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November 1, 2002
Assessment, Assessment Rubrics and Evaluation Guidelines
By Carol Holzberg
Teachers make judgments about students every day, based on informal and formal appraisals of classroom work, homework assignments, and performance on quizzes and tests. Assessment rubrics listing benchmarks for student achievement assist in this evaluation by providing objective guidelines to measure and evaluate learning. These rubrics also improve learning because students who understand them before a project is due can take the evaluation criteria into account as they complete their work. For assessment tips and tools, and for help in developing, adapting, or adopting assessments that detail what you expect students to learn and evaluate what they have mastered for any given lesson, visit the following Web sites:
Rubistar
Learn how to create rubrics that measure student performance in project-based learning activities. Customizable rubrics for written reports, multimedia projects, oral presentations, and science activities assist teachers who don't have time to develop their own evaluation criteria. A special tool allows you to enter evaluation data into RubiStar after project completion and determine which skills students found difficult. Once you know, you can provide additional practice or support for those areas.
Rubric to Assess a PBL [Project-Based Learning]
This downloadable PDF (Portable Document Format) file presented as a table serves as a ready-made rubric providing assessment criteria to measure levels of performance (Novice, Apprentice, Practitioner, and Expert) for a project-based task. The curriculum area is up to you, but evaluation criteria include task authenticity, content and presentation, creativity, and level of student interest.
Assessment: Creating Rubrics
Explore this 5-part series to learn how one teacher uses rubrics to motivate students and foster critical thinking. Articles focus on the advantages of rubrics, rubric design and types, how to weight evaluation criteria, and how to elicit student input in the assessment and evaluation process.
Classroom Assessment Techniques
Starting from the assumption that "the more you know about what and how students are learning, the better you can plan learning activities to structure your teaching," this Web site provides both individual and collaborative activities for classroom assessment. The suggested in-class assessment methods can serve as alternatives to traditional standardized, multiple-choice, and paper-and-pencil evaluation techniques.
Assessment Strategies and Definitions
Here you'll find guidelines to help you develop different types of assessments and communicate performance expectations. By applying standardized ways to identify areas of knowledge and skills that students have mastered and those that need more work, you can easily hone your teaching skills. Click the Assessment link at the left for additional tools to help you develop assessment strategies aligned with your lessons.
CyberLibrary: Assessment and Rubrics
This Web portal offers links to several assessment and subject-based evaluation rubric sites. Follow the links to learn how to write assessment rubrics, assess technology projects, evaluate classroom participation, determine if students work well in groups with peers, and more.
A Rubric for Evaluating WebQuests
Here you'll find a ready-made template for scoring or evaluating student WebQuest projects, complete with scoring categories. Checklists with additional scoring criteria to evaluate project fine points are also provided. Save the page as an HTML file and open it in MS Word (or another word processor) to tailor its specifics to your needs. If you don't use WebQuests in your teaching, check out the helpful tips on creating a generic subject-based rubric from scratch. You can also download this generic rubric template to help you get started.
The Partnership for Lifelong Learning Web Olympics: Scoring Rubric
To find out how effective your class or school Web site really is, check out this Web site evaluation rubric. How does your site compare? Evaluation criteria include content, layout, HTML coding, navigation and marketing techniques.
Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators - Assessment and Rubric Information
Technology guru and dynamic educator Kathy Schrock offers a collection of links to information about assessments and rubrics. Organized by topic, you'll find resources to help you evaluate student Web pages, specific subject area projects (maps, PowerPoint presentations, primary sources, oral presentations, and more), educator technology skills, electronic portfolios, and report card comments.
PBL (Project Based Learning) Checklists
A wizard-like format with fill-in-the-blank guidelines guide you in making project checklists for your students so they know exactly what has to be done to complete an activity successfully. You can easily search for checklists by grade level and project type (writing, presentation, multimedia, or science). Once a selected checklist appears on screen, use the pull down menus and other tools provided to personalize it with your own evaluation criteria.
Student Web Page/Multimedia Project Rubric
Adapted from the Official Multimedia Mania Rubric for use by participants in a contest, this assessment template can help you evaluate student Web pages and multimedia projects. Evaluation criteria include storyboard development, organization of content, originality, copyright information provided, easily viewable on both Mac and PC platforms, knowledge of the subject, graphic design, mechanics, and teamwork. Save the Multimedia Project Rubric Template in HTML format for use in MS Word or another word processor, or download it in Excel format from MidLink Magazine.
Creating Your Own Rubrics
At this site you'll find steps to follow and questions to ask as you develop personalized assessment rubrics. There are recommendations for rubric construction, plus tips for automating assessment and evaluation using an electronic database. While some links at this site show educators using Apple Computer's long defunct eMate for assessment automation, the techniques described can be easily adapted for use with Palm PDAs, Windows Pocket PCs, AlphaSmart keyboards, and other portable technology tools.
Email: Carol S. Holzberg
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