Step 1. Choose a Set of Content Standards and Develop Your Performance Descriptions and Expectations
Just as you started with a standard or set of standards to drive your lesson plan development, so too do you start with content standards to develop your assessments. Standards have learning expectations that generally fall into one of these categories:
- concepts and information (what students should know);
- skills (what students should be able to do);
- communication (how students can articulate concepts and skills);
transfer (how they can apply information and skills in new ways or to different subject matters).
- emerging, proficient, exceptional; or
- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; or
- beginning, developing, accomplished, exemplary; or
- A, B, C, D, F.
- clearly stated quality indicators or performance descriptions of what each standard represents; and/or
- samples of student work, or anchors, that demonstrate how the sample met or did not meet the performance standards.
Tip: Be sure your performance descriptions and quality indicators are aligned with the content standard being addressed. One easy way to check this is to see whether the verbs in each statement mean the same thing, e.g., interpret = explain or present the meaning.
Scoring Performance Tasks and Using Rubrics
A rubric is an assessment scoring guide that describes student work at different levels of performance. A rubric gives students feedback on their performance. It tells them what the lesson or teacher expects and what they need to do in order to improve their performance.Teachers can use "anchors" as examples of each performance standard. Anchors can be used as exhibits for explaining how a product did or did not meet a performance standard. A typical rubric:
- specifically articulates the criteria of the knowledge and skills to be assessed;
- contains a scale of possible points to be assigned (describes a range of quality); and
- provides quality indicators for each level of performance.
- An analytic or trait rubric consists of a set of separate criteria to assess a piece of work. Rather than describing exemplary performance holistically, an analytic rubric assesses specific parts of the work separately (e.g., grammar, content, word usage, etc.).
- A holistic rubric is used to measure the overall effect of a piece of work with a set of appropriate guidelines. Contrary to an analytic or trait rubric, a holistic rubric does not measure the work's parts.
Why use Rubrics?
Rubrics articulate what students are to learn and the quality of student performance that is "acceptable." Focusing attention on performance standards allows teachers to provide students with more usable and timely feedback. (See Step 4.)Questions to Consider
Just like student work, a rubric must undergo a process of review and improvement in order to be exemplary. Consider the following when you construct your scoring rubrics.- Are your rubrics aligned with the content standards (essential skills)
and performance standards (levels of understanding) of the lesson?
- Have you developed quality indicators or descriptions of each
performance standard that represent what each standard represents?
- Do the quality indicators represent a smooth continuum of performance
so as to convey that high-quality work is possible through the steps
of review, feedback, and improvement?
- Is there an example, performance description, or anchor of what
each performance standard looks like in practice? (Consider using
anchors from one student's work that underwent review and improvement to reach excellence.)
- Does the highest point on the scale describe genuinely challenging (yet attainable) performance?
To Step 2: Decide How You Will Communicate Performance
Expectations to Students, Parents, and Others Who Are Interested
Step 1.
Revised August 25, 2005
Copyright © 2000, RMC Research Corporation