Because I teach 5th grade, I need to make sure that my rubrics are very simple, straight forward, and use appropriate diction so that my students understand the expectations set aside for each criteria. If I used a rubric created by textbooks that are only for teachers' eye, my students would stress out because it would be too difficult for them to understand.
By adjusting your rubrics to match your students' cognitive abilities, you will avoid frustration, and set students up to succeed. How can we expect a rubric to benefit our students if it is way over their heads? My suggestions are to use simple diction, clear statements in each category, set aside point values in each category, and limit the number of categories for younger students.
 Attributed by: MagneticNorth |
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Fantastic post! I completely agree with you about how rubrics need to be student friendly and simple/easy to use and understand. If I do this, I will get this. Unfortunately, I have to use a rubric almost weekly for writing that I do not feel fits this criteria. It is an intermediate writing rubric for grades 3-5 and is based upon FCAT Writing scoring criteria. It is very difficult to students, parents (and teachers, if I am being honest) to understand EXACTLY what they need to do to improve their score. It uses some vague terms such as "Some" and "Many" which when describing conventions errors or use of better word choice or transitions, these terms can mean a lot of diferent things. We have tried to develop our own meaning of these terms to better exaplin to students and parents and make it easier for us to grade, based upon third grade writing expectations. Luckily, we make all of our own rubrics for all of our other types of writing aside from essays, so we have some excellent poetry rubrics to help guide our students.
ReplyDeleteThanks for such great thoughts on rubrics!
Samantha
Recreating rubrics for young minds is no easy task. I'm glad you brought up the point about creating rubrics that parents can also understand. In this case we must leave out teacher jargon and educations terms such as RTI to avoid confusion. Thanks for such a thoughtful comment, Samantha.
Delete-Lisa
Lisa,
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more with your post on rubrics. So often they are written for the teacher rather than the student. If the students are unable to understand what you are looking for by looking at the rubric then how are they supposed to meet all of the criteria you are grading them on?
I know I have personally had this problem as a student even in graduate classes. A professor would give me a rubric that they would plan to use to grade my assignment, but due to the vagueness I would interpret the expectations/directions differently than my teacher, which would result in loosing points in that particular area. I know I try to avoid this in my classroom by reviewing the grading rubric with my students before and during the time my students are working on a particular assignment to try to avoid this confusion. You said, "My suggestions are to use simple diction, clear statements in each category, set aside point values in each category, and limit the number of categories for younger students", which I think can help prevent many of the problems teachers use when trying to implement rubrics in their classroom.
Thank you for sharing!
Melissa
I have had similar issues in graduate school when it comes to using our professors rubric..shameful huh? I'm glad you could agree with my suggestions to creating understandable rubrics. Thanks for your comment.
Delete-Lisa
Lisa,
ReplyDeleteI could not agree with you more. I do not know how many times I have been handed a rubric and not understood it. Using a rubric is suppose to benefit students so they know what they are being graded on. How are they suppose to benefit from them if they do not understand them? Your point of " using simple diction, clear statements in each category, set aside point values in each category" is a great tip for any teacher. Teachers of all grades should follow your advise when making rubrics for their students. Doing so will ensure that students benefit from the rubric and understand it.
Sean
Thank you for your comment, Sean. You brought up how "we" (i'm assuming you meant graduate level students) need to use clear rubrics, but what about elementary students. How might you adjust rubrics for "the little ones".
Delete-Lisa
Lisa said, “Teachers of all different grade levels have certain expectations depending on their students' abilities.”
ReplyDeleteYes, teachers must have different expectations depending on the grade level they teach (not only for the students ability level but also for the students emotional maturity level). Your blog post was a great summary of how, I suspect, most teachers feel in elementary schools especially about adjusting their expectations between the grade levels. This level of schooling is so varied and diverse – I would venture to say the most diverse and widely varied collection of ages/abilities is found in elementary schools, but I don't want to start debates or arguments in the class, this is just my opinion. I just think it is so so varied if you think about the knowledge/abilities/maturity/etc. of a Kindergartener vs. a fifth or sixth grader. Wow, right? I know! It is much like how parents say, “kids grow up so fast”. Well, they kind of do! So thank you Lisa for a great post – it was spot on!
Lisa said, “My suggestions are to use simple diction, clear statements in each category, set aside point values in each category, and limit the number of categories for younger students.”
Yes, great suggestions! I could not agree more. In my view, these are all very important and vital suggestions. Ones we must all keep in mind. The most important, I think, is to limit the number of categories for younger students. I would add to this also that these limited categories should be thoroughly explained to younger students and comprehension questions to gauge understanding of the requirements should be asked after they are explained. Also, the parents should receive a copy of all rubric information so they are aware of the requirements as well. Thank you for the amazing suggestions!
It was a pleasure reading your blog posting,
Thanks for the insights,
Dawn
Thanks for such a thoughtful post, Dawn! Have a great summer :)
Delete-Lisa