This week in our graduate course on the fundamentals of technology for educators we have continued to work on our digital storytelling projects and we have come to the point of designing a rubric to use as the assessment. If you are not familiar with the term rubric, it can be characterized in many ways. It is an authentic way to assess how students solve real-world problems. A rubric is built on a wide range of criteria and the students normally are given a copy to use as a guide as they complete real-life projects. This type of assessment is known as formative because it is involved from the beginning to the end of the entire teaching and learning experience. There are two different types of rubrics and they are called analytic or holistic. As I read through this week’s online readings for our course I found the following definitions for the terms analytic and holistic on the TeacherVision.com web site. “Analytic rubrics identify and assess components of a finished product. Holistic rubrics assess student work as a whole.” For the digital story I am developing for this particular course, I chose to design an analytic rubric. I believe it will be the best kind of rubric to use to assess my student’s e-resumes they will be creating. In this post I will be sharing the reflections of my experience of creating my rubric and I will share my thoughts on the role of rubrics in authentic assessment and when I believe authentic assessment is the best strategy.
I need to start by saying that my digital storytelling project has been an ever evolving process and I’ve been tweaking and revising it regularly. Hopefully I finally have it to the point where I want it and I believe that is because I have finalized the rubric with which it will be assessed. This is a digital storytelling project and therefore I have made sure that it is built around the seven elements that are key to a good digital story. For this project the students will be given a WebQuest to follow in order to use web sites on the Internet to find answers that will help them create their own job resume. Besides being Internet-based, there are other elements that also make this project digital. Students will be asked to use Prezi and Jing to create an electronic version of their resume instead of the more common paper version.
My project is designed for 9th – 12th grade virtual students and I tried to make the rubric as grade-level appropriate as possible. I also tried to make it as “self explanatory” as possible because it is for virtual students who may be at a disadvantage because they don’t have the opportunity for face-to-face encounters with their teacher. I like the idea of giving these students (any student for that matter) the assessment tool upfront so they will know how to fashion their projects as they are being developed. As a student myself, I like having “the big picture” early enough in the game so I can see how all of the pieces are going to fit together. My students will be solving a real-life problem because they will be asked to create a job resume that will get them an interview for they think would be the “perfect” job for them. There is also a dramatic twist to this project because it is built on the scenario that the students have been transported from the current year of 2011 to the year 2020 in order to help save the workforce and the future. (Enough about that, you’ll have to watch the digital stories to see how they end.)
Creating my rubric wasn’t really difficult and I there are different reasons I can attribute this to. First, I’m accustomed to having my work assess with rubrics and I have many examples to refer to from the two graduate courses in which I’m currently enrolled. Also, the Internet is full of great examples, explanations, etc. on how to create and use rubrics effectively. I have to admit I did do some tweaking and revising over the course of a couple of days, but I feel like I created a solid rubric with which to evaluate my students’ digital stories.
Rubrics are wonderful assessment tools, but there are certain teaching and learning situations for which they are best suited. This digital storytelling project is one instance and others would be solving real-life problems and project-based learning. Rubrics are very versatile and they can actually be utilized across all curriculums when teachers want to improve the types of projects their students create and therefore increase their overall learning.
I’d like for you to take a look at the “E-Resume Rubric” I created to use to assess the digital stories my students will be creating. I would appreciate any constructive feedback that you have to share. Use this link to access my wiki where the rubric I created is posted in the WebQuest my students will be using for this digital storytelling project.
Hi Ruth,
ReplyDeleteAs usual, you have impressed me! That is SOME rubric! At first look, I thought - wow - too much - but then when I read it, I thought, you have totally told your students what you expect of them - and quite frankly, there can be no excuses if they don't follow through and get good grades! What I especially liked is that you put something like you're going to land the interview! or something similar across the top - very very clever! The attitude of the rubric is so positive.
I also thought that it was good that you thought of the fact that the virtual students wouldn't have the luxury of having the teacher RIGHT there so you took that into account as well.
Thank you for inspiring me in this class. I wish you all the best!
~ Christi S