Home | Bio | Resources | Workshops | Conferences | E-zine | Teacher Idea Exchange | Links | Contact

E-zine

Vol. 2, No. 5 Developing Assessment Criteria: Rubrics and Criteria Cards Click here to download a formatted copy of Carolyn's Product Criteria Cards saved as a PDF file. In order to view and print it, you will need a program such as Adobe Acrobat Reader. You can easily download a free copy at www.adobe.com: Posted with permission from: Standards-Based Activities and Assessments for the Differentiated Classroom

Most teachers agree that rich assessment comes not from multiple choice tests but instead from products and performances that are interdisciplinary, open-ended, creative, and lead to developing higher level thinking skills. Problems may arise, however, in knowing how to assess these in a fair and meaningful way. When developing assessments for products or performances, first get a picture in your head of what the student work will look like. This is an important first step! If you have no idea of how a student project may develop and say to yourself, "I'll know a good one when I see it", you won't be able to create good assessment criteria. Thus, have an idea of what you want from the students before you begin thinking about assessment criteria. Next, think carefully about the standards you are hoping your students will master. Then brainstorm all possible criteria you might want to consider in assessing the stated learning outcomes. If you have an exceptionally long list, it may be necessary to pare your list down or to combine two or more of your criteria into one item. Sometimes you will have criteria that are consistent no matter what the content of the topic or assignment. These generally will be generic processes you often want students to focus on, or products/performances your students may do several different times or for different teachers. Processes could include certain writing conventions such as grammar, spelling, punctuation or sentence structure, or a skill like proofreading, research skills or organizational skills. They might even be expected classroom behaviors such as turning in work on time or group work expectations. The list of generic products and performances &endash; such as brochures, cartoons, charts, collages, etc. - could be unending. In any of these cases, you can develop Product or Process Criteria Cards to use over and over again as you write rubrics or as you give students assessment criteria in other ways. These cards have short, easily understood lists of criteria (generally 3-5) that students can use each time they use the same process or do the same product. If all teachers at a given grade level or within a certain department could agree to use the same Criteria Cards, students would benefit greatly from this consistency. For example, if I want my students to create a brochure showing the scientific process, I could use a Brochure Criteria Card (Product) as part of my criteria for this activity. If my students had a copy of the Criteria Card, I would merely need to indicate 'Follow Brochure Criteria Card' as an item in my assessment criteria. Thus, my rubric could contain the Criteria Card plus several content &endash;related criteria. There are no rules about how many criteria you need to have or how many levels need to be indicated in a rubric. In general, I like to have no more than four or five levels. The same is true for the number of criteria listed. The more levels and the more criteria, the more cumbersome the rubric becomes. From a practical standpoint, most students stop reading rubrics or directions when they are too complex or too wordy. In addition, extremely long rubrics are difficult for teachers to use. If the purpose of a rubric is to give feedback to the student, facilitate self-assessment and/or to help the teacher accurately and fairly score a piece of student work, we want the rubric to be as simple and understandable as possible! In a rubric with five levels, the levels might indicate the following: 1 = The task was attempted but falls far short of quality work. 2 = Important purposes were not achieved. The product or performance needs more work, redirection or additional strategies. 3 = For the most part, the task was accomplished. Needs minor corrections, additions or changes. 4 = The task was fully accomplished and done well. 5 = This work is above and beyond requirements and far exceeds expectations. It shows creative and unique thinking, the ability to problem solve and/or unusual skill in any of the multiple intelligences. The top level in any rubric should be the extension column. That is, it should provide a way to show that a student has extended his/her learning above and beyond the assigned task or expectations. This is particularly important for gifted and talented and other high ability students. We do not want them to stop learning once they have reached the minimum expectation for a project or performance! A better idea is to continue to challenge them and to indicate this within the rubric itself. Some sample Criteria Cards are below. For more information on assessing student performance, see Carolyn's books Solving the Assessment Puzzle and Standards-Based Activities and Assessments for the Differentiated Classroom.