  I knew I needed to rethink how we made rubrics. I knew that I still wanted the students to have a voice in designing, creating, publishing and assessing their own writing. I began collecting rubrics from many other teachers in different grade levels, content areas, and geographic locations. I noticed that some teachers, like us, were including elements on the rubric that had nothing to do with mastery of standards. Previously, we always included a category that included the digital aspect of the project. By that, I mean things like balancing music and voice in an audio recording or including visuals to support the writing.  As I engaged with these other educators, I realized that these elements (plus things like neatness or putting a heading on your paper) fell under a different category. Although those elements played a role in the effectiveness of a published project, they did not prove mastery of a standard (see Your learners are masters of...?).  Therefore, my students and I began creating a list of project expectations that accompany the rubric. These are elements that every student expects not only of themself, but also all of their peers in their projects. These expectations specify what the norms are for each project. From this point forward, we no longer included non-standard items in rubrics.

Another realization that I had when analyzing rubrics was that so many rubrics (even graduate level) included non-specified terms such as partially, good, few, some, generally, effectively, or clearly. What determines if something is effective or ineffective? What determines whether a student reaches partial mastery? These vague terms are what opens rubrics up to subjective scoring. Each person has a different idea of what those terms mean. Rubrics should not be scored against an ideal that one scorer may have. These items must include measurable determiners. There should be no question in one's mind as to whether a learner has proven a mastery at  a level of 3 or 4 because the rubric eliminates that personal judgment.

When my students and I started creating rubrics that were clear, specific, and measurable, my  students struggled. They kept wanting to revert to past practices. "It's easier the way we were doing it before," they said. So I asked them why a rubric needed to be measurable.  After a lot of probing questions (and almost an entire class period), one student quietly shared that having everything measurable seemed more fair because "you didn't have to worry whether or not you had done enough; you knew."

Then another challenge presented itself. The standards were so broad, it was extremely challenging to create measurable determiners and all of the variations that there could be at each level of mastery. We realized that we needed to break down the standards into clear measurable parts. Below is a rubric where we have broken down one standard.

This standards had three different elements. Therefore, we broke it down into three measurable pieces. The students decides what determines what constitutes a 4, 3, 2, or 1. This may vary from project to project depending on the project complexity and length. We now do this with each standard that the students are working on to reach mastery. Does it take time? Yes. Is it worthwhile? Immensely! These rubrics take the guess work out of scoring projects. The students created the rubric. They broke down the standards. They decided what each level on the rubric means. They set expectations for each project. There are no surprises anymore. They students know what is expected, they know what mastery looks like, and they know how to communicate that to others.

My work on assessment is an ever changing one. What we are doing today may very well change next month or next year as my students and I explore different ways of communicating learning to others. However, one thing that I stand firm on is the importance of giving students ownership over every aspect of the learning process. This is their learning journey, not ours. It is our obligation to guide and turn the responsibility of learning over to our students. We will only be with them for a short time; they need the tools to communicate and guide their own growth beyond the few months that they are in our classrooms. We not preparing them for a test or the next grade level. We are preparing them for a lifetime of learning, growing, and sharing with others.

Let them Assess

Assessment. That is a word that can send cold shivers down the backs of teachers and students alike. In our society, that word has been linked to a "gotcha" mentality where standardized testing scores have become punitive towards districts, schools, teachers...sometimes affecting entire communities. I have spent a lot of time contemplating, researching, and discussing this topic and I realized that I needed to reframe my ideas and ultimately my teaching practice in the area of assessment.

Like many of you, I am in a district where standardized tests scores pull much weight and drive many of the decisions made at the district level. Often as classroom teachers, we may feel disempowered. Is this where we throw up our hands in defeat? And the most important question: Is this what is best for our students? I think that any one who works with students know that the answer is a resounding "NO."

The question that I often hear is, "So what do we do about it?" I thought I would take a few minutes to share where I began in my journey of rethinking assessment. As I have continued to grow (and still do each day), my practice has adapted. In the interest of not overwhelming anyone, I'll share more of my journey in future posts, but I wanted to share where I began.

Those of you that follow me or have read my book, Can We Skip Lunch and Keep Writing?, know that several years ago, I made the shift from a teacher-led classroom to a student-directed one. In this amazing journey, my students led the way with many ideas. The idea to let the students take control of their assessment came from one of my fifth graders.

Now like many of you, I have used rubrics my entire teaching career. I'm sure we've all had the frustration of going over a rubric in detail at the front end of a project; then we observe our students trudging ahead with little (or no) regard to how they will be assessed at the end. The shift was that I wanted to make should address students' lack of connection with the purpose of a rubric as well as their idea to take control of their own assessment. I would not be presenting them with the rubric; they would be creating it for each learning project.

When you stop and think about it, if we are giving them control over selecting what they learn within a topic (or standard), how they are going to learn it, and in what manner they are going to create something that proves that learning, shouldn't they also have control over how they are assessed on that learning?

In order for us to make this shift, I relied on my students' previous knowledge. Since third grade, they had been trained to write towards our state writing test using a rubric. They understood what the specific difference was in earning a 4, 3, 2, or 1 in each category on a rubric because they had already been doing that for at least two years. When we began a new project or learning activity, I would guide my students in designing the criteria. Then I led them into determining the specifics assigned to the 4, 3, 2, or 1.

Yes, when you look at it, their copy is much simpler than most rubrics, but this is their rubric, not mine. The "master" list of the specifics would stay on our interactive whiteboard for reference, as needed, although most students took down notes (by choice) as a reminder of how to earn each score. As is our regular practice, my learners would meet together with one another for peer reviews and ideas, as well as, conferring with me throughout the project.

Once we reached the end of a project, they would assess one another's work based on their rubric as would I. My initial trepidation was that they would assign high scores to one another afraid to be honest. On the contrary, I discovered that my students held extremely high expectations for one another. When you think upon it, it makes sense. They design the projects and set the expectations. They talk about it with one another and me a LOT throughout the process. They know exactly what is expected to prove their learning.

This put an integral part of the learning process firmly into my learners' hands. Assessment plays a vital role in determining what our students know, what they need to know, and how much they have grown in each area. It informs and guides our instruction so that we can help each of our students meet their fullest potential. Having this knowledge is important not just for us, but for our students as well. If we want for them to take ownership of their learning, they need to be informed and see the goals that they have set in front of themselves.

This is only the beginning for me an my students and we sharpen our assessment practices. Stay tuned as I continue to grow and reflect upon how we can empower our students with relevant and authentic assessment practices.