Below is a copy of a rubric in progress that I'm designing with Tina Breen from our technology department. Last year, we did a unit on documentary film making with the 8th grade GOAL classes. It was new to both of us, and the unit was very experimental. It was extremely hard to grade because we were learning right along with the kids. However, this year is another story. We have done the unit once, and we feel like we know what we want to expect from the students, both in process and in product. We're designing the rubric at the beginning of the unit so the students will know what they will be responsible for throughout the whole process. We collaborated and brainstormed together on this draft, and Tina inserted our ideas into a template she'd already created. She sent it to me in an e-mail attachment, and now I'll add specifics about other areas.
b. The teachers communicates assessment criteria and standards to all students and parents.
c. The teacher understands and uses the results of multiple assessments to guide planning and instruction.
d. The teacher guides students in goal setting and assessing their own learning.
Every quarter, my GOAL students self-assess their independent reading contracts. It gives me a chance to compare how I think they did with how they think they did. Sometimes, there are situations or circumstances that I didn't know about that only come to light with a self-evaluation. Below is an example of a contract self-evaluation completed by a student.
f. The student works with other staff and building and district leadership on analysis of student progress.
The papers below are the guidelines for the 2009 Images of Greatness, one of the biggest projects of the 8th grade GOAL curricular year. Not only did I give this to students at the beginning of the unit, I also e-mailed copies to all their parents. I sent hard copies home with students who did not have family e-mail. I also had extra copies available at parent/teacher conferences. I think it worked well because the students were all prepared for the Images of Greatness night. Having deadlines spread out before the big night helped students plan accordingly. All deadlines and point values are on the guideline sheet, so both parents and students were informed of the project expectations.
c. The teacher understands and uses the results of multiple assessments to guide planning and instruction.
This year, I attended the Iowa Talented and Gifted Association's state conference. I heard a woman named Bertie Kingore speak. I'd heard of her before; she designed an observation tool to identify young gifted children. She blew me away. I went to every session of hers I could. Most of her sessions dealt with differentiating the curriculum for gifted students. What I loved about her ideas were that they were short and sweet and good for all kids. My associate principal and I presented many of these ideas in staff development, with my own staff and again at a district-wide staff development. Below is an example of one of these quick activities. What I've learned since then is that these kids of activities are not only differentiated for all learners, but they're formative assessments as well. They can be used at different stages of a lesson or a unit for different purposes. I like the following activity in the middle of a unit, at the beginning of a period to see what students recall from the previous lesson.
d. The teacher guides students in goal setting and assessing their own learning.
Every quarter, my GOAL students self-assess their independent reading contracts. It gives me a chance to compare how I think they did with how they think they did. Sometimes, there are situations or circumstances that I didn't know about that only come to light with a self-evaluation. Below is an example of a contract self-evaluation completed by a student.
e. The teacher provides substantive, timely, and constructive feedback to students and parents.
When grading 7th grade History Day projects, I use the same scoring rubric that the judges use at the competition. Last year, I put the template on the server so I could type right as the students presented. It helped me get the feedback to them sooner, and one added bonus is that I was able to attach it directly to an e-mail to a parent who had a question about her child's grade. The following is an example of one of these rubrics.
When grading 7th grade History Day projects, I use the same scoring rubric that the judges use at the competition. Last year, I put the template on the server so I could type right as the students presented. It helped me get the feedback to them sooner, and one added bonus is that I was able to attach it directly to an e-mail to a parent who had a question about her child's grade. The following is an example of one of these rubrics.
f. The student works with other staff and building and district leadership on analysis of student progress. This year, departments worked together on ITBS item analysis. The following sheet is the first page of directions we received. One thing I loved about the process is that we were able to see how the same skill transferred from test to test. It's not unusual for the same exact examples and questions to be on tests for multiple grades. We had excellent discussion about areas of concern and areas of success. It helped us see where we need to focus before the next ITBS tests. I hope we can have more collaboration within departments like this in the future.
