William,
You are right. We have to find a good balance with assessment. We need to be clear in our assessment and help students understand the expectation.
Instructors often produce an "over-kill" of criteria for assessment an assignment. Sometimes as many as tweleve items are considered. In addtion, many are confusing, redundant, overlapping, and /or unclear. Without definition and specficity students won't understand the assessment and will gain little from this feedback.
Reginald,
The more defined the criteria, the clearer the expectations. This is a win-won for everyone involved.
Dr Wilkinson/Faculty, some common mistakes are using the incorrect language, thus confusing the students. Another common mistake is misuse of the point value (varying scales), thus making the grades too much of a moving target; to subjective. Lastly, irrelevant assessment criteria leads to a lack of improvement by the students. Its essential to ensure the criteria is accurately defined.
Regards, Reginald
Daniel ,
The course content does dictate, at times, how we need to ask questions or provide content. Keep trying new things though and always engage the students in the learning process. Thanks!
Daniel ,
We continue to learn from each other through these forums. It's good we can discuss things that may overwhelm the students and how to better assist the students in their success in the online environment. Thanks!
Daniel ,
good review of what can go wrong. Thanks for bringing this to our attention so we can avoide the pitfalls. Thanks!
I sometimes have to discuss law, court cases, legal reasoning, and so forth. Normally that requires the Socratic approach (teaching is asking). Trying to implement that approach and the logic of law into a rubric is very challenging because assessment is often very relative to the topic. The result is that I sometimes have to make minor shifts in my expectations of student performance.
Your comment about overwhelming the students is well taken. Each instructor assumes his/her course is of singular value and importance to the student. As a rule, it's not. The rubrics can become so cumbersome that they lose their ability to assess learning. Plus, there is the added complication of plagiarism by online students and meshing degrees of cheating, so to speak, into a rubric. Thanks for your response.
I can recall several mistakes that keep reappearing in online syllabi. They include:
1. Incorrectly applied measurements
2. Excessive detail and overly high expectations of performance from the students.
3. Absence of beta testing of the rubrics before attaching them to a class.
Sometimes the KISS principle, with adjustments, is a helpful approach to rubrics.
Donna,
Consistency is important. The more input you have in the process, the better. Keep trying.
As an adjunct I can't change the outcomes or the criteria, but I am expected to generate rubrics based on those that I am handed. My preference would be PDCs or Pre-designed Courses that have the rubrics already generated. I believe that would generate more consistency across course sections. Also more validity and reliability.
Grace,
I am so glad you brought this up. This is a common mistake. Checklists do not have the criteria. That's the essential part of the rubric. Thanks for your input.
Grace,
Oh yes, students must review the rubric prior to the assignment/project and make sure they understand the expectations.
Eleanor,
The criteria are the key components within the rubric. You must be careful in your deliberation when creating the rubrics. Thanks!
James,
Yes, please try to implement them. I think you'll find they are a huge benefit.
Donna,
Ah, if the ooutomces are fuzzy, you'll need to start there first. Thanks!
James,
Glad you have learned smoe things you can apply to your rubric making process. We all continue to learn as we continue to teach. Thanks for your input.
A common mistake instructors make when creating rubrics could be to create it as a checklist rather than as a rubric.
It is to the student's benefit to review the rubric. The rubric contains information on what the students need to do to be successful.If they don't have time to review the rubric, then they don't have time to do a great job on the paper either.
Have you tried posting the rubrics on the Announcements page each week or emailing it to them?
