Competency 4: Implement teaching and learning situations

During my 3rd year practicum, I used three types of assessment: the analytical rubric, the holistic rubric and the checklist. All of these rubrics can be found under Competency 3: Plan teaching and learning situations. From this experience, I found that they each have their uses depending on my goal.

Analytical Rubrics:

These rubrics tended to be ideal when analyzing writing where I want to focus on the technical elements such as vocabulary and any other specifics from the Progression of Learning as presented by the Québec Ministry of Education. They were especially useful when the task I assigned to students contained multiple elements that I wanted to grade. It gave me an idea of where all the students should be and in what area they may be lacking. This helped me in getting a better understanding of what areas the students needed more support in. Analytical rubrics, to me, helped in tracking problem areas in my teaching and student progress in specific criteria. 

Holistic Rubrics:

I found holistic rubrics to be ideal with any assignment that asked students to do one particular task. Tasks such as writing a text seemed to incorporate too many elements for me to be able to use this rubric effectively. For any type of verbal recall, card game or drawing that students did, I used a holistic rubric. These rubrics were also ideal to use when I was mentally assessing students as the work was happening. it allowed me to identify students who needed more support than others, which later allowed me to be able to grade their understanding formatively. I also found that it worked wonders when it came to grading students in a modified program as it shows where they are at compared to their own work and capabilities rather than analyzing their assignments to the QEP standards for their grade level. 

Checklists:

I used a checklist with my final assessment in which I asked the students to ensure they did everything they needed to ensure a good job was done. I found that it was visually easier for students to use as they simply had to check off if it was done or not. Checklists were amazing self-assessment tools for the grade 2 students as other forms of rubrics were too difficult for them to decipher as they had not practiced using them yet. On the teacher's end, I found that checklists combined with a holistic rubric worked well in assessing if (1) students were missing certain elements required or not and (2) how well students achieved in executing said element.

All that was mentioned is not to say that this is how these rubrics should be used, they are simply the ways I ended up using them and how I thought they worked best for me and my teaching and evaluating style. Overall, I believe that after testing each rubric, I enjoyed a healthy mix of all of them and would put them all to use in the future depending on the types of assessments I use. However, I would improve on how I write out my rubrics as I found that at some point, I did not know how to grade some students on certain criteria due to the way I wrote them all out.