Artifact 4

Educators implement effective practices in areas of planning, instruction, assessment, evaluation and reporting. 

B.C. Standard #5

Educators have the knowledge and skills to facilitate learning for all students and know when to seek additional support for their practice. Educators thoughtfully consider all aspects of teaching, from planning through reporting, and understand the relationships among them. Educators employ a variety of instructional and assessment strategies.

Teacher Rubric

Example of Rubric Comments

Student Rubric

During my practicum I had a lot of opportunity to create my own assessments. I only used tests for math, which meant that my students were creating final projects for assessment. In my space and Canada units students created posters about a planet or province/territory of their choice. This allowed for me to create rubrics of my own to mark with. In my creative writing unit I had the students write their own Viking myth or legend. The kids were extremely enthusiastic about learning about the Vikings. The final draft of their myth gave me a great chance to create a rubric. 

When I sat down begin writing a rubric I struggled with what to put in it. I knew what I was looking for, but not exactly how to word it. I decided to do some research on my illusive rubric. I went to the IRP for the grade and was able to find a rubric for creative writing. I made some changes to the rubric to mold it to my purposes. The biggest change that I made was to add a comments section. I included this on all my rubrics, because I felt that although a rubric breaks down your mark for you, it does not communicate everything. In my comments I would highlight one thing that the student did well in their assignment, and than add a goal for them to work on in the subject. I believe that communicating with your students is very important, especially around areas where they are successful and areas that need improvement. 

I also shared a student version of the rubric with the class. We went through the different things that were needed in their legend that were on the rubric and how they could go about doing this. Each student got a copy of the checklist to put in their duo-tang so that they could check what they needed. It also was a great tool for me, because I was able to say look at your checklist. Everything I put on the rubric were topics that we had discussed in our lessons. By making a student friendly rubric I was fostering success. The guidelines were clear and accessible. The rubric also gave students the option to aim for "exceeding expectations" if they wanted to. I made it clear that this was just an extra category, you could do it only if you wanted to. This gave higher level students a goal to work towards in their writing. 

All of their legends turned out great! The best part about being a teacher is when your students are successful. I believe that sharing assessment tools with the students helps to scaffold their success in the end.