Beach, Appleman, Hynds, and Wilhelm’s “Assessing and Evaluating Students’ Learning: How Do You Know What They Have Learned?” (Handout) and "Secondary Standards-Based Grading and Reporting Handbook"

            I always find myself constantly struggling to write and revise rubrics I will use in the classroom. They always seem to be too vague throughout the entire scoring process or they are so detailed they do not allow the students any creative freedom. Reading all of the examples in the handout “Assessing and Evaluating Students’ Learning: How Do You Know What They Have Learned?” helped in my understanding in what makes a legible, student-friendly rubric that has a clear set of goals for each point level. As a side note, I never thought to provide students with rubrics for self-evaluation. It kind of provides them a pathway for which students can grade themselves on how well they are meeting the objectives of the lesson. As with the handout, I have never been a fan of “correct answer” tests. However, some students do not like the alternative essay that might be in place of a “standard” test, so determining what assessment strategy one uses really depends on the makeup of their classroom.

            The handbook that we read on grading and reporting, I feel, was kind of confusing since we read it not really in any context and, being a handbook, it does not provide much detail for itself, other than the first section. In actuality, the handbook is probably a great resource to have but I just do not understand some of the syntax and layout of it as of right now. The two pieces of text we were given to read about for this blog seem to not really flow together in my mind, but I am sure they do in some way and I am just not seeing it. I do like the part of the handbook where it says that we as teachers should avoid giving out “zeros” as grades. I feel that giving a zero will do nothing but kill a student’s confidence and their motivation will be thrown in to the trash.