1. Classroom Assessment (1)
EDU 330: Educational Psychology
Daniel Moos

2. What do you see? Please do not say it out loud…

3. Rubrics… With a neighbor/neighbors discuss (based on reading):
What is a rubric?
Why use a rubric?
What characteristics define effective rubrics?
What do you think a teachers needs to think about when designing a rubric?
Questions about designing a rubric?

4. Classroom Assessment: Creating Rubrics
A rubric is:
A public declaration of expectations
A communication tool
A self-assessment tool for learners
A gauge for examining performance
Articulates gradations of quality for each criterion, from excellent to poor

5. Constructing a Rubric (1):
Identify goals and specific skills you want student to develop
What are the learning outcomes?
Determine the levels of performance
Are there levels of performance specific to each criteria?
“Backward design” (important that learning activities, learning goals, and assessment all align)
Share the rubric with your students
Students should have an opportunity to see, discuss, or even design the rubric prior to the performance, project, activity, assignment, etc.

6. What makes a quality RUBRIC?
An even number of standards of excellence
Clear essential criteria
Realistic number of criteria
Explicit, observable indicators
If points… clear to students upfront
Deliberate sequence of criteria
High interjudge reliability
Tested out with students
We need to teach the kids to use the rubrics as a TOOL (not only as an evaluation).
Create a habit of mind = self-assess.

7. Rubric Activity With a partner or partners:
(1) Select a student assignment you would like to evaluate. Here are some suggestions (does not have to be academic):
Students must create and bake a pizza
Students must…
(2) Follow the steps of creating a rubric…

8. Why Should We Assess Student Learning?
Classroom assessment involves two major types of activities:
Collecting information about how much knowledge and skill students have learned/acquired (measurement)
 Making judgments about the adequacy or acceptability of each student’s level of learning (evaluation) 2

9. Why Should We Assess Student Learning? continued
Summative evaluation
 To provide a summary judgment of student performance over time and different tasks
Formative evaluation
 To monitor student progress for remedial or supplementary instruction
Diagnosis
 To diagnose specific strengths and weakness in an individual’s learning
Effects on learning
To motivate further learning
Feedback 3

10. Ways to Evaluate Student Learning
Strengths and Weaknesses of Norm-Referenced Grading
 Strengths
– System is useful for evaluating advanced levels of learning
– System is useful for selecting students for limited
enrollment programs
 Weaknesses
– There are few situations in which the typical school teacher can appropriately use it

11. Ways to Evaluate Student Learning
Strengths and Weaknesses of Criterion-Referenced Grading
 Strengths
– Provides more specific and useful information about student strengths and weaknesses
– Promotes the motivation to learn because it holds out the promise that all students can master most of a teacher’s objectives
 Weaknesses
– Performance standards are arbitrary and may be difficult to justify
– Standards may fluctuate as a result of unnoticed variation

12. How Can We Assess Student Learning?
Lack of consistency of grading
Focus on verbatim memorization?
Focus on verbatim memorization
Recognition v. Recall
Disadvantages
Assess higher-level abilities
Relatively easy to write; Allow for breadth
Efficiency
Advantages
Ask to discuss one or more related ideas according to certain criteria
Objective; Ask to supply info from memory; Assess foundational knowledge
Objective; Choose among alternatives;
Assess foundational knowledge
Characteristics
Essay Tests
Short-Answer Tests
Selected-Response Tests 4

13. Classroom Assessment: Testing Issues
Teachers’ test items commonly include many technical errors, such misleading information.
Teachers rarely analyze their items after having given them, and they rarely exam validity.
Teachers reuse items without revision.
Teachers state that higher-order objectives are important, but items are rarely written above the knowledge recall level.
Very few teachers use the essay format in areas other than English.
The short-answer format is most common.