More on Rubrics

As I was reading some of my classmates' blogs, one caught my eye. In Reading Counts for Everyone, the author, Ms. McClung, provided a few links to a variety of rubric development applications and websites. In addition, the blog included a great article on rubric development, Scoring rubrics: What, When, and How? which explained the difference between analytic and holistic rubrics. I knew rubrics were becoming more popular. I didn't realize how much more popular -- at least based on the literature I've been seeing. This article provides a great explanation on how to write and score a rubric, regardless of the tool you use (or don't use) to develop one.

Resource
Moskal, Barbara M. (2000). Scoring rubrics: what, when and how?. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 7(3). Retrieved July 2, 2007 from http://PAREonline.net/getvn.asp?v=7&n=3

Assessment Technologies and Real World Answers

While looking for some examples of assessment technology, I ran across the following:
The Development of a New Scientific Instrument: "Views on Science-Technology-Society" (VOSTS)
This article describes the method for developing an instrument that would assess what students already know about science, as well as their views about what they know. The authors state that many instruments designed to assess scientific knowledge make an assumption that the student understand the test questions in the same way the researcher does. This introduces questions of validity for the instrument. To address this, the authors determined to use a different approach for instrument development.
The authors wrote a series of questions to which 5000 students responded both with multiple choice, likert scale, paragraph, and oral responses to determine what prevailing beliefs students had about science-technology-society content. Based on these responses, they created an instrument with a variety of responses that could potentially reflect student views and knowledge. They stated the empirical development methodology provides a more reliable instrument for accurately assessing what students understand, and could be used for both pre- and post-test scenarios. The instrument was developed in 1992 in Canada. The methodology was described in detail, and could be replicated to meet national or state standards and to reflect regional diversity.
Copies may be obtained by writing VOSTS, Department of Curriculum Studies, College of Education, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK. S7N OWO, Canada.
It seems to me it could be highly useful in determining the "stickiness" of science teaching. I have often felt that simple multiple choice assessments don't capture the full understanding of a learning experience, and are limited by the individual writing them. I have often argued (silently) with multiple choice tests over a variety of responses that I felt did not reflect what the question was asking. The approach described here seems to address those issues well.

Resource:
Aikenhead, G. S., & Ryan, A. G. (1992). The development of a new scientific instrument: "Views on science-technology-society" (VOSTS) [Electronic version]. Science Education, 76, 477-491. Retrieved June 26, 2007, from http://www.usask.ca/education/people/aikenhead/vosts_2.pdf

Three-Quarters Done

That's how much of the semester has flown by -- spring break has come and gone, spring came, winter is back for a last hurrah, and I am cranking out one assignment after another to finish up this semester. Since I finished the student handbook committee assignment (with a whimper, not a bang), I didn't feel there was a whole lot more to add to this little journal.
But, the experience of keeping an on-line journal is good in and of itself as an exercise in using technology in a different way.
The question I raise this week is:
How would you incorporate a blog into the subject you teach?
If you teach English, or another language/composition subject, the answer would be relatively easy. But what about some of the subjects that usually don't require written compositions as part or parcel of the course? That is one of the challenges faced by teachers at my daughters' high school, btw -- every class has to include some kind of writing assignment on a regular basis -- I don't recall the frequency, but it is fairly often. Weekly, perhaps? Think on that for awhile, and see what ideas you come up with for including a blog in your subject. I'd be interested in hearing them!
Meanwhile, my next major project is to rewrite some course content for Advanced 9th grade English classes as part of my curriculum course. As soon as I knock out the rough draft for the presentation on "Oversold and Underused" in my edtech class, that is. I thought I had organized things well enough to have my assignments a little more balanced this semester, but delays from my contacts pushed it to the last quarter of the quarter, shall we say.....
Meanwhile, down at the farm...but that's another blog!