Rubrics as Gradeless Feedback Guides

With an organized list of conflated standards and associated learning targets—along with a system for reporting in the gradebook—I now turn to rubrics. However, in a gradeless classroom, I found “rubric” to feel inadequate as a title, since we’re not specifically placing students on a scale. I’ve opted for the title “Feedback Guide.” This will also work into students’ weekly reflections and five-week (mid-quarter and quarterly) reflections and grade pitches.

FORMER RUBRICS

Originally inspired by Jennifer Gonzalez’s (@cultofpedagogy) single-point rubric, my former standards-based rubrics looked like the following:

As I read a student’s work (the above rubric was for a constructed response analyzing mood), I could put an X in the “I can” or the “I cannot yet” column next to each learning target or add more focused feedback in the form of sentences. Then, in the grade column, I’d assign an A, B, C, or F. My original post on this model can be found here.

FEEDBACK GUIDES

Now, since I will no longer be assigning grades to each assessment, I needed to reformat my rubric. I decided on the following:

I’ve kept the Learning Targets subdivided by Standard but decided to run the Standard in the first column, list the relevant Learning Targets, and then leave a space for narrative feedback per Standard (rather than per Learning Target). The narrative feedback may be bullet points or full sentences. I may make a remark for each Learning Target, or the ones that most need feedback (either being on-track or needing improvement). Sometimes I’ll offer corrective feedback, sometimes questions, sometimes links to instructional videos.

 Then, below the Feedback Guide is this:

I’ll ask students to briefly reflect when they complete the assignment. I was again inspired by Sarah Zerwin’s (@SarahMZerwin) Pointless, where she had students reflect and respond to teacher feedback. I will not require each of the prompts listed above to be answered, but we’ll work to grow our abilities of self-reflection through the semester. These individual assessment reflections with assist with our weekly reflections, which will in turn prepare students for their grade pitches. With consistent reflection, the grade pitch should be less stressful or foreign and students will have plenty of material to draw from.

(The example above is for a prompt on analyzing characterization in a novel. I will not be starting the year with a rubric with so many Learning Targets, but I would aim to work up to one that looks like this.)

ITERATIONS AND CONSIDERATIONS

This has been a journey for me. Two years ago, I detailed my process in developing rubrics. Then, just over a year ago, I revisited my assessment practice in this post (which shows the genesis of the original rubric on this current post). I expect to see my practice change as I implement it and see what works and what does not.

I know the start of this year will be hectic. I will see one group of students every Tuesday and Thursday and another group each Wednesday and Friday; Monday is a fully virtual day for everyone. I plan on making probably six to 10 instructional videos a week, so I know my ability to balance very detailed feedback for each student will be a challenge. That is one reason why I grouped the feedback per Standard rather than per Learning Target: it gives me permission to not comment on everything. And truthfully, we should not be overwhelming students with too much feedback or copyediting.

Balancing everything this year will be new, so I left the flexibility in the Feedback Guide. I can also focus on different Targets across different assignments. Maybe in one constructed response analysis paragraph, I’ll want to provide feedback on claims and conclusions while in another I want to provide targeted feedback on sentence style. I can do this by only including those Targets or by listing all relevant Targets but limiting my feedback to certain Targets. Student reflection may engage with more than I had planned—and that’s okay!

MOVING FORWARD

I’m excited to implement this system beginning tomorrow (Tuesday, September 8^th) when my students return. In future posts, I plan to detail my plans on how students will complete their grade pitches and also share how future lessons, units, and assessments go. I plan to learn a lot as I go, but I hope the system I have detailed here gives me a strong start. As always, please reach out or ask questions (especially on Twitter @NAEmmanuele)—I learn from all those I interact with!