I have never used this idea before, however it is no different than creating involvement of team members by allowing their input to goal setting. In fact, I am tempted to try this with a team assignment, possibly even having a different rubric in place that is established by each team. I suspect that many teams would actually be more stringent in their requirements than I might be.
Ken,
You may very well be right. The students are sometimes more stringent than we think about being. Thanks for your input.
Group work on the rubric project would possibly increase class participation and communication as well.
I believe you should start at the beginning of the project to involve the students. The student will have buy-in and will own the project from the start. The students will hold themselves accountable for learning.
Michael,
Yes, it will. Students have to analyze the learning outcomes and how the rubric/project/assignments lead to the criteria in the rubric.
Camesha,
i agree. The more we engage the students, the more buy in they will have.
Student buy-in is always an important plus. I think it’s valuable to have a “before and after†discussion. Often the two are different in specific things related to a particular assignment, but usually general “quality of presentation†remain. Of course it’s important for an instructor to impose certain areas of evaluation relative to the assignment’s objectives.
I did an experiment once where at the star of each class session I asked: “What do you want to learn in this class time?†The reactions were mixed but generally fell into two categories: “You’re the instructor so you need to tell us.†Or: “Stuff about(insert course title here).†Very few had specific items even when they knew ahead of time that the question would come at each class start. Eventually, the more enthusiastic students began to have more specific topics, but the value of the input was debatable. My point is that while student input is good for buy-in, it definitely needs instructor direction and guidance.
Wayne ,
I always review the learning outcomes about 3-4 weeks into the course and ask students to stop, start and continue so that we can achieve the objectives. I ask What should we stop doing? Start doing? Continue to do? The feedback can be very helpful.
I think students can be involved in creating rubrics on group projects. Since each student will no be developing each part of the assignment, the students would be more objective in creating the rubric.
Trena,
Right on. Involving students helps them see the project/assignment from a different perspective. Thanks for sharing.
Many of my assessments would not warrant the use of rubrics because most of them are the classic question based assessment that can be answered on a scantron sheet. I have traditionally done this because those types of assessments mimic the licensure examination that my students will have to take upon graduation. I have recently incorporated a case study assignment as a component of the final course grade. This is a culminating assignment in which the outcome would be for my students to incorporate all of the information learned during the course and apply it to this new situation. I decided to engage the students in developing the rubric for grading the case studies. I will admit that they were actually harder graders than I would have been. I really feel that because the students designed their own grading rubrics, this forced them to submit better quality work product because they had set such a high standard for themselves.
In my opinion, the best time to involve the students in rubric development would be directly after they've completed the lecture portion of the course and right before they are asked to apply it to the assignment. I would explain what the assignment is, and then ask the students to help me define what is considered excellent vs. needs improvement, and so on.
Beverly,
Connecting students to the assessment process and noting a higher quality is great. Keep up the good work.
Kimberly,
This makes perfect sense. The students have some content/assignment background first and the they can assist in the development of the rubric. Nice job.
I do think I can involve students and I am also going to implement group activities. Wonderful ideas....Virginia
I believe that you actually have two occasions where you can involve the student. After the rubric is created, you can review with students before they are given their assignment. This ensures that they know what they will be graded on before actually attempting to complete the assignment.
Next, you can review with the students after the assignment has been completed and graded or after the class is over. This will allow you as an instructor to receive constructive feedback about the rubric which can allow you to modify the rubric is need be.
Virginia,
It is always good to involve students. Thanks for sharing as we continue to learn from each other.
Sherrilyn,
Excellent advice. When students are involved in the learning process, it helps with the "buy in" from the students. Thanks for your input.
A great idea is to have the students use the rubrics to grade a student's paper.
Elizabeth,
Yes, it helps them learn from others' work and helps them think about the requirements of the assignment/project and the learning outcomes.
