Objectives+&+Feedback

Read and Reflect
How do you currently apply this strategy with or without technology?

Setting objectives is a strategy being implemented across my district. I find that objectives still are confused with activities/assignments. In this day of a plethora of standards, it's critical to know the essential learning targets. Students and teachers are far more likely to hit the target if they know what the target is. Currently, I am modeling this by always setting objectives during meetings and workshops. It definitely keeps us focused and more productive.

Coupled with setting objectives is providing meaningful feedback. How many times do students receive only a smiley face, letter grade, or generic comment? What does this tell them about their learning and how to improve? Both of my children had the opportunity to have the same wonderful language arts teacher when they were in 6th and 7th grade. She provided the best instructive feedback on writing assignments that I have ever seen. They looked forward to the comments - they were never overwhelming, but targeted a couple of areas for improvement. What a difference it made in their writing! The power of the feedback compensated for not always being received in the most timely fashion.

I believe setting objectives and providing feedback work together to engage students in learning and encourages them to set their own learning objectives. Students are more likely to strive for understanding and improvement versus simply completing the assignment and receiving a grade. Students are expected to achieve the objective and feedback is provided along the way to help them be successful. Giving up or receiving a failing grade is not an option.

Apply and Reflect
Provide evidence of the tool that you learned.

It was about 18 years ago that I attended a week long assessment workshop during the summer in Ann Arbor. Even years later, I consider it one of the best professional learning experiencs of my career. That is where I learned indepth about rubrics - purpose, development, scoring, and implications for student learning. Following that, I began to use rubrics frequently in the classroom, such as for science and social studies projects, writing assignments, and math constructed responses. It was beneficial to me in that it clarified my expectations for learning, and it also provided students with a clear learning target. As students worked on projects and assignments, they referred back to the rubric and refined their work. Student engagement and learning increased. It made assessment easier and less subjective and provided more meaningful feedback to students. The one struggle that I had was having to convert a rubric to a traditional letter grade. However, I did find that students and parents came to expect rubrics on certain assignments. If they received only a letter grade on a project, they asked, "but why was it a B?"

I was familiar with RubiStar prior to this lesson, however it was not available when I was in the classroom - how unfortunate! Rubrics can be time consuming and challenging to develop. Too often, I still find teachers confusing scoring guides with rubrics. RubiStar is a great tool and resource. Also, one of the things that I learned during the workshop is that sutdents should be involved in creating the rubric. I never quite mastered this when using rubrics in the classroom. RubiStar certainly would have promoted student involvement.

One of the powers of rubrics is the process of developing the criteria for each performance level. This can be lost when modifying an existing rubric since it populates the criteria based on selection of a category. However, RubiStar is very user friendly and does get you started, and there is the option of editing. Also as teachers gain experience and confidence in using rubrics, they will be more likely to create a new rubric.

[|Writing Rubric]