I am passionate about having students take responsibility for their academic journey, encouraging them to learn through discovery, and challenging them to work through big problems.
In addition to a high level of technological integration, students in my classroom are required to navigate questions, issues, and teachings cooperatively.
Below I have outlined a few topics of interest to familiarize yourself with my teaching and assessment style.
A single-point rubric outlines the standards a student has to meet to complete the assignment; however, it leaves the categories outlining success or shortcoming open-ended. The ideology behind the single-point rubric inherently moves classroom grading away from quantifying and streamlining student work, shifting student and teacher focus in the direction of celebrating creativity and intellectual risk-taking.
The Advantages:
1. It gives space to reflect on both strengths and weaknesses in student work. Each category invites teachers to meaningfully share with students what they did really well and where they might want to consider making some adjustments.
2. It doesn’t place boundaries on student performance. The single-point rubric doesn’t try to cover all the aspects of a project that could go well or poorly. It gives guidance and then allows students to approach the project in creative and unique ways. It helps steer students away from relying too much on teacher direction and encourages them to create their own ideas.
3. It works against students’ tendency to rank themselves and to compare themselves to or compete with one another. Each student receives unique feedback that is specific to them and their work, but that can’t be easily quantified.
4. It helps take student attention off the grade. The design of this rubric emphasizes descriptive, individualized feedback over the grade. Instead of focusing on teacher instruction in order to aim for a particular grade, students can immerse themselves in the experience of the assignment.
5. It creates more flexibility without sacrificing clarity. Students are still given clear explanations for the grades they earned, but there is much more room to account for a student taking a project in a direction that a holistic or analytic rubric didn’t or couldn’t account for.
6. It’s simple! The single-point rubric has much less text than other rubric styles. The odds that our students will actually read the whole rubric, reflect on given feedback, and remember both are much higher.
Adapted from: Edutopia
Sample rubric from: Cult of Pedagogy
Our math program this year will not be structured into units, rather the topics will be "spiralled" and revisited several times throughout the year with a focus on the big ideas. Wednesdays will be "Mastery" days when students will be assessed on current and past topics from math class. Why you might ask?