Assessment Rubrics: Roadmap for Student SuccessAssessment rubrics need to be made before instruction begins. Learn how to let a rubric guide your instruction and view sample rubrics. Rubrics not only assist students towards lesson mastery, they also are an integral part of great classroom management. When your students understand the expectations, they will work towards achieving those and be on task. A rubric (or scoring guide) takes away the option to fail.
One important note about performance expectations: Be sure to write rubrics in "kid language." "Scoring rubrics should be written in specific and clear language that the students understand," (Moskal, Barbara M. (2003). This is a poster rubric I have hanging in my classroom. It is an assessment rubric that the students use to check their illustrations they draw to support their writing. It is written in "kid language" that we did together.
Assessment rubrics should be kept very simple. Do not overwhelm your students (and yourself) with too many variables. This will lessen the success rate and can lead to confusion. Decide before beginning your units or lessons what the critical objectives are (these should correlate to your state's standards or benchmarks), work out your rubric in advance and build your lessons around it. Assessment rubrics can be written for anything. The number of performance expectations vary according to the lesson objectives. It ends up looking like this sample rubric:  I also developed a simple rubric for writing. I custom ordered a stamp that has just the essential writing skills my students need to develop. Instead of numbers, I used the marks we give on our report cards as the parents and students all are very aware of what they mean. You can view it at the bottom of the student's page. This not only makes writing a snap for me to evaluate and make solid instructional decisions with, but also for my students to know what their performance objectives are.  Click here to read about using C.O.P.S. for evaluating writing and spelling! It is also important to let students know what each score looks like. This is called an anchor paper, and it is so important for your visual learners. "A set of anchor papers with students' names removed can be used to illustrate to both students and parents the different levels of the scoring rubric," (Moskal, Barbara M. (2003). This is an example of second grade anchor papers for narrative writing, along with a rubric, courtesy of the Fairfield-Suison Unified School District. Free Sample RubricsImagine the success your students will have through using scoring guides like assesment rubrics. But why imagine it? Use them and watch your students achieve more than you thought possible. Teachnology is a free rubric maker for creating rubrics about anything. There are ready-to use ones as well as sample rubrics. References Moskal, Barbara M. (2003). Recommendations for developing classroom performance assessments and scoring rubrics. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 8(14). Return to Top: Assessment Rubrics: Roadmap for Student Success
|
