Module 6: Assessment and Evaluation

As I worked on this module, I was first considering how the assessment would look for this mini lesson. I presented my lesson on the water cycle in module 5. The lesson included a graphic design, descriptions of each step of the water cycle, and an analogy of water taking a flight and going on vacation. Therefore, I thought about assessing the lesson by assigning a mini project, a type of formative assessment. The mini project would include a prompt that asked for a description of each step of the water cycle, a drawing to represent cyclical nature of the process, as well as an analogy of another cyclical process. 

Based off of the readings, I made sure to cut out any deficit language and, instead, replaced it with progressive wording. The student can clearly tell which stage in the rubric they will be scoring at because of the specificity of the category-score descriptions. Each descriptions emphasizes what a student has accomplished, and their potential for an even higher score. For the rubric I used "I" statements to show that the student owns the rubric, not the teacher. In a way, it is the student who is the one choosing what score they will be getting for their project. This subtle shift towards self-assessment will lead to more reflection and edits to their project. I also gave extra credit opportunities in two, as I believed those were advance skills that I was pushing my students towards.

Moving towards the future, I realize that creating a progressive rubric takes a lot of time. The descriptions of each scoring category has to be specific, yet also concise. If the descriptions are too specific and not concise, then the student will get lost in the wording. If the descriptions are too concise and not specific enough, then the student will be unclear about how they will be scored. A careful balance is necessary, so it is necessary to allot yourself (as the teacher) some time to create a successful rubric. I learned that working backwards and beginning with what I am looking for in the final answer is a good place to start. I also found it difficult to provide specific descriptions of the scoring categories near the middle ranges. I might consider having fewer than four levels for certain categories in the future, as it might be an aspect that I want my students to include, but not necessarily an aspect that can be differentiated into four levels.