CCP: Episode 45 // How to Use Rubrics for Assessment AND Instruction
Assessment drives instruction.
As teachers, we’ve heard that over and over. Teachers need to make sure that the tools they are using to assess their students are effective in giving the teacher insight into student understanding.
You likely already use rubrics for assessment. And- when the rubrics are written in kid-friendly language, students, too can fully understand how they performed and where there are areas for improvement.
However, have you considered using rubrics as an INSTRUCTIONAL tool? It could be a game-changer in your classroom AND it could help set your students up for major success.
In this week’s episode, you’ll learn how rubrics not only help with assessing student performance, but when used as an instructional tool, rubrics can help set the stage for learning… and ultimately — success!
You’ll Learn
(Timestamps Shown)
The basics about rubrics (1:57)
How rubrics can help teachers (4:07)
How using rubrics can save you time (4:27)
How using rubrics helps students can take ownership of their learning (5:05)
Which types of assignments rubrics are best for (5:48)
How to set your students up for success (6:54)
How to use rubrics to spot trends in your students’ performance…and where to go from there (9:58)
How to differentiate a rubric to meet individual student needs (10:38)
REVIEW & SUBSCRIBE TO THE CLASSROOM COMMUTE PODCAST
Don’t miss a single episode. Subscribe to the podcast and you’ll get notified each week when a new episode gets dropped! And - if you love what you hear, I’d be so honored if you took a quick moment to rate and review the podcast so that other awesome teachers can find the podcast!
TRANSCRIPT
Ep 45: Using Rubrics transcript powered by Sonix—easily convert your audio to text with Sonix.
Ep 45: Using Rubrics was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the latest audio-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors. Sonix is the best audio automated transcription service in 2020. Our automated transcription algorithms works with many of the popular audio file formats.
Hey, teachers, if you have a classroom and a commute, you're in the right place. I'm your host, Rachael, and I want to ride along with you each week on your ride into school. This podcast is the place for busy teachers who want actionable tips, simple strategies, and just want to enjoy their job more. Let's go.
There comes a time in every podcasters life where you have to talk about things that aren't super exciting. Today is one of those days, but wait don't turn me off just yet because I hope that I can take something that maybe isn't super interesting, and turn it into something that is super useful for you in the classroom today. I'm talking all about how to use rubrics for instruction and assessment. Although it may not be some of the most exciting things that I've talked about here on the podcast, I do hope that you walk away from this episode with some useful tips on how to use rubrics in your classroom.
Assessment drives instruction. We've all heard that over and over again, whether it was in your college classroom or whether you were sitting in a professional development training in a hot, sticky gym. Either way, we know it to be true. A reflective teacher looks at how his or her students are performing and creates lessons and activities to meet those needs...or at least we try to. Because of this, teachers need to make sure that the tools they are using to assess their students are effective. Rubrics are a great assessment tool to use with students. However, rubrics can work double duty by not only providing an overall view of how your students are performing, but they can also be an effective instructional tool for teachers as well. In this episode, I want to take a deep dive into what rubrics are and how they can be effectively used as instructional and assessment tools.
First, let's start with the basics. I don't like to assume knowledge, so I like to go right down to the foundation. Rubrics is a scoring tool that evaluates a student's performance, understanding an effort toward a certain skill or topic. Sometimes rubrics are used solely by the teacher, but other times they're written in kid friendly language so that students can understand the expectations given. This post is going to focus on that second kind of rubric, the kind that uses kid friendly language that students can use it themselves as a tool for learning. Rubrics explicitly outline criteria and expectations for one or more categories as they relate to an assignment that you're giving or a project or even a skill or strategy that they need to know. With each category, there are levels of quality, typically on a number rating, something like one to four or a characteristic rating like poor to excellent. Each level of performance uses clear language that distinguishes one level from the next. For example, as you look across a rubric going from one to four, you might see a progression that looks like this. Level one may say 'never'. Level two may say 'sometimes'. Level three may say 'usually' and level four might say 'always'. These words are used to help distinguish how well a student is performing on a specific skill or strategy. For example, if you're using a rubric that assesses the student's ability to ask questions while they're reading, level one would indicate that they never ask questions. Level two would indicate that they sometimes ask questions. Level three would indicate that they usually ask questions, and level four would indicate that they always ask questions. It's also important to note that typically a student that's performing at a level four or whatever the highest level is on your rubric, that student is performing slightly above grade level. While the next level down, in my case, a level three is usually performing on grade level. A level two is slightly below grade level and level one is significantly below grade level. Rubrics are great for keeping things consistent from student to student. Ideally two teachers evaluating the same student should come up with the same score using the criteria of the rubric.
Let's talk a little bit more about how rubrics can help teachers. And then I want to focus on how rubrics can help students. Rubrics help teachers because it guides their instructions. Teachers can use a rubric to see how their students are performing in a variety of categories, and then they can create follow up lessons or individual conferences to help their students improve.
Rubrics help save teachers time. After the initial work of creating a rubric is done, the rubric can be used again and again to effectively assess their students. Year after year, rubrics help teachers to remain consistent by using the same criteria from student to student. Teachers will assess each student using the same guidelines. Rubrics will help teachers also by offering clear feedback. Rather than just giving a student grade A or an eighty five percent, students can easily see exactly where they need to improve on and also the areas that they are strong on. Like I mentioned, rubrics are not just for teachers. Rubrics can help students to.
Rubrics help students take ownership of their learning. Since rubrics clearly outline the criteria for each level, they can put forth effort to perform to the best of their ability. If you give students a rubric ahead of time before an assignment is due or a project is to be completed, they'll know exactly what's expected of them. It also helps them to understand the expectations. When you write a rubric in kid friendly language, students can use the rubric to understand exactly what's required of them on all aspects of their assignment. Using rubrics will also help your students to take steps towards improvement. When a student can see where they're currently performing and compare it to where they want to be, they can, along with your help, of course, develop action steps to help them improve.
Of course not everything works with a rubric. Rubrics work best for assignments that are subjective. On the other hand, objective assessments such as multiple-choice fill in the blank or assessments that only have one answer are not ideal for rubrics. You could use rubrics for things like writing assignments, essays, summaries, narratives, opinion pieces, hands on projects like creating a shoe box biome or a poster for a specific topic. You can use rubrics for oral presentations, group projects, interactive notebooks, artistic assignments, or assessing students on the use of a skill or strategy. You can even use rubrics for assessing behavior. This is a perfect classroom management strategy. Of course, this is not an exhaustive list, but hopefully it gives you a jumping off point.
All right. I want to switch gears a bit here. Most people, when they think about rubrics, they think about using it as an assessment tool and while that is very true, it is probably the reason that rubrics were invented in the first place, I think that rubrics can really be an amazing instructional tool as well. Here's how to set your students up for success. Present them with the rubric before the assignment is given. This is going to help set expectations and clearly outline the assignment. You can provide examples and models of all the levels of the rubric so that students not only see the expectations in writing, but they also see the expectations put into action through completed assignments. Here's a little bonus tip: as you begin using rubrics, start saving student work that is a representation for each level on the rubric. That way, in future years, you can show students an example of what a level one, a level two, level three and a level four looks like, or whatever categories that you use on your rubric. Of course, you're going to black out student names to keep it confidential but this could be a really helpful tool for students to see exactly what each level looks like. Using real student work is a great way to provide authentic examples of each level for your students. However, if you're just getting started with rubrics, you can just create your own examples until you have real ones from former students and when appropriate, involve students in creating the rubric. This will help students 'buy into the process' and even encourage them to take more ownership in their learning. If you do choose to do this, however, be sure it is after students have had multiple experiences with being assessed with the rubric. That way they'll be familiar with the process. You might even provide them with a list of descriptor words that they can use at each level and category. Give them a list that includes words and phrases like 'always', 'sometimes', 'usually' 'struggle's', 'lack's', 'with assistance', 'without assistance', 'detailed', 'simple', 'complex', 'correct', 'incorrect', 'many', 'several', 'little', avoid using subjective words like interesting and creative as this promotes assessing with an opinion.
Once an assignment is completed now you can use the rubric as an assessment tool. Before you use it though, have a read through of the entire rubric, even if you did it yourself. Refresh your memory of exactly what the expectations are and this will help set intention and purpose before going into the grading process.
On occasion, you might want to have a colleague assess the same assignment with the same rubric. Think of it as quality control. Be open to tweaking a rubric as needed to make it more clear. It always helps to have more eyes on the same paper. For individual students, make note of follow up teaching points that you'll want to address in small groups or individual instruction times. Are there a few students that could benefit from the same follow up lesson based on the rubrics? Pull together a small group to reteach or clarify a skill or strategy as needed. The ultimate goal of a rubric is for students to receive feedback that they can use to improve their future performance. Use this small group or individual instruction time to give them actionable steps that will help them to do just what it is they need to do. Reference the language that you use in the rubric as much as possible when providing these action steps and use phrases like 'in order to score a three in that category, you'll need to...' Or 'the thing that's keeping you from jumping up to the next level is ... and here's how you can get there. Try this.'.
Another thing to keep in mind when you're using rubrics as an assessment tool is to look for trends in your class. Was there an area on the rubric that many students scored lower than you expected? If so, perhaps that section of the rubric is unclear or you need to reteach a certain skill. When appropriate, have students use the rubric on themselves. I love using a rubric to have students do a self reflection on themselves. This can be really eye opening to how they view their ability and performance on a particular assignment. And of course, discuss and compare your rubric with how they would score themselves. You'll definitely want to have them score themselves first so that your score doesn't influence theirs in any way.
One last benefit that I want to highlight when using rubrics is that you can use them to differentiate in your classroom. As with anything in our classroom, there are always times when it's going to be appropriate to differentiate and rubrics are no different. One way to differentiate a rubric from one student to another is to eliminate certain categories, determine just one or two goals that you would like a specific student to focus on. Of course, eventually you want all students to be able to master each category, but going right out of the gate with all the categories for a student who is already struggling is going to be overwhelming for them. That's not to say that they won't be assessed on those categories, but when it comes to giving actionable steps for students that they can run with to improve their performance, narrow your focus for greater success in the long run. Likewise, another way to differentiate is to eliminate the number of levels of performance. For example, if you know a student is not going to even come close to reaching a level four, which typically is above grade level, just leave it off the rubric completely. This will take away some of the overwhelm and help students to focus on what they can accomplish and be successful at. On the other hand, if a student isn't even registering on the rubric that you've created, there's no point in even using it with that particular student. Instead, create one that will actually help them improve. If a student has something like an IEP or another educational plan set in place, use the goals outlined there to develop a rubric that is more accurately going to measure their particular abilities.
Before I close, I just wanted to remind you that rubrics are really there for both the students and the teachers so make sure that you're not just viewing it as an assessment tool for your students. It also will give you some insight into how well you have taught the content to your students and on how clearly you have set the expectations for a particular assignment or project.
All right. That's it for me today. I hope that you found a tip or two and I hope you begin using Rubrics in your classroom for both instructional and assessment purposes. Don't forget to head over to the show notes to get all of the information that we talked about today. You can do so at classroomnook.com/podcast/45. I hope you have a great rest of your day. Bye for now.
Automatically convert your audio files to text with Sonix. Sonix is the best online, automated transcription service.
Sonix uses cutting-edge artificial intelligence to convert your mp3 files to text.
Get the most out of your audio content with Sonix. Are you a radio station? Better transcribe your radio shows with Sonix. Automated transcription is getting more accurate with each passing day. Sonix's automated transcription is fast, easy, and accurate. Transcribing by hand is no longer necessary; put away those headphones. Sonix is the best automated transcription service and supports over 40 different languages; transcribe your audio files today.
Audio to text transcription just got more accurate. Quickly and accurately convert your audio to text with Sonix. Let powerful computers do the work for you; automated transcription in minutes. Automated transcription can quickly transcribe your skype calls. All of your remote meetings will be better indexed with a Sonix transcript.
Sonix uses cutting-edge artificial intelligence to convert your mp3 files to text.
Sonix is the best online audio transcription software in 2020—it's fast, easy, and affordable.
If you are looking for a great way to convert your audio to text, try Sonix today.