Peel Back the Curtain
Transparency is an important part of building trust and motivating students, and a good way to ensure transparency is to help students understand a teacher's expectations through the use of rubrics. Goodwin and Hubbell (2013) state,"by making teachers' expectations for learning explicit, rubrics help students better assess themselves, become more receptive to feedback, and feel more motivated to learn."(Be Demanding, Item 3, I provide rubrics for all important assignments, para. 1) Additionally, teachers can involve their students in the creation of class rubrics so that both the teacher and students can share in their expectations. Goodwin and Hubbell (2013) encourage this, stating, "students can also benefit from helping to create the rubric on which they are graded. A teacher might lead a class discussion, for example, that gets student input on what they think differentiates 'partially proficient' from 'proficient' on a rubric". (Be Demanding, Item 3, I use performance criteria to help students find their "Goldilocks zone", para. 6)
Here is the rubric I used in my parliamentary debate class: There are several online resources for creating rubrics, but these work well:
-Rubistar -iRubric -Teacher Planet -University of Wisconsin-Stout |
To access Item 4- Creating Assessments please click here
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