Strengths and Limitations in Rubrics

EDU 6160 bPortfolio Post 3                            Ian Lewis                                 October 23, 2016

Describe a rubric used for a unit you might teach with attention to strengths and limitations.

During the first social studies unit in my 7^th grade internship, we applied the use of a grading rubric for a mapping project regarding the Byzantine Empire. The students were largely successful in following the step-by-step instructions provided regarding labeling and coding map features. However, in hindsight, the rubric did not quite reflect the importance of the completeness and accuracy of mapping, a primary goal. Rather, the rubric weighed heavily on more subjective categories of “neatness”, “effort”, and “color”. Regarding completeness, a student could miss 1-5 items and only go down one level of the rubric. The map could inherently be useless, missing more than ten items (cities, bodies of water, etc.), but still receive partial credit. But then if it were neat and outlined, shaded and detailed, both of which state a subjective quality in each pairing, the student could earn points for components that truly were not based on the learning target. My mentor and I reflected on this…and immediately got to work changing the rubric.

The new rubric is 76% weighted toward location and accuracy of placement of geographic and political map features, the remaining 24% devoted to aspects of the previous “neatness”, “effort”, and “color”, yet now far less subjective. Nineteen features (cities, bodies of water, map elements such as a legend, etc.) now may each receive up to two points for aspects of presence and accuracy, one point for one of the two aspects, or zero points for neither aspect. The coloring is less subjective, in that it focuses on allocating points for presence and accuracy of location of shading versus cross-hatching the territories of the Byzantine and Muslim empires, respectively. There is now just a single category where points are allocated for “Neat/complete coloring, legible ink labels, obvious time and effort” (4 points), versus “Mostly complete…” (3-2), versus “Lacking color, pencil labels, difficult to identify features” (1-0). We feel this edited rubric will allow for a better assessment of student comprehension as it focuses more on the aspects of the learning target and objective: to identify and label prominent locations in the Byzantine Empire in order to understand how physical geography affected development of societies, rather than allocating major points toward subjective categories of neatness and effort.

There were multiple limitations in the rubric that we used for the unit mapping project. I suppose the important thing is that we found these limitations and did something about them, illustrating the continual learning and reflection in one's own practice. Shermis and Di Vesta (2011, p. 136-137) note how it is important not to include elements on a rubric that are not related to the primary performance task being assessed, and to craft rubrics so that they may be used to show consistency in rating between varied users (a scientific principal in validity). The edited version aligns better with the learning target, removing unnecessary elements, as proposed by Shermis and Di Vesta, as well as reduces subjective elements that would cause difficulty in producing similar results between varied graders. My mentor is excited to use the new rubric next year. I am glad to have been part of the editing and construction of a more efficient and purposeful rubric, which shows how educators are constantly reflecting, modifying, and making adjustments in order to better organize, align and present material and assess student comprehension of said material.

Reference List:

Shermis, Mark D. and Di Vesta, Francis J. (2011). Classroom Assessment in Action. Rowman &   Littlefield Publishers, Inc., Plymouth, UK.