Variations on a Collaborative Rubric

By Mary Borobia Walls

Last week I had the absolute pleasure of spending a whole day with a group of elementary teachers in California's Inland Empire to discuss Assessment and the Next Generation Science Standards. During our time together we looked at how learners can be agents in the evaluation of their developing understanding and skill. When there is learner agency in assessment, then there are conditions for metacognition.

What artifact?

In October 2017 I wrote a post about "Reclaiming Rubrics." This post takes the process described earlier and shows how one rubric can easily be converted into various tools for different assessment needs. Developing criteria with learners once can turn into rubrics for feedback as well as for a score: tools for both formative & summative assessment.

Descriptors & Categories

First we came up with a list of all the learner generated products we could think of that would help the teacher better see what has been learned and is understood. In this particular case we decided to focus on student modeling. Our next step was to think of the observable features we could look at that would help us determine the success of a model in communicating an understanding of a system.

Feedback Rubric

Once you have a shared understanding of what features make for a successful model, then you can build a Feedback Rubric (look at this past post for more detail on the process).

Single point rubric 

From this basic structure, then you can adapt it to become a Single Point Rubric (The Cult of Pedagogy has amazing resources to support building this type of rubric).

Step 5: 4 point rubric

Also from this basic structure you can adapt into a 4-Point Rubric (or whatever scale you need). The observable features and criteria become the minimally proficient, or in this case, the THREE. The reasoning behind this is that if you leave the "four" undefined, then you leave the box open to learner creativity. Where can they take their product further than what is expected? How can they innovate beyond the good enough?

Let's try it out! The final image is an example of a learner generated model of Earth's systems and their interactions. Based on the developed criteria, what feedback would you provide with the guidance of the "Feedback Rubric" in order to help the learners revisit and revise their model? If this is an already revised model at the end of a learning sequence, what score would you give the model based on the "4 Point Rubric"?

What feedback would you give?