Trouble with Rubrics

21 Dec 09

Sheri Trapp-Cordova

Interesting discussion...context is rubrics in writing but issues spill into assessment in general.

assessment rubrics

The fatal flaw in this logic is revealed by a line of research in educational psychology showing that students
whose attention is relentlessly focused on how well they’re doing often become less engaged with what they're doing.
What’s our reason for trying to evaluate the
quality of students’ efforts? It matters whether the objective is to (1) rank kids against one another, (2) provide an extrinsic inducement
for them to try harder, or (3) offer feedback that will help them become more adept at, and excited about, what they’re doing.
1 more annotations...
- hat’s why we have to do more than reconsider rubrics. We have to reassess the whole enterprise of
  assessment, the goal being to make sure it’s consistent with the reason we decided to go into teaching in the first place.

12 Oct 09

Jared Stein

16 Sep 09

Wayne Grady

teaching rubrics assessment

09 Sep 09

Jim Daly

assessment Tags

08 Sep 09

Lorie Shuck

rubrics

06 Sep 09

Janine Campbell

teaching rubrics assessment

Now some observers criticize rubrics because they can never deliver the promised
precision; judgments ultimately turn on adjectives that are murky and end up
being left to the teacher’s discretion
In boiling “a messy process down to 4-6 rows of nice, neat, organized little
boxes,” she argues, assessment is “stripped of the complexity that breathes life
into good writing.”

05 Sep 09

Peter Beens

assessment rubric issues

04 Sep 09

Ann Steckel

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Donna Baumbach

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Rick Reo

teaching education pedagogy

Jordy Whitmer

Assessment

Bernie Dodge

rubrics writing assessment criticism

03 Sep 09

Victor Hugo Rojas B.

“rubrics make assessing student work quick and efficient, and they help teachers to justify to parents and others the grades that they assign to students.” To which the only appropriate response is: Uh-oh.

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Kate Tabor

rubrics review assessment

27 Aug 09

Anthony Pennay

Thus, the dilemma: Either
our instruction and our assessment remain “out of synch” or the instruction gets worse in order that students’ writing can be easily judged
with the help of rubrics.

01 Aug 09

Spiro Bolos

rubrics education writing

30 Jul 09

Glenn Moses

kohn rubrics professionaldevelopment

For starters, I realized that it’s hardly sufficient to recommend a given approach on the basis of its being better than
old-fashioned report cards. By that criterion, just about anything would look good
I eventually came to understand that not
all alternative assessments are authentic.
16 more annotations...
- “rubrics make assessing
  student work quick and efficient, and they help teachers to justify to parents and others the grades that they assign to students.”[1]
  To which the only appropriate response is: Uh-oh.
- First of all, something that’s commended to teachers as a handy strategy of self-justification
  during parent conferences (“Look at all these 3’s, Mrs. Grommet! How could I have given Zach anything but a B?”) doesn’t
  seem particularly promising for inviting teachers to improve their practices, let alone rethink their premises.
- hree reliable
  effects when students are graded: They tend to think less deeply, avoid taking risks, and lose interest in the
  learning itself.
- rubrics actually help
  to legitimate grades by offering a new way to derive them. They do nothing to address the terrible reality of
  students who have been led to focus on getting A’s rather than on making sense of ideas.
- Rubrics are, above all, a tool to promote standardization, to turn teachers into grading machines or at least allow
  them to pretend that what they’re doing is exact and objective. Frankly, I’m amazed by the number of educators whose
  opposition to standardized tests and standardized curricula mysteriously fails to extend to standardized in-class assessments.
- Just as it’s possible to raise standardized test scores as long as you’re willing to gut the curriculum and turn the
  school into a test-preparation factory, so it’s possible to get a bunch of people to agree on what rating to give an assignment as long
  as they’re willing to accept and apply someone else’s narrow criteria for what merits that rating.
- To this point, my objections assume only that teachers rely on rubrics to standardize the way they think about student
  assignments. Despite my misgivings, I can imagine a scenario where teachers benefit from consulting a rubric briefly in the early stages
  of designing a curriculum unit in order to think about various criteria by which to assess what students end up doing.
- As long as the rubric
  is only one of several sources, as long as it doesn’t drive the instruction, it could conceivably play a constructive role.
- In support of this proposition, a girl who didn’t like rubrics is quoted as
  complaining, “If you get something wrong, your teacher can prove you knew what you were supposed to do.”[
- “resisting the rubric temptation” the day “one particularly uninterested student raised his hand and asked if I was going to give the
  class a rubric for this assignment.” She realized that her students, presumably grown accustomed to rubrics in other classrooms, now
  seemed “unable to function unless every required item is spelled out for them in a grid and assigned a point value. Worse than that,”
  she added, “they do not have confidence in their thinking or writing skills and seem unwilling to really take risks.”
- The fatal flaw in this logic is revealed by a line of research in educational psychology showing that students
  whose attention is relentlessly focused on how well they’re doing often become less engaged with what they're doing.
- “The whole time
  I’m writing, I’m not thinking about what I’m saying or how I’m saying it. I’m worried about what grade the teacher will give me, even if
  she’s handed out a rubric. I’m more focused on being correct than on being honest in my writing.”
- In boiling “a messy process down to 4-6 rows of nice, neat, organized little
  boxes,” she argues, assessment is “stripped of the complexity that breathes life into good writing.”
- “we need to look to the piece of writing itself to suggest its own evaluative criteria
- or (3) offer feedback that will help them become more adept at, and excited about, what they’re doing
- We have to reassess the whole enterprise of
  assessment, the goal being to make sure it’s consistent with the reason we decided to go into teaching in the first place.

27 Jul 09

Sarah Hanawald

Alfie Kohn on why rubrics are dangerous. I think he's right, but I'm not sure what to do about it.

rubric kohn

20 Jul 09

Ben W

Kohn describing why rubrics can hurt student learning.

masterproj assessment education rubrics

17 Jul 09

Rob Rankin

15 Jul 09

Brad Ovenell-Carter

Alfie Kohn

assessment rubric IB

Once we check our judgment at the
door, we can all learn to give a 4 to exactly the same things.
This attempt to deny the subjectivity of human judgment is objectionable in its own right.
7 more annotations...
- Mabry cites research showing that “compliance with the
  rubric tended to yield higher scores but produced ‘vacuous’ writing.”[
- As long as the rubric
  is only one of several sources, as long as it doesn’t drive the instruction, it could conceivably play a constructive role.
- But all bets are off if students are given the rubrics and asked to navigate by them.
- Just as standardizing assessment for teachers may compromise the quality of teaching, so standardizing assessment
  for learners may compromise the learning.
- “Only extraordinary education is concerned with learning,” the writer
  Marilyn French once observed, whereas “most is concerned with achieving: and for young minds, these two are very nearly opposites.”
- I’m more focused on being correct than on being honest in my writing.”
- In boiling “a messy process down to 4-6 rows of nice, neat, organized little
  boxes,” she argues, assessment is “stripped of the complexity that breathes life into good writing.”

Sarah Sutter

rubrics assessment education learning alfiekohn

Dennis Richards

http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/rubrics.htm downloaded on 7.15.09
*...research shows three reliable effects when students are graded: They tend to think less deeply, avoid taking risks, and lose interest in the learning itself.
*Rubrics are, above all, a tool to promote standardization, to turn teachers into grading machines or at least allow them to pretend that what they’re doing is exact and objective.
*As long as the rubric is only one of several sources, as long as it doesn’t drive the instruction, it could conceivably play a constructive role.
*students whose attention is relentlessly focused on how well they’re doing often become less engaged with what they're doing.
*What all this means is that improving the design of rubrics, or inventing our own, won’t solve the problem because the problem is inherent to the very idea of rubrics and the goals they serve.
*Neither we nor our assessment strategies can be simultaneously devoted to helping all students improve and to sorting them into winners and losers.
*We have to reassess the whole enterprise of assessment, the goal being to make sure it’s consistent with the reason we decided to go into teaching in the first place.

grades assessment thinking risk taking learning wisdom kohn

msjweir

Patrick Higgins

Kohn makes some interesting points in this piece from 2006. This would be a great article for a discussion, or a diigo annotation session.

rubrics alfiekohn assessment

10 Jul 09

Amy Tucker

education teaching learning school writing English articles Assessment rubrics rubric kohn

08 Jul 09

Ty Yost

Trouble with Rubrics

rubrics assessment rubric

07 Jul 09

Page Lennig

rubrics teaching kohn

Karen McMillan

rubrics articles

David Bill

rubric education assessment

Sharon Elin

rubric pedagogy

“gotcha” justification.
Studies have shown that too much attention to the quality of one’s performance
is associated with more superficial thinking, less interest in whatever one is doing, less perseverance in the face of failure, and a
tendency to attribute the outcome to innate ability and other factors thought to be beyond one’s control.[7] To that extent, more detailed
and frequent evaluations of a student’s accomplishments may be downright counterproductive.

Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach

rubrics assessment

adina sullivan

Chris Champion

From @lthumann in response to a conversation at the NJEA conference with @dancallahan and @kjarrett

rubrics assessment

12 May 09

Sarah Horrigan

rubrics assessment Teaching rubric rubricas education learning NTUEDU alfiekohn

27 Apr 09

Chris Prout

rubrics AlfieKohn

20 Apr 09

chris chater

rubrics education teaching learning school assessment evaluation rubric

19 Apr 09

Bradley Morgan

rubrics

Phil Taylor

rubrics assessment Teaching

The fatal flaw in this logic is revealed by a line of
research in educational psychology showing that students whose attention is
relentlessly focused on how well they’re doing often become less engaged with
what they're doing.

18 Apr 09

Jo Richards

rubrics assessment

But it’s
also harmful in a very practical sense.
In an important article published in 1999, Linda Mabry, now at
Washington State University, pointed out that rubrics “are designed to
function as scoring guidelines, but they also serve as arbiters of quality
and agents of control” over what is taught and valued. Because “agreement among scorers is more
easily achieved with regard to such matters as spelling and organization,” these
are the characteristics that will likely find favor in a rubricized classroom. Mabry cites research showing that
“compliance with the rubric tended to yield higher scores but produced ‘vacuous’
writing.”[3]
This attempt to deny the subjectivity of human judgment is
objectionable in its own right.
8 more annotations...
- Studies have shown that too much attention
  to the quality of one’s performance is associated with more superficial
  thinking, less interest in whatever one is doing, less perseverance in the
  face of failure, and a tendency to attribute the outcome to innate ability
  and other factors thought to be beyond one’s control.[7]
- Any form
  of assessment that encourages students to keep asking, “How am I doing?” is
  likely to change how they look at themselves and at what they’re learning,
  usually for the worse.
- “stripped of the complexity that breathes
  life into good writing.”
- High scores
  on a list of criteria for excellence in essay writing do not mean that the
  essay is any good because quality is more than the sum of its rubricized
  parts.
- “we need to look to the piece of writing itself to suggest its own
  evaluative criteria” – a truly radical and provocative suggestion.
- Thus, the
  dilemma: Either our instruction and
  our assessment remain “out of synch” or the instruction gets worse in order
  that students’ writing can be easily judged with the help of rubrics.
- In fact, when the how’s of
  assessment preoccupy us, they tend to chase the why’s back into the
  shadows.
- We have to reassess
  the whole enterprise of assessment, the goal being to make sure it’s consistent
  with the reason we decided to go into teaching in the first place.

14 Apr 09

Jan Smith

assessment rubrics

09 Apr 09

Kerry Johnson

Are rubrics a brave new world of assessment? Or are they merely a way for educators to justify the grades they give? And what effect do grades have on learning?

rubrics assessment rubricas Teaching

07 Apr 09

Pogie

classshare

06 Apr 09

Angela Stockman

rubrics assessment

Ms H

Stephen Rahn

assessment rubric teaching education learning rubrics

Gregory Louie

The Trouble with Rubrics

By Alfie Kohn

Once upon a time I vaguely thought of assessment in dichotomous terms: The old approach, which consisted mostly of letter grades, was crude and uninformative, while the new approach, which included things like portfolios and rubrics, was detailed and authentic. Only much later did I look more carefully at the individual floats rolling by in the alternative assessment parade -- and stop cheering.

rubrics assessment Teaching

05 Apr 09

Rafael Ribas

assessment teaching vision

Natalie Wojinski

Studies have shown that too much attention
to the quality of one’s performance is associated with more superficial
thinking, less interest in whatever one is doing, less perseverance in the
face of failure, and a tendency to attribute the outcome to innate ability
and other factors thought to be beyond one’s control.

Cary H

a assessment rubrics

Ms. Rowley

Essay written in 2006 by Alfie Kohn. Discusses the use of rubrics in schools, esp.writing class.

assessment rubrics Teaching writing

Cindy Marston

Alfie Kohn article about the problems with rubrics

rubrics assessment

Studies have shown that too much attention
to the quality of one’s performance is associated with more superficial
thinking, less interest in whatever one is doing, less perseverance in the
face of failure, and a tendency to attribute the outcome to innate ability
and other factors thought to be beyond one’s control.[7]
Any form
of assessment that encourages students to keep asking, “How am I doing?” is
likely to change how they look at themselves and at what they’re learning,
usually for the worse.
1 more annotations...
- What’s our reason for trying to evaluate the
  quality of students’ efforts? It matters
  whether the objective is to (1) rank kids against one another, (2) provide an
  extrinsic inducement for them to try harder, or (3) offer feedback that will
  help them become more adept at, and excited about, what they’re doing.

Ezra F

Rubrics are, above all, a tool to promote standardization, to turn teachers into grading machines or at least allow them to pretend that what they’re doing is exact and objective. Frankly, I’m amazed by the number of educators whose opposition to standardized tests and standardized curricula mysteriously fails to extend to standardized in-class assessments.

education

Michael Wacker

The ultimate goal of authentic assessment must be the elimination of grades. But rubrics actually help to legitimate grades by offering a new way to derive them. They do nothing to address the terrible reality of students who have been led to focus on g

assessment rubrics alfiekohn

Tony Searl

articles by alfie kohn

assessment teaching learning education rubrics

jennifer verschoor

rubrics assessment

So let’s shine a light over
there and ask: What’s our reason for trying to evaluate the
quality of students’ efforts? It matters
whether the objective is to (1) rank kids against one another, (2) provide an
extrinsic inducement for them to try harder, or (3) offer feedback that will
help them become more adept at, and excited about, what they’re doing. Devising more efficient rating techniques –
and imparting a scientific luster to those ratings – may make it even easier
to avoid asking this question. In any
case, it’s certainly not going to shift our rationale away from (1) or (2)
and toward (3).

Tania Sheko

the trouble with grading rubrics - article by Alfie Kohn

rubrics assessment rubricas marking rubric

Jeff Utecht

What all this means is that improving the design of rubrics, or inventing our own, won’t solve the problem because the problem is inherent to the very idea of rubrics and the goals they serve.

rubrics assessment

A Strang

rubrics assessment alfie kohn

04 Apr 09

Sheri Edwards

rubrics rubricas assessment kohn

Dean Shareski

he ultimate goal of authentic assessment must be the elimination of grades. But rubrics actually help to legitimate grades by offering a new way to derive them. They do nothing to address the terrible reality of students who have been led to focus on ge

rubrics assessment grades

31 Jul 08