<p>There is a distinction to be made here that I think is very important.</p>
<p>Every graded assignment should have a “rubric.” When a student meets the standards for the rubric they should be awarded the score commensurate with that standard. This is true on a test, a written assignment or a semester. If you do everything asked of you perfectly, you deserve a perfect score.</p>
<p>In my previous posts, I was not advocating for people that don’t give A’s or 100’s “because nobody is perfect.” That is just foolish, because those grades don’t represent perfection, they represent a student who was perfect in terms of what was asked of him. Taken to the most absurd level, if your entire semester grade came down to being able to spell cat, and a student spelled C-A-T, they preformed perfectly on the only metric you gave them and thus they should get a perfect score.</p>
<p>I am advocating for teachers that set high standards. Teachers should be setting rubrics that most kids cannot be expected to hit perfectly. That way both the teacher and student can truly see where the weaknesses are. For many (most) kids, the shortcomings are often effort related. For example, if teachers allow kids in an APUSH class to get A’s without routinely reading the textbook they are doing the kids a disservice.</p>
<p>Too many smart kids aren’t reaching their potential because their grades are telling them they are near perfect, when in reality they are meeting weak standards perfectly.</p>
<p>Learning / Grades. We have a very good friend who was the long time Board Chair at one of the local independent secondary schools. His mantra to the annual incoming class was: “If you learn, the grades will come” </p>
<p>That schools system is set that way to reward learning.</p>
<p>Agree with post #81. Rubrics are essential for major assignments. If you have a rubric there is no question as to what the expectations are regarding that particular assignment.</p>
<p>I am wondering if this idea of an A being the foregone conclusion is the crux of the matter. I understand when considering a top student with straight A’s who does their homework and studies hard, one assumes they will continue to do well. However, even a student who historically is very good in math and has achieved high grades, can find AP Calc challening. There are reasons those A’s can turn to B’s and C’s that have nothing to do with unfair grading. The concepts are difficult, etc. I have a hard time with this expectation that if a student does the work, they should earn an A. </p>
<p>If the teacher is a poor teacher, doesn’t abide by a rubric, doesn’t communicate the rubric, etc…yes, this is not fair. (Again, my kids have been in this position, I know what that looks like). </p>
<p>Maybe I have read too much into the “foregone conclusion” statement. But, when I see my children earn A’s when I don’t think they have worked hard enough to earn an A, I get concerned because I think this can lead to a false sense of accomplishment. They might feel they have mastered the material, but when you dig deeper, you find their knowledge to be more superficial.</p>
<p>I, for one, despise rubrics because they take something that should be qualitative, and inevitably turn it into something quantitative. Guidelines, yes, but those guidelines should be quality English, not X number of misspellings, Y number of paragraphs, and Z number of footnotes.</p>
I didn’t say it should be–I was just explaining what is probably meant when somebody says that an A is a “foregone conclusion” in a particular class. My only experience with such a class was PE in middle school and high school–at my school, at least, you got an A if you made an effort.</p>
<p>As to rubrics–if we’re talking about math, it’s one thing, but it’s something else if it’s a rubric for an English paper–there are subjective evaluations build into any such rubric.</p>
<p>There is no reason a rubric needs to turn a qualitative judgement into a quantitative one. As a simple example, spelling and research could be set at 5% and 95% respectively or the could be set 50%/50% on a given assignment. The teacher sets the weighting and the teacher still evaluates the spelling and research qualitatively, but, the rubric prevents taking point away from the research if the spelling is lousy. </p>
<p>A good rubric serves multiple purposes. For the teacher, it forces them to think about how they are evaluating a given assignment and for the students, it communicates that methodology to them before they do the work. My kids always found the qualitative descriptions in the rubrics to be helpful guides to how they should approach a particular facet of an assignment.</p>
<p>And in your 50/50 scenario, how would you deal with plagiarism? Give them a 50% grade because the research was tainted but they spelled it correctly? </p>
<p>Although I understand the idea behind a rubric, in reality, they are almost used in the end to argue legalistically for points that result in a grade being given that is not deserved because the teacher did not think that anyone would use the rubric against them in that way. Instead of it being a guide to the student on how his paper will be graded and teaching them how to write well, it instead becomes a series of hoop-jumps that the teacher MUST award points for as the student successfully completes each hoop, even if the overall result is a steaming pile.</p>
<p>“10 points for display on a tri-fold poster board” is an easy 10 point bonus gimme for the kids (usually girls) who love markers and glue and figuring out spacing and arrangement of letters. It is a 10 point penalty for everyone else.</p>
<p>This is the hell of rubrics. I have two boys and a girl.</p>
<p>If the rubric allows for the end result to be a steaming pile while awarding full credit then it is a poorly written rubric. Don’t blame the tool blame the teacher.</p>
<p>I was a landscape architecture major in school. Our presentation boards had graphic criteria (tri-fold, B&W, mounted, color rendered etc)…It was an overall part of the grade.</p>
<p>The problem with rubrics is that after secondary school, it’ll be totally different, but I do see the point in providing some kind of structure. Not all professors will use them, so a student might feel overwhelmed when they’re faced with merely an assignment description. </p>
<p>I work at my university’s writing center, and I’ve seen a lot of instructors’ approaches to this. Some have it all written out (10 points for using logos, ethos and pathos, 10 for using at least 3 sources, 10 for grammar, etc), and some are just like “do a rhetorical analysis of this piece to showcase how the author makes their point. Include a, b and c and (more details but no grade breakdowns).” </p>
<p>A lot of students write their drafts and ask me “so what are they looking for? Am I doing what they want?” They may have well-written papers that are off-topic, but as a peer tutor, it’s hard for me to guide them when I don’t have a specific standard of what they should be doing. However, there still is the notion of critically reading to find the important points, but most freshmen still need help with that (and naturally I’m not perfect at it.) I think a lot of further instruction comes in class, too, so that’s tricky as well. </p>
<p>Anyway, IME, I’ve only had one professor use a rubric so far, and it was for my oral examinations in my French classes. She spelled out what she was grading us on, and by seeing and thinking “oh, I only get 5 points for pronunciation,” it helps us relax more in case we mess up. With my writing classes, we just have an assignment description and then get comments and a number. Recently I got full points on a paper, but I don’t necessarily know why. And I’m okay with that. I’ll take no comments as “you’re doing it right.”</p>
<p>I’m laughing about the trifold board rubric thing. For some projects it was totally reasonable as a way to display the end project. But sometimes it was “10 points for pretty” as opposed to “10 points for clearly displayed.” </p>
<p>This was more a middle school issue than a high school or college issue. I just remember kids being frustrated by getting points off for lack of artistry in their display of a social studies project.</p>
<p>(My kid JUST turned in a trifold today and had a rubric…I assume that there is still a scale…eg “summary 10 pts” is 1-10 points depending on quality of the summary but if you don’t include it than that is 10 points you’ll never recover)</p>
<p>Again, that is a problem with the teacher, not a problem with rubrics. The artistry was an issue for her and she would have taken off points with or without a rubric.</p>