Scales and Rubrics

Staff Development - January 20, 2014

Scales
-- A scale is an attempt to create distinct levels of understanding to a specific topic -- A well written scale can be thought of as an applied version of a learning progression -- A well written scale makes it easier for teachers to score assessment tasks for both formative and summative scores

A Scale Help Students Learn

Encourages continuous learning Provides specific and focused feedback specific to a criterion Students can effectively provide their own feedback and measure their own progress over time Allows for accurate peer feedback

Setting Learning Goals and Tracking Student Progress

Recommendations: set objectives that are not too specific personalize objectives communicate objectives use criterion-referenced feedback and explanations use feedback from assessments engage students in peer feedback ask students to self-assess

Building an Effective Scale

Score 4.0 More Complex Learning Goal Score 3.0 Target Learning Goal

Score 2.0

Simpler Learning Goal

Score 1.0

With help, partial success or no success

Creating Scale Tasks

Level 4: Knowledge, Utilization, Decision Making, Problem Solving, Experimenting, Investigating Level 3: Analysis, Matching, Classifying, Analyzing Errors, Generalizing, Specifying Level 2: Comprehension, Integrating, Symbolizing Level 1: Retrieval, Recognizing, Recalling, Executing

Development of a Scale for Student Learning

Scale Score 4.0 Comments Demonstrates all of Level 3 and significant depth of understanding in the Level 3 or in new challenging applications or situations. No major errors or omissions regarding the 3.0 content. Demonstrates all the foundational knowledge of Level 2 and complex knowledge of Level 3. Demonstrates simpler foundational knowledge. No major errors or omissions. With help, demonstrates some understandings or cannot demonstrate.

Score 3.0: Essential Target Knowledge (Standards) Score 2.0: Essential Foundational Knowledge Score 1.0

Example: A Clean Kids Room

Level 4 Entire room is sparkling and smells clean. The rug has been recently vacuumed. The clothes are folded and put away. Toys are on their designated shelves. Bed is made.

Level 3

The room is generally clean. All clothes are put away and most are folded. The rug show signs of dust build up. The bedspread has been pulled up over the sheets. Most toys are where they belong.
Some clothes are put away. Laundry is near the hamper. The bed covers are pulled up over the sheets, but there is a wet towel on top. It is hard to find a path between the toys on the floor. There is an odor as you enter the room. In addition to toys on the floor there are dirty plates and food wrappers. A gym bag can be identified as the source of the odor, but the hamper is over flowing so the contents never make it into the laundry.

Level 2

Level 1

Social Studies Example

-- 4 I lived it - you are an expert on the subject because it seems you have lived through that part of history -- 3 Witness History - you were there at the time but missed some of the key details about what happened

Social Studies Example

-- 2 - Heard it through the Grapevine - you heard the story about what happened but you not quite sure about some of the details on the topic -- 1 - What you said - I am really confused on this topic in history can you explain it to me again?

What to do next
A. Construct department level scales to fit your needs as a department

B. Uniform across building - students will start to see the same scales