As I plot, plan, and prepare for this project, I am struggling with thinking about how the rubrics will shake out. Take a standard like this:
Generate ideas and create original works for personal and group expression using a variety of digital tools.This standard is not about a tool. We aren't interested in whether or not a student can make a powerpoint presentation. This is a little bit like asking a student to create a picture. The kid might choose watercolors or charcoal or pastels or pen and ink or...the list goes on. The same is true for digital products. A student might choose powerpoint, but they could also choose Voicethread or Zuiprezi or GoogleApps or...the list goes on. So part of the challenge is to develop a way to score student products when there are no parameters around the media used.
- Create products using a combination of text, images, sound, music and video.
- Generate creative solutions and present ideas.
The bigger challenge, however, is that these standards don't nicely fit into a rubric. I have been trying for awhile and you know what? I've decided not to try anymore, at least for now. If I am trying to make a square peg fit in a round hole---doesn't it make more sense to go find the square hole rather than keep pounding away at the round one in impotent frustration? (Okay, that sounds naughtier than intended.)
What are the alternatives to using a rubric to evaluate student performance tasks? Are there other scales of performance out there? I've been looking around...and there isn't much. The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) was working on a project called EdSteps that is making some attempts to do so, but they are some distance from showing off their efforts.
Or maybe we just need to get back to the roots to rubric-ness. I was reading something recently that reminded me that a Level One performance is not about identifying the worst characteristics of a product or a list of what is lacking---it is about describing what the work of a beginner looks like. This is an excellent perspective. I know that I have been guilty of building a rubric by identifying "at standard" performance and then taking away from that to get to Level One. Instead, the approach should be more individual for each level: here is what a student at standard looks like...and here is what a student who is just beginning to engage with the standard looks like. It is more about identifying what is present, rather than absent.
I'm glad that I will have a constellation of superstars joining me in a few weeks to have some real time conversation about these issues. However, for those of you reading this who have your own ideas about how you would evaluate standards like the one described above, leave a comment for me to pass along. Suppose you could create whatever system you wanted to score student performance---would it include rubrics? Or are there other/better ways?