Using Scales and Rubrics to assess standards based assignments

Video Transcription

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you are having a wonderful day today. Today, we are going to be looking at using scales and rubrics to assess standards-based assignments.

So for today's lesson, I've chosen a quote by Theodore Roosevelt, which states, "it is not the critic who counts. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena." And I think this is really important to remember as we look at the way in which students can really take ownership of the learning that they are doing.

By the end of today's lesson, you will be able to first review the concept of proficiency scales. You will be able to review a standards-based rubric that was created using iRubric. You'll be able to explain the importance of students and teachers in tracking that progress. And you will be able to review tools for tracking student progress.

So first, let's review what the concept of a proficiency scale actually is. A proficiency scale is a scale that goes from low to high and that is used to measure the competency of a particular skill. This is used by many different industries. But within education, we usually create our proficiency-scale rubrics on a one to four-point scale. You can either go 1, 2, 3, 4 or 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, et cetera.

One of the most well-known experts in the area of proficiency scales is Robert Marzano, specifically in education. And you can learn more about his work at www.marzanoresearchlaboratories.com. He has a wonderful bank that you can use in order to kind of look at various proficiency scales.

There are also standards-based rubrics. We use the proficiency scales we've created in order to make a standards-based rubric that specifically measures a student meeting those standards. It's something that you can use to judge a student's work and something a student uses can help make sure that they are meeting those standards that they have set out.

So let's take a look at a standards-based rubric that was created using iRubric. You can find iRubric at www.rcampus.com. Now, when you get to the website, this is what you are going to see.

I have already created a username and password. But it's easy to sign up. And it's absolutely free.

You'll notice over here I've broken down our initial standard into three main areas and one that looks at the ISTE standards for communication. If we take that element of identification of theme, I'm going to walk you through how I created that proficiency scale. I've written it almost exactly as it was before but in student-friendly language because the students are the ones who are really going to use this rubric.

When I move up to exemplary, I'm adding a little more detail. I've shown that the student accurately identifies the theme in the novel but that the theme is expressed as an insightful observation about people, life, and society rather than just a cliche. So you notice I've taken their basic ability to assess that theme and I've added to that with some depth and insightful observations beyond just the classic cliche.

If you go down from proficiency, you'll notice that I've called out that the student has maybe a shallow understanding of the theme in the story. They might get at a theme, but not really the best theme or the strongest theme for the story and that it's a statement of a general topic rather than the author's viewpoint.

Finally, I've noted that even though they've grabbed at an element of the theme that maybe it's written here as a moral or a cliche rather than a more nuanced theme like we've talked about in class. Finally, novice. This is the one I've given 1 point to. Now, I don't include a 0 on my proficiency scales. But that doesn't mean that you don't have to.

Here, I've noted that the student does not demonstrate an understanding of any theme for the story and that the project, what they've created to help show that theme, reflects more a plot summary rather than the actual theme itself. That is something that we want them to do. But it cannot take the place of the theme.

I've then broken down into not only them identifying that theme but developing the theme and recognizing its development throughout the story as well as them being able to create an objective summary of the text. And those various areas from novice to exemplary follow a very similar pattern as the first one I pointed out.

Finally, you'll notice I identify the ISTE communication and collaboration standard focusing in proficient, the student being able to interact, collaborate, and publish with peers; employing one of a variety of digital environments; and then being able to communicate those ideas effectively. When we move up to exemplary, you'll see that they excel in that collaboration. They can use a variety of digital environments.

And they show mastery in communicating that idea to a wider audience as opposed to if we go down showing where the student has limited or great difficulty in collaborating with their peers. And they're not really able to navigate and communicate their ideas digitally. What's really nifty about this site is that, if you want to use this for students to turn in, we can do a test run.

So when I'm actually using this rubric to grade a student, I would click on the area that I think they are. And it would highlight it so students can keep track of where they are exemplary, where they're proficient, where they're developing, or perhaps where they're a novice and they really need to up the ante just a little bit.

You can see that these rubrics really help to ensure that both students and teachers are able to track that progress. It's really important that, when we are looking at student assessment, that students are able to assess themselves through the system and see how their scores are being tracked. Rubrics help in having the student know as they're going through what is expected of them. And we will take a look in just a minute at a student progress tracker that allows the student to really see where they are on that information.

It's really important that students are able to own their own data. Then as the class progresses, they are seeing what standard they're meeting, what grades they're getting, so that they can have ownership rather than just relying on the teacher to tell them what they do and don't know.

This is a really important part of what Hattie discusses in terms of making learning visible. This is allowing students to see what their progress is within a certain area and really work to help improve that. It really takes the student from the passenger seat to the driver's seat when it comes to their academic progress.

Now, there are many different tools that you can use in order to track student progress. But I am going to show you how to access one using the infinite campus system. This is what my school uses. And you can see I've pulled up here one for a ninth grade class.

I will have blurred out the names here. So you can't see them for those purposes. But you'll notice here that you can see each student's grade as we go down.

It shows how many points they've got in total out of the possible number of points. And it also shows the percentages that they have broken down here. Then, you have each individual assignment.

And you can see here that I'm able to track each of the student's grades for that assignment. If I click on it, it gives me even more information about it. And if a student is exempt, you can go ahead and just exempt them out of it.

You can easily go back in and change it. And what I love, it allows you to give students more than 100% if they've earned extra credit. And that's what the system looks like.

Now, if we were to look at it from an individual student's perspective, they would be able to see only their line and the scores that they got on each of those. That really helps the student keep track, in real time as soon as I put them in, what they've gotten on a particular assignment and what they're still missing.

Now that we've finished today's lesson, you are able to review the concept of the proficiency scale. You are able to review a standards-based rubric created using the iRubric tool. You're able to explain the importance of students and teachers in tracking progress. And you have reviewed various tools, particularly one tool specifically for tracking student progress.

I'd like to take a little moment now for some reflection. As you reflect on this information, what are the challenges that you foresee as you start to implement using scales and rubrics to assess student progress on standards-based assessments or assignments? Feel free to pause the video as you think about your answer to this question.

For more information on how to apply what you learned in this video, please view the additional resources section that accompanies this video's presentation. The additional resources section includes hyperlinks useful for applications of the course material, including a brief description of each resource.