Rubrics and alternative assessment
An effective assessment program uses multiple strategies to demonstrate growth and performance, and should be closely correlated to your stated goals. Projects in which students create multimedia presentations, Web pages, artwork or songs may be evaluated differently than traditional written, typed, or even word-processed papers. Assessment strategies can include performance tasks, teacher observations, personal communications, standardized testing, and student and teacher developed evaluation rubrics, and others.
Before beginning a project, it is always necessary to ask:
- How will you know if your project was successful?
- How will you measure what students learn?
What is the function of assessment in PBL?
- Assessment helps teachers develop more complex relationships with their students...
- Assessment helps students answer the questions "Am I getting it?" and "How am I doing?"...
- Assessment can help make content connections clear...
- Assessment engages students directly in the evaluation of their own work...
- Assessment helps teachers plan their next steps...
- Assessment helps students plan their projects...
The most common assessment and evaluation tools used for collaborative learning are web-based rubrics. Most generate printable versions of the rubric. Some have a rubric calculator, allowing the teacher to select appropriate performance indicators and have a grade generated. Developing meaningful rubrics can be a challenge. Involving students in the development of rubrics helps them with their thinking and clarifies expectations all around.
A rubric simply lists a set of criteria which define and describe the important components of the work being planned or evaluated. A given criterion is then stated in several different levels of completion or competence, with a weighted score assigned to each level (0 being the lowest level) .
A rubric should give clear guidelines to a reviewer on how to evaluate or "grade" a project presentation. This means that different reviewers can arrive at similar conclusions when comparing a given project to each of the graduated criteria on a rubric.
As a guide for planning, a rubric gives students clear targets of proficiency to aim for. With a rubric in hand, they know what constitutes a "good" project presentation.
While the the students are making their project, a rubric can be a handy tool to help keep students on target: they can compare their progress with where they want to be on the rubric's proficiency scale, and refer to it in order to remind themselves of their goal. Finally, as an assessment tool, teachers can use it to assess projects, student groups, or individual students; students can use the same rubric for self-assessment as individuals, in groups, and for peer assessment; and parents can answer for themselves their questions about their child's performance.
While some ready-made rubrics may help to accomplish these different purposes, they become even more powerful when students help develop the rubric they will be using. Students must actively focus on and discuss the characteristics of effective and interesting media projects, giving them depths of understanding and insight not likely achieved from using a ready-made rubric.
There are many websites which help us make our rubrics. I liked the rubistar very much. I can recommend another site http://www.teachnology.com/web_tools/rubrics/general/ . This website helps the teacher to generate a rubric for his students project.
Mustafa Ahmed Ali
An effective assessment program uses multiple strategies to demonstrate growth and performance, and should be closely correlated to your stated goals. Projects in which students create multimedia presentations, Web pages, artwork or songs may be evaluated differently than traditional written, typed, or even word-processed papers. Assessment strategies can include performance tasks, teacher observations, personal communications, standardized testing, and student and teacher developed evaluation rubrics, and others.
Before beginning a project, it is always necessary to ask:
- How will you know if your project was successful?
- How will you measure what students learn?
What is the function of assessment in PBL?
- Assessment helps teachers develop more complex relationships with their students...
- Assessment helps students answer the questions "Am I getting it?" and "How am I doing?"...
- Assessment can help make content connections clear...
- Assessment engages students directly in the evaluation of their own work...
- Assessment helps teachers plan their next steps...
- Assessment helps students plan their projects...
The most common assessment and evaluation tools used for collaborative learning are web-based rubrics. Most generate printable versions of the rubric. Some have a rubric calculator, allowing the teacher to select appropriate performance indicators and have a grade generated. Developing meaningful rubrics can be a challenge. Involving students in the development of rubrics helps them with their thinking and clarifies expectations all around.
A rubric simply lists a set of criteria which define and describe the important components of the work being planned or evaluated. A given criterion is then stated in several different levels of completion or competence, with a weighted score assigned to each level (0 being the lowest level) .
A rubric should give clear guidelines to a reviewer on how to evaluate or "grade" a project presentation. This means that different reviewers can arrive at similar conclusions when comparing a given project to each of the graduated criteria on a rubric.
As a guide for planning, a rubric gives students clear targets of proficiency to aim for. With a rubric in hand, they know what constitutes a "good" project presentation.
While the the students are making their project, a rubric can be a handy tool to help keep students on target: they can compare their progress with where they want to be on the rubric's proficiency scale, and refer to it in order to remind themselves of their goal. Finally, as an assessment tool, teachers can use it to assess projects, student groups, or individual students; students can use the same rubric for self-assessment as individuals, in groups, and for peer assessment; and parents can answer for themselves their questions about their child's performance.
While some ready-made rubrics may help to accomplish these different purposes, they become even more powerful when students help develop the rubric they will be using. Students must actively focus on and discuss the characteristics of effective and interesting media projects, giving them depths of understanding and insight not likely achieved from using a ready-made rubric.
There are many websites which help us make our rubrics. I liked the rubistar very much. I can recommend another site http://www.teachnology.com/web_tools/rubrics/general/ . This website helps the teacher to generate a rubric for his students project.
Mustafa Ahmed Ali
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