‘The use of rubrics to code students’ work makes the expectations for success clear and thereby solves a major problem of traditional assessment to write the mystery of marking or evaluating the students’ performance.’ Rubrics are set standards to guide the teachers on how to evaluate students. The statement is convincing because in designing rubrics those involved have to agree on certain standards. The tool is not solely made for the students but both.
Students only use rubrics as a frame of what they are expected to do, attain, and at what level. However, the use of language in designing these rubrics should be student-friendly to enable them to understand the context in the warding of scores or grades (Wiggins, 1998). The copies assigned to both students should as well have supportive examples and the criterion used to achieve the desired goals and objectives.
The argument here is that there has to be set standards to base the assessment and awarding of scores as put forward by Wehlage. This is because the learning and assessing of students’ work and the identification of their advancement need to have a basis. The high-quality intellectual achievement/authentic achievement cannot be realized unless there are set standards, just as those adopted by rubrics.
Curriculums may use rubrics to evaluate the performance of students. In situations of vigorous learning, instructors are challenged by determining grading that proves accomplishment and that can be acknowledged by students, instructors/teachers, or even friends (Wehlage, 86). Therefore, to have a standard guideline on how to award scores or marks, rubrics should be adapted. Rubrics give students clues of what is to be tested, the testing standards, their level of learning, and how to score the required grades. The three standards of education are geared to the construction of knowledge, disciplined inquiry, and a value beyond the classwork/classroom.
The performance standard analyses the perfection of students in doing their work and under the task/work design, it analyzes on work that the students have to do. In all the three standards, the major focus is on high-performance expectations depending on the agreed models of work that contribute to the validated targets based on the professional verdicts (Quality Assurance, 2004).
It is out of common sense that classwork is not only enough to have success, especially in the modern-day world. More multifaceted cerebral actions are also relevant. The agenda here is whether the use of rubrics to code student work makes expectations for success clear consequently solving the major problems of traditional assessments such as the mystery of marking or evaluating student performance. The opening clause in this argument is that there is no coding that is automatic in achieving the desired results without proper implementation and development.
Any model is subject to success depending on other governing factors like students’ exposure, the method of presentation, the students’ intellectual capacity, and the demands of the society. This is the reason why Wiggins (1998) stated that there have to be defined standards, and teachers should not generalize on the results (p 106). In any case, there has to be a follow criterion by both the students and the teachers, and practical examples of how every criterion is realized (Wiggins, 1998, Newmann) and meets success. Therefore, education assessing would rather call for designers who would come up with better materials in acknowledgment of the student’s work that is beneficial to them in general.
The common factor should be based on the students’ acquisition of elementary skills, knowledge of how to write, read and compute to actively and successfully take part in the modern-day societal proceedings. The simple reasoning is that a student’s better or poor feat on a particular task does not clarify the general rational improvement or progress in a particular situation. In such cases, the problem/task might have been tough or clear to the student hence there is no way we can make a general assumption or conclusion on one or two multifaceted feats. We need to have a better way of making assessments and reporting on the poor and better-performing students: the use of rubrics (Newmann, 33).
In the assessment coding based on the solo performance and in the problem on knowledge-2, the students had some knowledge in the context of the exercise possibly from the classwork. Irrespective of the student failing to make application of what was learned, the teacher should capitalize on making the student improve. In the construction of knowledge-3, the student might not have been compatible with what the teacher taught. Producing different material different from what the teacher gave means that the student was innovative and could produce new rhythms possibly copied from a different environment, either outside or inside the class.
Therefore, the coding system should be designed to cater even for changes that are likely to emerge. Generally, the coded assessment styles should be designed to give room for dynamism. Standardized methods of awarding scores or marks should also be validated with time depending on daily societal changes. Exposure of students should also be catered for. This can be through interaction so that the students learn some new ideas and methods of solving problems.
References
Fullington, M. (n.d.). Community Family: Services Foundation. Web.
Newmann, F. M. (1996). Authentic achievement: Restructuring schools for intellectual quality. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Wiggins, J. B., & Ellwood, R. S. (1988). Christianity: a cultural perspective. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall.
Wehlage, G. G. (1996). School-based student and family services community and bureaucracy. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Dept. of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, Educational Resources Information Center.