Rubrics Provide Valuable Information for Students
The Washington State Certificate of Mastery is the vehicle through which students will receive a high school diploma in Washington State in 2008. The rubrics in this folder provide a way for students and parents/guardians to place student work on a learning continuum. The rubric has four levels: Beginning, Approaching, Meeting, and Exceeding. If a student’s work consistently meets the standard, this is a good indicator that the student will pass the WASL.
It stands to reason, if students are going to pass the Washington Assessment of Student Learning they need to have explicit instructional exposure to the standards on the test. The students need to be able to assess their work according to the standards and know where they lie on the continuum toward achievement.
One of the ways to include parents in this high stakes environment and maintain important communication is Student Led Conferences (SLCs). This form of conferencing allows students and parents/guardians to form a partnership in the student’s academic success. The district’s expectation is that teachers send the rubric home within the first few days of school and have it signed by the parent/guardian. The homework assignment is for the student to explain it to the adult in the home who would be attending the conference a few months later.
Each student has a folder for each discipline that has the rubric stapled inside and holds the work for that class. Teachers have a timeline for this work. Parents can call a teacher and request to view a student’s portfolio at any time.
Timeline for Standards Based Instruction
| Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 |
Distribute Standards. Use a reading strategy to give students access to the new material like KWL. Teachers begin formative assessment and students begin to place themselves on the rubric through workshop practices. |
Students perform fun and informative content area activities to gain facility with the system, learning more about themselves and the rubric as they go. |
ASSESSMENT ACTIVITIES:
Students participate in formative, standardized, and classroom assessments. |
Introduce Portfolios and Differentiated Instructional Model.
Teachers use a developmental continuum to create deadlines. |
Introduce “on demand” assessment and use the rubric to define what standards will be assessed for the first quarter marking period. |
Use a reading strategy to help students approach the work. Select one that aligns to the task. |
Students use habits of mind to create norms for self –assessment, peer-assessment, group work, and independent work. |
Students align their scores to the descriptors on the rubric. |
Teachers continue to model the role of facilitator. |
Use content area activities that align to the assessment. Explicitly instruct the students to determine where the reading and content are assessed. |
Students write a letter home explaining this assessment process. This piece begins the Working Folder. |
Students continue to add reading strategies to their repertoire. |
Students create an achievement goal. |
Students are beginning to facilitate their learning using the teacher as a model. |
Organize portfolios. Continue to discuss proficiency and developmental conintua. |
Students create and post rubrics on butcher paper and post. |
Teachers continue to model the role of facilitator using explicit instruction regarding content skills and reading skills. |
Students align their goal to the strategies they will use to achieve it using habits of the mind. |
Students understand that assessment can take the shape of anecdotal notes and other feedback that occurs during the learning process.
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Teachers model facilitation and begin to address norms for cooperative work using habits of the mind. |
Students continue to collect work for their Working Folder using cooperative learning strategies, exemplars, rubrics and their work. |
Students continue to collect work for their Working Folder using cooperative learning strategies, exemplars, rubrics and their work |
Students continue to collect work for their Working Folder using cooperative learning strategies, exemplars, rubrics and their work |
Students generate a table of contents for their work and a letter to their teacher for the first marking period. |
As students move through the activities above, teachers provide standards based feedback and create standards based visuals for students to use as learning centers. The key for motivation is the student led conference where not only student work is on display, but the opportunities for student learning are made manifest through student work. This is why creating a table of contents with students is critical to the process. Students get a reminder of how the assignments they have been given help them meet the standard and without those assignments there is little evidence for them to discuss with their parents/guardians.
The tension created by the conference should be what Ted Sizer calls “unanxious expectation.” This means that although the student may be nervous about the conference due to high accountability, they should also feel confident due to the explicit standards based practices and opportunities they have had to learn.
Attendance has been an indicator of success. Traditionally secondary arena style conferencing brought about 50% parent participation. Student led conferences generated over 85% participation. One of our elementary schools reported 100% attendance. Principal, Dr. Brenda McBrayer-Knight of Totem Middle School said, “It’s probably the most phenomenal event that has ever happened district wide.”