Sunday, December 5, 2010
Digital Storytelling - Week Five
I find this lesson very interesting, especially in regards to rubrics. In one sense, I feel like we as teachers have been rubriced (is that a word?) to death, but I really like rubrics and I use them a lot in my teaching. My district is in the process of switching to all standards-based grading, which actually led us to develop MORE rubrics, since we had to do away with our normal percents and letter grades. However, I have always used them to assess the students myself, making sure that I show the rubric ahead of time so my students know what I expect of them from the very beginning. I don't usually use rubrics for students' self-assessment or peer assessment, and I kind of feel stupid for not using it that way. After reading the articles for this week, I realize that having students use the rubrics for their own assessment would really save me time on grading, as well as holding the students accountable for their own learning and really growing through receiving feedback from their peers.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Andi - I became familiar with students doing self-assessment during my student teaching experience a few years ago. It was a wonderful tool! I don't use alot of rubrics now as an LMS (I'm also an English Ed major, which is where I used the rubrics during student teaching), however, when I have a long-term project that I am working on with the students during our tech time, I always give them the rubric at the beginning of the project so that they know my expectations. Then at the end of the project, they fill out the rubric to self-assess themselves as well as assess their teammates (I usually do group collaboration projects). The students really find the rubrics useful and I find that I have the greatest success in projects where I use student self-assessment.
ReplyDeleteI find that when I use a rubric to assess the students, I use the same rubric to assess the assignment. Using the rubric makes me take a closer look at the assignment, and makes me realize places where it needs to be tweaked or changed. I know my students like getting a rubric before we actually start the project (just after the introduction) so they know what is expected of them. Rubrics just seem to make everything easier!
ReplyDeleteI also use rubrics for most projects in my class; I do use them for the larger projects but for the smaller activities and group work done in class I don't always have a rubric. I suppose I probably should. I know the students really do like getting a rubric for the larger projects because they know exactly what I'm looking for. There aren't any surprises with rubrics - on the student or teacher side of the project. As a student myself I like rubrics MOST OF THE TIME. :) Sometimes when rubrics are clearly written they cause me to be more confused about the expectations which leads to much frustration.
ReplyDeleteIt looks the others said all I could have said about the use of rubrics - best luck in using them as you move forward
ReplyDelete