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The Elements of Great Teaching

“I know it when I see it”: Pedagogical Scaffolding—2 of 2

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“I know a good one when I see it.”

These words haunted my experience as an undergraduate student.  No doubt my professors intended to reassure me that they had some reasonable expectations of my work product, no rx but they failed to enlighten me what those expectations might actually be. I groped around in the dark until I would accidently get it right. I was an anxious mess. I vowed to let my students know the secrets of success right from the start. But what is the best and easiest way to do it?

For years, check educators have experimented with various tools to clarify assessment, viagra sale with one mechanism gaining significant traction: the grading rubric.  Rubrics usually take the form of grids that lay out what success looks like: What is the difference between A and D work? What categories will be assessed?  Do spelling and grammar count? Rather than answer these student questions over and over again, rubrics take the guess work out of student projects and, in the end, make an instructor’s task simpler. When we also offer a template, we start to see student success much earlier in an evaluation cycle, and thus we create space for sustained improvement.

Here are some practical tips to get you started with a template and rubric. (These tips are geared for writing assignments but can be easily adapted.)

Before the course begins

  1. Decide on a Summative Project that will demonstrate student understanding and skill. See my previous post “Backwards Course Design in Religious Studies” for a full description of this process.
  2. Create a Template—Prepare a sample of this Summative Project which would get top grades.  Annotate your sample using comments along the side, explaining such features as a format, thesis, topic sentences, graphics, paraphrasing and citation, etc.  Providing “sentence starters” also helps students get beyond a blank page. See They Say I Say.
  3. Create a rubric—Open a table (In MS Word, click “Insert Table” 5×5) to make formatting simpler.  In the left column, list your criteria for grading, using such topics as content, organization, mechanics, etc.  Across the top row, identify your grading scale, usually from left to right D to A. Or create a rubric on-line at Rubistar or IRubric.  Starting with your B-column—what an average student at that level might achieve—begin to fill in your rubric with descriptors, eschewing vague adjectives such as “interesting” or “creative” for the more concrete verbs such as “includes,” “describes,” “connects,” and “summarizes.” (Students find verbs easier “to do.”) Then move to the A-column to identify exemplary markers, and C- and D-columns to identify less satisfactory markers.  Visually line up similar criteria, so students can easily see what they would need to do to move up to the next level.
  4. Check your rubric against your template, making sure that your sample meets the exemplary criteria and that your language is consistent between your rubric and comments.
  5. Design formative assessments—With your template and rubric in hand, decide what learning skills students will need to develop in order to create a successful summative project.  Map various opportunities to practice these skills into the course, assigning low-stakes weight to the earlier assignments and/or allowing students to drop a grade or two.  Plan to use the same master rubric, focusing on different aspects. The summative assignment (usually the last in the course) will bring all the pieces together and demonstrate understanding.  Finally, determine what you need to know about your students’ beginning skill and knowledge base, and prepare a pre-test to give them the first day of class.

All of this preparation should ideally occur before the first class.

Off and running!  Now what?

Students relax when they know what kind of product we expect from them and that they will have lots of chances to acquire the various skills they need.  Give them a copy of the master rubric and template right at the start so they can set their targets.

Use the rubric consistently for formative assessments, checking off areas of success and circling areas for improvement.  Make adjustments for pace and difficulty level.

If you have the luxury of time and/or small classes, meet with students in smaller groups or personally to provide individual instruction for problem areas.  You might also want to distribute some “just in time” instructions for common challenges.

At the end of the semester, return the pretest to students and ask them to identify what they have learned over the semester; they will likely be very surprised.

By clearly identifying how students can demonstrate their understanding, and by doing some careful scaffolding to support their progress, you set your students up for success.

What do we gain?

Students gain deeper understanding when they apply new content to a familiar context. As instructors, we gain better work products, clearer expectations, and less-stressed students.  And we will know it when we see it!

 

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Jane S. Webster (PhD McMaster University, Canada) is Professor of Religious Studies and Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at Barton College, North Carolina. She conducts research in the Gospel of John, feminist biblical hermeneutics, religious healing, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. In addition to her many publications, she has authored Ingesting Jesus: Eating and Drinking in the Gospel of John (2003) and co-edited, Lady Parts: Biblical Women and The Vagina Monologues (2012). Prior to her academic career, Webster was a critical care nurse and missionary in South America.

Comments

  1. Thanks, Jane! I like the way you describe the construction of a rubric, especially the “B” column. I often start new assignment rubrics with only three columns, with the headers saying “Not good enough,” “Good enough,” and “More than good enough.” By the time I publish the rubric to students, these will become 60%, 85%, and 100% (respectively). But like you, I find it easier to work in the construction phase with simple descriptors in mind (e.g., B = “good enough”).

    “I know a [letter grade here] when I see it”: yes, Riddles in the Dark! Making invisible rubrics visible to learners is, for many instructors, not just a new skill set but a change in understanding about assessment and responsibility.