Another Rubric in the Wall

 Third week of my fourth and fifth courses at UoPeople. I am still in the Philippines. It's been 25 days since I submitted my request papers for my pension dough. They said it could take up to a month. They also said it should only take 1-2 weeks. But it would have been foolish not to expect the month. So that's what I did. It's getting tense though. I extended my Sept. 15 ticket back to Korea to Sept. 23 so if the money doesn't come this week, I may have to eat that ticket cuz I don't think you can extend a ticket twice. I'll try if it comes to that, but I don't think it'll happen. So then I'll have to buy a new ticket home. Hadn't figured that into the budget. Life eh? It's always keeping me guessing.

Since there's not a lot new here just walking around the same hood in Manila every day and studying my courses, I figured I'd post another one of my papers here for your perusal. I've never liked rubrics and to be honest, I just hate the word. It sounds pretentious to me. Most of the teachers I heard talking about them WERE pretentious. Now though it's becoming a fact of life. Schools are using them more and more. MY school uses them. So I wouldn't be me if I didn't write my latest discussion post slagging rubrics and my school for the use of them. It's almost like I WANT to self-sabotage! 

                                             Discussion 3 Authentic Assessment

            Discuss benefits for students in using authentic assessment

I think it would be best to begin with a couple of warnings from Alfie Kohn before delving into authentic assessment. Kohn says that “…not all alternative assessments are authentic” (Kohn, 2006, para. 2). He also recommends a re-assessment of assessment to verify that it is consistent with the reasons most teachers decide to get into teaching in the first place (Kohn, 2006). According to a 2015 survey, the top reason teachers get into teaching is they want to work with kids to make a difference (Marsh, 2015). It almost seems absurd to say, but to make a difference in education… you need to educate. So let’s see if the benefits of authentic assessment for students include making a difference in their education.

At this point it would be prudent to define authentic assessment. Interestingly, at the outset of the article entitled “Defining Authentic Classroom Assessment,” the authors write that there is no consensus on the term or characteristics of authentic assessment (Frey et al., 2012). It is just one of many abstract concepts educators deal with in the notoriously imprecise, subjective enterprise of trying to gauge and judge students’ understanding and learning. The authors set out in an attempt to clarify just this one concept which they felt was mostly to do with mirroring real-world tasks or expectations in classroom assessment exercises. After completing their study of 109 scholarly publications about authentic assessment, they found that close to half of them did not include the critical dimension of realism in their definitions of authentic assessment at all (Frey et al., 2012).

Rather than trying to make it more concrete and quantifiable through definition, it might be more useful to look at a few practical examples of authentic assessment exercises. Indiana University published a list of exercises in their explanation of authentic assessment that they use ("Authentic Assessment," n.d.). It includes patient case studies and plans of care for the nursing program; company sales plans for students in the business program; troubleshooting code and website design for students of computer science; examining a case study from multiple theoretical positions for psychology students; diagramming natural processes for chemistry and biology students; and role playing significant events in history for the history program ("Authentic Assessment," n.d.). I do not think a person needs to be an educator to understand how these exercises can be considered “authentic,” and would be highly beneficial (and would make a difference) for students at Indiana University. When Frey et. al. (2010) traced authentic assessment to its original source, it was described by Archibald and Newman as having meaning or value beyond success in school (Frey et al., 2012). That really should be enough for a good teacher to be able to understand and implement authentic assessment in class, but there are costs and sacrifices involved.

            Analyze whether there are costs for teacher in using authentic assessment

In order to satisfy those who want some digestible representations of abstract concepts like learning and knowledge, shouldn’t there be a method of focusing the messy, complex, real world situations into easily evaluated and standardized boxes? Rubrics to the rescue! Although Chapman and Inman write that well-constructed, “rubber” rubrics can have some flexibility (Chapman & Inman, 2009), it is hard for me not to see, “Will you give us a rubric for that?” as the latest, “Will this be on the test?” An example was used of a parent trying to help her fifth grade daughter with homework and the daughter said, “No, that’s not in the rubric. Here’s the rubric. This is all we’re supposed to do” (Chapman & Inman, 2009). I read that trying to imagine why any fifth grader should even know the meaning of the word “rubric.” In the same article the authors write that matching students’ work to teacher-designed templates differs from analyzing, synthesizing, and thoughtfully evaluating it (Chapman & Inman, 2009).

I was evaluating a fellow student’s writing just yesterday. The rubric for the assignment called for the writer to outline two philosophies of classroom discipline and choose one over the other. The student whose paper I was grading made a very convincing argument that elements of both models of classroom discipline were useful and rather than abandon one and choose the other, the most effective way to create a positive classroom environment (which is the name of the course) would be to blend the two theories. I gave the student five out of ten for not making a clear choice, but I felt terrible about doing it. I tried to redeem myself by giving the student a perfect score for the category of academic language in which third person is to be maintained even though he/she used a lot of first person pronouns. After all, how can a person describe a personal choice without using the first person?

The above experience illustrates some weaknesses in rubrics that teachers may be forced to endure in order to make assessment exercises more closely aligned to the curriculum goals and standards. Rubrics can make authentic assessment less authentic by limiting exploration and creativity and herding student thoughts into such similar work it’s hard to differentiate those who grasp concepts from those who are grasping at concepts (Chapman & Inman, 2009).

In conclusion, I think authentic assessment is highly beneficial to my students, and others. I often use situational role play conversations in my ESL classes. I never attach rubrics to my assessment exercises because I feel they legitimize focusing student attention on grades rather than learning. I do understand how useful the rubrics can be for the administrative members of the schools at which I teach, but I have been fortunate enough to keep my authentic assessment rubric-free and thereby more authentic. I believe it has made a difference for my students.

 

                                                                  References

Authentic assessment. (n.d.). Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning. https://doi.org/https://citl.indiana.edu/teaching-resources/assessing-student-learning/authentic-assessment

Chapman, V. G., & Inman, M. D. (2009). A conundrum: rubrics or creativity/metacognitive development? Educational Horizons. https://doi.org/https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ849020.pdf

Frey, B. B., Schmitt, V. L., & Allen, J. P. (2012). Defining authentic classroom assessment. Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation, 17(2). https://doi.org/https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1245&context=pare

Kohn, A. (2006). The trouble with rubrics. English Journal, 95(4). Retrieved September 19, 2022, from https://doi.org/https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/trouble-rubrics/

Marsh, S. (2015). Five top reasons people become teachers - and why they quit. The Guardian. https://doi.org/https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2015/jan/27/five-top-reasons-teachers-join-and-quit