The resources in this section will help you develop ways to determine acceptable evidence of student learning throughout your course.
Adapted from:
Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (2nd ed.). Alexandria: ASCD.
Wiggins and McTighe shared their idea of facets or dimensions of understanding. It is not a hierarchy, but different ways to understand.
Video by Debra Scott.
Rubrics are a detailed summary from the instructor to their students about the expectations for completing a project or assignment. Rubrics give students a road map to help them self-assess their work before they hand it in. The criteria for completing the project or assignment in the rubric should be tied directly to the learning objectives. The leveled descriptions of the criteria should help students see the different levels of understanding and skill required for each criterion along a continuum.
By the time the instructor uses a rubric for a summative assessment of students' work, the students should have had opportunities to receive formative, personalized feedback along the way from peers. Students should be able to use the personalized feedback to help them improve their work before the final draft is submitted. The feedback students receive along the way should connect back to the learning objectives and the criteria in the rubric.
If personalized feedback doesn't tie back to the criteria chosen for the rubric, that could be explored further. For example, the instructor could review the personalized feedback they gave to students to get to the heart of what they truly want to assess and update existing rubric criteria and descriptions to fit the expectations for the learning so that it all fits together.
Performance tasks are short- or long-term tasks that offer students challenges that are authentic and representative of problems students could face in the real world. Students develop at least one product or performance in response to the needs of the audience chosen for the task. Students know the task and how they will be evaluated ahead of time. Rubrics are used to help students understand the process of evaluation.
