My wife and I just got back from our 15 minute parent-teacher meeting. We might have seemed rude, but we couldn't chitchat. We dived right into our biggest concern - making sure that our son gets the rubric before working on the assignment, knowing the exact due date, and getting the results and grade back in a timely fashion so that we can go over them with our son. These things haven't been happening. Many assignments don't have rubrics. Our son can take some of the blame, but there needs to be a process that is designed to make it easy for us parents. They expect involved parents, but they have to give us the tools.
The big issue was about rubrics for individual assignments and for overall grades. Our rubrics go from 1 - 5. I don't think anyone gets a 1 and kids only get 5s if, well, I don't know why and his teacher couldn't really explain when or why. I told her that 5s seem to something like an A+. She said it was more than that. The kids have to show how their assignment is somehow related or integrated with other subjects in an abstract way. Of course, the school doesn't teach them about this or show them how to do this. Some rubrics do tell the students what they have to do to get a 5, but there is always the proviso that there has to be something more. What that more is, they never say. I told the teacher that kids want to get 5s but they aren't taught how. She really didn't have much to say other than (in so many words) "That's the point".
A 3 indicates that the student is meeting state expectations. I told her that I have seen the state expectations and tests and consider a 3 to be a 'C' grade. She seemed surprised to hear me say that. I'm not sure why. A 2 grade indicated (in a very broad sense) that there is a problem that needs to be fixed. A 2 is a 'D' grade.
That leaves the 4 grade to cover the range of 'B' to 'A'. Some teachers have suggested that rubrics are just another form of grading like A, B, C, and D. They aren't. They are non-linear and very poorly defined. Kids struggle to get 5s because they think that it's an 'A'. My son can't always explain why he gets a 3, 4, or 5 on an assignment or test. Grades are supposed to give students some sort of feedback to help them with future assignments. This is not happening.
Even math tests are translated into rubric grades of 1 - 5. My son hasn't had enough graded assignments for me to plot rubric grade against percent correct on his tests. I'm betting that the relationship is nonlinear. The math teacher doesn't allow the test to go home. It has to go into their portfolio and stay at school. Don't they think these things through? I'd like to give them a rubric.
I'm a homeschooling mom with absolutely no experience with having my kids in a school so forgive me if I'm off-base but...
ReplyDeleteI got the impression, reading your post, that using rubrics and not sending tests home was keeping parents confused and/or in the dark. That in fact, that might be the whole point.
Our county is over-hauling our report card because the teachers and parents complained. The teachers could not explain the rubrics to the parents and the administrators received a great deal of flack for this.
ReplyDeleteParents were encouraged to fill out an on-line survey and participate in the report card committees. Of course, the hours were 3 to 5 so many parents will not be able to attend. Either parents will be at work or have their children home from school. How convenient for the county administrators.
why *shouldn't* there be a mark
ReplyDeletefor "i'm impressed"? -- and should
we expect teachers to be *impressed*
if kids *do as they're told*?
"why *shouldn't* there be a mark
ReplyDeletefor 'i'm impressed'?"
You mean for a grade of 5? That's usually done with an A+. If a 5 is an A+ or "I'm impressed", then what does a 4 mean? The problem is that the teacher couldn't explain and the kids are confused.
"... and should we expect teachers to be *impressed* if kids *do as they're told*"
Who said anything about impressing anyone? The problem is that there are issues with properly telling the kids what they have to do. Kids can't do what they're told if they aren't clearly told what to do.
There are issues with the rubric. As Paula says, even teachers can't explain the rubrics. We have kids who think that 5 is an 'A', 4 is a 'B', 3 is a 'C' and 2 is a 'D'. Parents tell teachers over and over that they don't like rubrics. Some teachers say that it's the same, but different, from the usual A-D grading system. It isn't. Rubrics seem to be an excuse to lump as many kids into the "meeting expectations" group as possible and then apply all sorts of fuzzy expectations on the higher grade numbers.
Rubrics can be confusing to students (and parents) even when the teacher thinks he/she knows what the categories mean. Here's an example from my 6th-grade son's "Egypt Artifact" project (I know, gag...). It's for the "Critical Thinking/Research" component of the project:
ReplyDelete"Far Exceeds Expectations" = Wow! Really explains a lot about the strands. Shows excellent thinking, linking and creativity.
"Exceeds Expectations" = Good! Explains a lot about the stands. Shows good thinking and linking.
"Meets Expectations" = Well done! Clearly explains about the strands. Shows clear links between the artifact and the ideas.
"Not Yet Meeting Expectations" = Missing required elements. Not much creativity or thinking evident.
__________
Huh? What does it look like when a student "Really explains a lot..." versus just "Explains a lot..."? What is a kid supposed to make of this? And how will it help students strive for a top quality project?
Well-thought-out, helpful rubrics are rare birds. I've only seen a few in my years as both a parent and a HS English teacher.
Cheryl vT in Singapore
"Huh? What does it look like when a student 'Really explains a lot...' versus just 'Explains a lot...'?"
ReplyDeleteThis is just what's driving my wife crazy.
"And how will it help students strive for a top quality project? "
What bothers me more is this. That even by looking at the rubric results on my son's work, I can't see what changes are needed to get a top-quality grade.
I talked about this with my sister-in-law (HS English teacher for 30 years) on Thanksgiving and she said she likes rubrics for defining the details of what is expected on a specific assignment, but she dislikes generic rubrics and rubric grading for report cards or portfolios. She says that it's too vague. She talked about being a portfolio reviewer in Connecticut (for some sort of state award) and was amazed at the widely different rubric grades given by different teachers.
In theory, this shouldn't be any different than using A-D grades (where you can also get widely-different grading opinions), except that with +/- you can make finer distinctions. However, our rubrics are clearly nonlinear and there are no +/- variations. Something else is going on here.
They claim it gives students and parents more feedback, but it does the opposite. There will always be subjectivity in grading, (less so in math where it's easier to give numeric grades from 0 - 100) but the subjectivity has to be applied only on each assignment where the requirements are clearly defined.
Once the subjectivity has been carefully applied on each assignment, there shouldn't be any more subjectivity for quarterly grades or portfolios. Teachers should use weighted formulas. There might be subjectivity in the weights, but that's a different issue. Actually, when I used to teach, I always left a small percentage for intangibles when I came up with the final grade. It could be class participation or some other thing. I always used it as a positive factor and never a negative factor. In other words, it would only come into play if a cumulative grade fell just below a cutoff to a higher grade. I would push the student over that cutoff. I never used it to drop someone below the cutoff.
kids only get 5s if, well, I don't know why and his teacher couldn't really explain when or why
ReplyDeletewelcome to middle school!
should
ReplyDeletewe expect teachers to be *impressed*
if kids *do as they're told*?
The point of the rubrics is to reward students for doing as they're told and punish them for not doing as their told, except that very often they're not told what the standards for punishment and reward will be.
Either that, or they are given assignments with one of two flaws:
* it is far beyond what they can do
* it is illogical and thus can't be done well
Obedience to authority is highly prized. One of C's teachers just sent home a newsletter including this passage:
It is critical when given instructions for completing a task that they are followed exactly. Instructional tasks are designed to assess particular aspects of student learning and skill development. Therefore, tasks are designed with a process to help students learn and rehearse the skills necessary for success. If all parts of a task are not completed or the way in which the task is completed does not follow specifications for completion then there is a limited degree of success that will be met. For most students, this is typically defined by their grade. However, I would suggest the improvement based upon specific criteria like in a rubric actually shows the extent of individual improvement. When directions and class examples are provided they are done to help provide a framework that demonstrates how a task will be assessed. Therefore, following directions and completing all practice for assignments is critically important to success.
C. got a B on a one-page paper because he didn't have a cover page.
ReplyDeleteEd worked with rubrics in CA as part of his work on developing a state test to assess kids' knowledge of history (I believe).
ReplyDeleteHe had Cheryl's experience. It was a mess. There was almost no inter-rater reliability.
I was given a rubric to use years ago at U. of Iowa where I first learned to teach writing. I had no idea how to use it. The categories made sense, and I think I might be able to use it today but I don't know whether it would be any more reliable than anything else.
"Far Exceeds Expectations" = Wow! Really explains a lot about the strands. Shows excellent thinking, linking and creativity.
ReplyDelete"Exceeds Expectations" = Good! Explains a lot about the strands. Shows good thinking and linking.
"Meets Expectations" = Well done! Clearly explains about the strands. Shows clear links between the artifact and the ideas.
"Not Yet Meeting Expectations" = Missing required elements. Not much creativity or thinking evident.
That is priceless.
In theory, this shouldn't be any different than using A-D grades (where you can also get widely-different grading opinions), except that with +/- you can make finer distinctions. However, our rubrics are clearly nonlinear and there are no +/- variations. Something else is going on here.
ReplyDeleteI'm sick of rubrics, but I can't say numeric grading has been any better. (We have rubrics and numeric grading.)
C. just got an 81 on a social studies paper Ed spent hours helping him write.
The assignment was illogical; he was asked to compare an important historical figure in 19th century American history to a 15-year old gang leader in a 1970s work of juvenile fiction. C. went off to the basement to work on it and Ed found him there an hour later writing variations on the same sentence: "Apple is like orange because they both did X." He was like Jack Nicholson in The Shining only the novel Jack Nicholson was writing was more entertaining.
Instead of watching the football game he'd been looking forward to all day, Ed sat down and sweated it out with C. trying to figure out a way to compare two things that aren't comparable.
Then they got an 81.
Why an 81?
Why not an 82?
Or an 80?
No one knows and we don't have conferences because the union contract says no conferences.
Actually, in this case Ed contacted the teacher and they did have a conference. It went well, but the depressing thing was that the teacher seemed never to have heard that a historian would not compare a real historical figure from one time period to a fictional character from another time period.
The teacher's only model of "coherent" (that was the word he used) assignments was that a really coherent assignment unites social studies and ELA.
Have I mentioned the fact that our high school sent a letter to parents announcing its intention to "blur the disciplines"?
This was, shall we say, many many years ago, so I only barely remember -- but my Catholic school had the craziest grading system ever. Yes, ever.
ReplyDeleteWe were graded on a 1-5 or 1-6 scale, but the numbers were jumbled up. I vividly remember that 2 was the highest grade possible, and more vaguely remember that 5 was fail and 4 was incomplete and God knows what the other numbers meant.
I don't know what the heck they were thinking.
Years ago (1966 if you MUST know), before the interdisciplinary fad was taken seriously, my high school geometry teacher had us write a term paper (following the rules of style, etc) that related some aspect of American History (it wasn't called U.S. History then) to some aspect of Geometry. I picked Brown vs Board of Education and the issue of segregation in schools, made the point that despite the court victory in 1954, there was still segregation practice, albeit subtly. I compared this to the co-existence of Euclidean and non-Euclidian geometries and gave examples. I got a "B".
ReplyDeleteIt was bad enough having to do such an assignment, but to get a "B" on top of it all, rankles to this day. She's the teacher I've talked about here at KTM on various rant/comment spaces, who refused to teach and just had us put problems up on the board. Well, at least she assigned problems and at least the text was SMSG Geometry. But still. I had tried to get out of her class, and I think she held my "attitude" against me. I guess "attitude" was part of her undisclosed rubric.
Do the gifted kids get a different rubric with a different set of expectations? Do the LD and ELL get a different rubric with a different set of expectations? Why would all kids be assessed in the same way? Exceptional work by a kiddo who's only been in the US 6 months is completely different from the average on-grade kid. Exceptional work for a gifted kid isn't even assigned in most public school classroom K-8 so how could one assess that? Ok, finished whining. N.
ReplyDeleteMy 5th grader’s teacher recently reworked some rubrics to help clarify objectives for us. I never saw the original versions, but he did tell me he condensed the verbiage and cut the number of levels from 5 to 4.
ReplyDeleteExample from a 3-paragraoh essay rubric:
Sentence Fluency –
1 = Choppy sentences; most are short in structure
2 = Sentences are generally complete but don’t always seem to flow together.
3 = Sentences transition nicely from one to another.
4 = Well-crafted sentences that create a flow throughout the paper.
Although it may not be perfect, a rubric like this does help in explaining what the benchmarks are.
Students can and do earn 4s.
A rubric for math tests? That sounds odd.
ReplyDelete"Although it may not be perfect, a rubric like this does help in explaining what the benchmarks are."
ReplyDeleteDetailed rubrics for specific assignments are great. General rubrics, nonlinear rubrics, or rubrics for quarterly grades are not.
"A rubric for math tests? That sounds odd."
This is not a rubric for what has to be done, it's just using rubric-style grading of 1 - 5. I still haven't figured out how a percent correct on a math test translates to a rubric grade. I think the mapping is nonlinear, but I don't have enough data to prove that.