JW, my sixth grade son, brought home his first interim report from his first six weeks of middle school. He attends a charter school that pledges to provide personalized learning experiences for students. We found the report equally perplexing and illuminating as we reviewed it and tried to understand what he had achieved and what he needs to do next.
The school uses a five level rubric for five learning habits. Each habit has several criteria. The habits are:
personal responsibility which has thee criteria
social responsibility which has four criteria
critical and creative thinking which has seven criteria
application of knowledge in subject area which has two criteria
communication which has five criteria
The five levels are:
exceeding standards
meeting standards
approaching standards
emerging competency
no evidence
This means that there are 84 different performance descriptions for the 21 different criteria. (There are no performance criteria for the "no evidence" level.)
Each student takes five different courses in which they are scored on all the habits. They are graded for two criteria in their advisory course.
When my son and I sat down to review his levels, reflect on his performance and set goals for the rest of the quarter we had to review 107 different performance descriptions which contributed to the 27 different levels he was assigned.
WHEW!!!!!! This makes thoughtful review and goal setting challenging and time consuming.
I am an experienced educator, well versed in best practices of assessment, cooperative learning, standards based curriculum and individualized learning plans. I wonder if parents who are not experienced with or informed about teaching and learning can effectively use this assessment tool to answer these two important questions:
What does my child know?
What does my child need to do next to achieve his/her personal best and meet standards?
I think it is also relevant to consider that many of his peers have one or more parent for whom English is, at best, a second language.
Every teacher has 84 different levels of performance criteria to consider when assigning the student a level each of the five habits. I wonder how their curriculum is aligned with the performance criteria? I wonder how they teach students to meet each of the criteria? My son was throughly confused how in math class he could " create new arguments, ideas and theories based on a through analysis of evidence", which was one of the criteria for the habit of critical and creative.
There were more than a few instances when he had no idea how he could demonstrate the performance criteria in a subject area. I had no evidence from graded homework, classwork or projects that I could use to help him understand what was expected of him. No definitions or examples of the criteria were provided.
The criteria seemed best suited to social studies, literature and writing. A reasonable number were clearly connected to science but tying a significant number of them to math and PE was difficult to impossible.
I know the rubrics are meant to be holistic, helpful in guiding authentic reflection and goal setting, but I suspect they are not "user friendly" to many of the stake-holders.
As problematic as the rubrics were they were the foundation of a rich discussion. JW and I enjoyed the time we spent reviewing the rubric and discussing possible answers to the "what next" question. At one point JW said, "I don't know why you are asking me how I think I did. The only important thing is what my teacher thinks."
WHOA!!!! I explained to JW that he is and always will be his own most important judge because he has the most control over his own learning. Although he spent six years in progressive elementary schools this statement stunned him. As we went through the rubrics he began to see it's truth.
I would love to hear how others use rubrics as effective assessment tools for guiding learners to see what they have accomplished and where they need to go.
Next I will post JW's reflections on the habits where he was rated AS, approaching standards. His goal is to reach MS, meeting standards, in all habits. His reflections include his plans for action which he hopes will lead him to his goal.
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