Writing Effective Competency Based Rubrics

Video Transcription

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you're having a wonderful day today. Today, we're going to be looking at writing effective competency-based rubrics. And for today's lesson, I've chosen a quote by Aristotle, which states, "What we learn to do, we learn by doing."

Now, by the time we're done with this lesson, you will be able to understand the process for about developing some of those performance levels for competency-based rubrics, as well as review some of the best practices when it comes to creating and using those competency-based rubrics.

So, first, let's go ahead and take a look at the major steps within rubric development. So first and foremost, you're going to want to take a look at the performance levels. When you develop performance levels for rubrics, it can be really helpful to use student work to help guide your process. So when you take a look at student samples, you want to make sure you kind of sort them out into various categories that you, as the teacher, believes really closely relate to their performance within that project.

And then each groups of those student work should then be designed a very specific sort of descriptor. So what is it that you feel closely connects that student's level of achievement on that task to that particular area that you've assigned? And then consider what would a very beginning assignment look like compared to a basic assignment, compared to much more advanced assignment?

Then you're going to take those descriptors and you're going to develop a numbering system that's going to correspond with all of those levels of performance. So, generally, we recommend that you have three to four groups that kind of indicate the level or range within these broad categories. So it could be beginning. It could be basic, proficient, distinguished, novice, intermediate, advanced, or whatever language you want to use in your classroom to really help explain what that means.

Or you could use a numbering system. Oftentimes, you use both together. So a one to four system is pretty common, with one being the highest. Or you could do D to A, with A being the highest. Number scales tend to start with a one or a zero, and in that case, a zero usually indicates that the student hasn't completed it or they haven't performed at even a most basic level on the assignment. Avoid using an odd number of categories, because people can tend to choose-- it's easier to choose the middle column, whether or not it's the most accurate.

Next, you're going to want to look at the characters of performance elements that you are going to evaluate. So in addition to those performance levels, you want to take a look at the areas of that student's work that you are going to evaluate. So depending on what you are looking at within your rubric, there can be 3 to 15 different elements within those rubrics that you are going to look at and assess student work on. But each of those items should focus in on a very different skill or area. You don't want to double up, because then you're not getting the student the most effective feedback that you can.

The next process we want to look at is writing those performance level descriptions. So you've assessed the levels, you've assessed-- which usually kind of go across the top of the rubric. You've assessed the performance elements, which usually run down the left side. Now you want to fill in all of those little boxes. You want to determine what each of those look like.

So what you want to do is you want to clearly identify what do you want to see from each element at each different level. For a student to get that level, what is it that they're going to have to show you? I would start with what you want to see from the highest performing level, and then work your way down, so that you can kind of remove information as you go through. Teachers really should be distinguishing terms that indicate those different levels so that you're able to really be clear with students on what those look like.

So if you use language scales such as major or minor, always to never, often to seldom, always and rarely, that can really help get a little more specific on what we're looking at. So a descriptor that might be too subjective when we're looking at something is that the student has good style, right? Or the student uses an inspired word choice. Or the student has sophisticated language.

Well, what does that really mean? Those are kind of difficult. They tend to be a little too subjective. As opposed to the student makes good use of sentence structure. The student varies their sentence length. The student has few, if none, grammar errors or mechanical errors. Those are very specific, and those are much more measurable and objective, as opposed to, yes, this is inspiring language here.

So rubrics should all be able to fit on a single sheet of paper, so you're going to want to be specific and as objective as possible. Finally, you're going to want to make sure that you test the rubric. So you can test those rubrics by grabbing a few samples of student work and seeing if you can align them based on that rubric, and the overarching grade comes out to what you would imagine it would be, given the work that the student has done.

Next, I want to take a look at some of the best practices when it comes to writing rubrics. First and foremost, you want to look at the rubric language. A good tip is to use what's called parallelism or parallel language across the rubric. So if you are going from a simple sentence structure to a advanced sentence structure, we're using that common throughout. Or strong creative opening versus strong opening sentence versus adequate opening sentence versus weak opening sentence.

You'll notice there, there's a lot of parallels between those. And it makes it easier for both the students to understand as well as for you to assess. It's also helpful to use student-friendly language, so vocabulary that isn't going to be too advanced for your students.

Next, you want to look at the rubric structure. It's best to limit the number of columns that you have so that it's not too difficult to kind of differentiate between what a student is doing. So, in general, the recommendation is that six columns should be really the outer limit. And then you're going to want to distinguish really clearly between the different levels of student achievement. So use those descriptive language and the characteristics that are going to look differently, the measurable criteria that you are going to see. In general, simple and clearer is always better, because you're setting the students up for greater success.

Also, use the rubric with students. Share that rubric with your students before they begin their assignment so that they can become familiar with the rubric. And then walk through it with them so that they understand it. And that they are able to not only read the rubric itself, but also to be able to apply it to their work on the front end, so that they have a greater chance for success.

Finally, you're going to want to look at the validity of the rubric. So make sure that you review that rubric and look at the rubric measures to ensure that you are really assessing students on what it is that you are intending to measure. Now that we've reached the end of this lesson, you have been able to really understand the process for developing those performance levels for competency-based rubrics, as well as review some of the best practices when it comes to creating and using competency-based rubrics.

Now I want to give you just a moment for reflection. As we've looked through the process for creating an effective competency-based rubric, what do you think would be the most difficult part of establishing a rubric for a lesson that you teach in your class?

Now it's your turn to apply what you've learned in this video. And the Additional Resources section is going to be super helpful to you. This section is designed to help you discover useful ways to apply what you've learned here. Each link is going to include a brief description so that you can easily target the resources that you want.