Yesterday I met with the Graduate Education Assessment committee at Heritage Christian University (HCU) in Florence, AL as part of my role as Director of Institutional and Church Research. I talked to them about the process of creating and using rubrics, and they asked for me to share with the entire faculty. I am willing to have further conversation with any of you at any time. At the end, I am sharing a rubric that I used in my EDU 642: Advanced Technology for Educators class at Freed-Hardeman University. This rubric was taken through the following steps (1a, 1b, and 1c were added since I’m now at HCU).
5 Key Things to Remember about Scoring Tools – page 30 (http://bit.ly/33jhrRV)
1. It is imperative that the school/department talk about the assessment instrument and determine what kind of student performance qualifies as successful.
2. When using objective measures (e.g. multiple choice tests), consider grouping questions that reflect a specific aspect of the outcome.
3. When using rubrics, be sure that students see the rubric that will be used to evaluate the assignment before they complete it.
4. When using rubrics, norming is really important.
5. Be sure to get feedback after the pilot on how well the scoring tool worked with the assignment and whether faculty feel that it reflects successful performance effectively.
Resources:
Student Learning Outcomes Assessment Handbook - http://bit.ly/33jhrRV
Rubric Examples from the University of West Florida - http://bit.ly/2KkruyY
Rubric information from Berkeley Center for Teaching and Learning: http://bit.ly/2MCqPua
Rubric Example from EDU 642 - Advanced Technology for Educators, Syllabus pages 32 - 33
(You will notice that I put a definition of “Critical/Reflective Thinking” at the end of my rubric so that my candidates would know what I meant by that term.)
GRADING RUBRIC
Throughout the course you'll be asked to participate in Wikis, Journals, Podcasts, and VoiceThreads with students in this class. These Wikis, Journals and Podcasts are critical in an online course because they are the place where you interact with other students and the instructor around specific questions and issues within our readings and course assignments, and particularly, about links you see between our readings and your own experience. Please remember that you are in a “600 Level” course as you interact with the Wikis, Journals, Podcasts, TwitCasts and VoiceThreads ~ the length, depth and breadth should reflect that of one interacting with a “600 Level” course.
**Definition of Critical/Reflective Thinking
The definition of critical thinking depends, to a degree, on the academic discipline (for example, philosophy versus cognitive psychology) and the domain one is referencing (cognitive versus affective). For the purpose of our online discussions (and the above rubric), we'll use the following definition:
Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action (Scriven & Paul, 1992).
Reflective thinking, as defined by Dewey (1933), is the "active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusion to which it tends."
- Create rubric (remember to define any critical terms in your rubric).
- This link shows one how to create rubrics within Populi: http://bit.ly/2YNMwcU
- Since I am now at Heritage Christian University, one does have the ability to use rubrics within your courses in Populi: http://bit.ly/2TdHwgL
- Your colleagues along with myself would have the ability to view these.
- Share the rubric with colleagues to obtain feedback.
- Share the rubric with students to obtain feedback about content. Is the rubric actually grading the content that I want it to grade?
- Have the rubric checked for grammar.
- Actually use the rubric to grade the assignment, and then share the rubric scores with the students to determine if they understand why they received the score that they got. Make any corrections needed from the group discussion with the class.
- You are now ready to use the rubric in grading assignments.
- Remember to repeat steps 2 - 5 for any different rubrics that might be used in your class.
- These steps need to be followed when creating rubrics to assess programs as well.
- It is very important to remember points 3 - 5 in the “5 Key Things to Remember about Scoring Tools” below.
5 Key Things to Remember about Scoring Tools – page 30 (http://bit.ly/33jhrRV)
1. It is imperative that the school/department talk about the assessment instrument and determine what kind of student performance qualifies as successful.
2. When using objective measures (e.g. multiple choice tests), consider grouping questions that reflect a specific aspect of the outcome.
3. When using rubrics, be sure that students see the rubric that will be used to evaluate the assignment before they complete it.
4. When using rubrics, norming is really important.
5. Be sure to get feedback after the pilot on how well the scoring tool worked with the assignment and whether faculty feel that it reflects successful performance effectively.
Resources:
Student Learning Outcomes Assessment Handbook - http://bit.ly/33jhrRV
Rubric Examples from the University of West Florida - http://bit.ly/2KkruyY
Rubric information from Berkeley Center for Teaching and Learning: http://bit.ly/2MCqPua
Rubric Example from EDU 642 - Advanced Technology for Educators, Syllabus pages 32 - 33
(You will notice that I put a definition of “Critical/Reflective Thinking” at the end of my rubric so that my candidates would know what I meant by that term.)
GRADING RUBRIC
Throughout the course you'll be asked to participate in Wikis, Journals, Podcasts, and VoiceThreads with students in this class. These Wikis, Journals and Podcasts are critical in an online course because they are the place where you interact with other students and the instructor around specific questions and issues within our readings and course assignments, and particularly, about links you see between our readings and your own experience. Please remember that you are in a “600 Level” course as you interact with the Wikis, Journals, Podcasts, TwitCasts and VoiceThreads ~ the length, depth and breadth should reflect that of one interacting with a “600 Level” course.
**Definition of Critical/Reflective Thinking
The definition of critical thinking depends, to a degree, on the academic discipline (for example, philosophy versus cognitive psychology) and the domain one is referencing (cognitive versus affective). For the purpose of our online discussions (and the above rubric), we'll use the following definition:
Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action (Scriven & Paul, 1992).
Reflective thinking, as defined by Dewey (1933), is the "active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusion to which it tends."