Rubric: A helpful tool in a high-stakes world
With high-stakes testing the flavor of the month (OK, decade), some educators may feel pressured to push aside authentic
assessment practices in favor of traditional assessments more akin to what students will encounter on the STAAR.
But STAAR prep and authentic assessments aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. You can evaluate your students’ test
readiness by assigning real-life tasks in conjunction with traditional pencil-and-paper tests that demonstrate what
they’ve learned. Here’s how:
Choose a task that requires students to use the knowledge and skills you want to assess. For example, fourth-grade
students learn about explorers such as Christopher Columbus and Francisco Vasquez de Coronado. An authentic task could
be writing a journal from an explorer’s perspective to demonstrate understanding of the explorer’s accomplishments and
impact on North American settlement.
Create a rubric, or a scoring tool based on criteria and performance levels. When you use a rubric, your students will
know exactly what you’re looking for in their work. Plus, you’ll have a consistent grading tool.
Customize your rubric to suit your assignment. Rubrics are flexible: You could change the sample rubric so that the
point levels across the top are 5, 3 and 1 and then award 2 or 4 points to student assignments that fit between two
performance levels. Or, instead of points, your rubric could be labeled by performance level (“excellent,” “good,”
“average,” “needs improvement” and “poor”). Some of the criteria could be weighted more heavily. Say you want to
emphasize content: Multiply the total points for content by three to indicate that this category is more important than
the others. The possibilities are endless.
Use concrete criteria to describe performance levels so your expectations are clear to students. Avoid subjective
language such as “well-written,” “creative” or “interesting.” Rather, be explicit about what a well-written, creative or
interesting project looks like (“at least four accurate facts” or “all references are consistent with the time period”).
Try peer review or self-assessment using the rubric. This is optional, but it will help your students get the most
learning out of a project. After a peer review or self-assessment, give students time to make changes to the project.
The beauty of authentic assessment is that it takes place during the learning process, unlike traditional assessment,
which occurs after the fact.
Sample Rubric
Assignment: Write a journal entry from the perspective of an explorer.
| Criteria
|
3 points |
2 points |
1 point |
| Content |
Entry contains at least 4 accurate facts about the explorer. |
Entry contains at least 2 accurate facts about the explorer. |
Entry contains fewer than 2 accurate facts about the explorer. |
| Historical accuracy |
All situations and references to people, places and things are
consistent with the time period. |
Most situations and references to people, places and things are
consistent with the time period. |
Very few or none of the situations and references to people,
places and things are consistent with the time period. |
| Organization |
Ideas are clear and organized. The entry was understandable. |
Ideas in the journal were clear, but the entry was unorganized.
The entry had to be read twice to be understood. |
Ideas are unclear or unorganized. It was hard to tell what the
journal entry was about, even after reading it twice. |
|
