Rubric Reports

Dear Parents,

With our first semester now completed it is time to share with you a snapshot of how your child is working and performing in the classroom. As you will see, these second quarter reports are much different from the narratives you receive after the first and third quarter. These reports provide a checklist of the various curricular areas and strands that are addressed in the classroom. Within each of these strands I am given the option of assigning a descriptor: Developing, Accomplishing, or Extending. The three descriptors are explained on the report itself.  They portray a general assessment of how your child is doing in relation to the SC Standards/Common Core Standards in each content area and are not intended to be compared with the A to F scale most of us are used to.

The intent of the Standards Based Progress Report is to give you an idea of what your child understands and is able to do according to the state and national standards.  These reports do not reveal a lot about how much your child enjoys learning, appreciates being challenged, adds to the class’ understanding of a subject, helps others with their school work, makes us laugh, captivates us with a written story or a tale told, contributes to classroom discussions, puts effort into homework or classroom projects, becomes amazed by a new discovery, or relishes the chance to learn and teach something new. However, the  Developing, Accomplishing, Extending  descriptors do reveal a practical sense about how your child is doing in relation to specific expectations. This represents only part of your child’s growth and change this year.

                Because there are sometimes questions that arise when reading these reports I am sharing a few answers I think may be of help. If you have any further questions please feel free to contact me.

               

How do teachers determine which descriptor (Developing, Accomplishing, Extending) to assign to their students? Are there tests?

Throughout the year we assess the kids in a wide variety of ways. First and foremost, we watch them closely and engage them in conversations about the work they are doing. As we do this we take notes to record what we notice. The primary purpose of these notes is to help us decide where to go next in our teaching. This allows us make certain that our teaching is not just pulled from a textbook but, rather, designed to meet the specific needs of the kids in our classrooms.

We also collect artifacts throughout the year. These artifacts include work samples, student reflections, and tests/quizzes. As with the anecdotal notes above, these artifacts help guide our teaching. This is in contrast to the idea of testing for the mere purpose of assigning a grade. Too often (including our own schooling when we were kids) tests have been things that come at the end of learning to assign a numerical or alphabetic value to progress. These scores generally helped to show where a student was in their learning but rarely, if ever, helped them to better understand the concepts and skills being explored in the classroom. Our intention is to use these scores as an opportunity to guide our teaching and classroom experiences. Therefore, tests and quizzes, while important for a variety of reasons, play only a small part in our assessment.

Are all teachers consistent in determining which mark (developing, accomplishing, extending) to give students?

Looking over student work and reflecting upon classroom experiences is an important part of our daily work with the kids. When it comes time to take these assessments and convert them into a value such as developing/accomplishing/extending it is often hard. The vast majority of the kids belong in the accomplishing category. However, there are many times when a student’s work and understanding seems to lie somewhere in between two of the descriptors.  How these are interpreted and recorded may differ slightly from one teacher to another. There is no way to make reports completely objective and expect that they are reliable. Even when creating report cards with numerical and alphabetic grades the process differs from teacher to teacher. This is evidenced when looking at class averages across similar classrooms. Some teachers grade harder, some grade easier. Some only assign grades to tests and quizzes while others assign grades to homework and effort in the classroom.  Comparing scores (from a traditional classroom setting) across classrooms is often like comparing apples to oranges. There are too many variables. That is why all of us remember at least one time in our lives when we were really elated or really devastated when finding out we had a teacher with a well known reputation for being easy or being hard.

Our narratives avoid this type of subjectivity and gray area by sharing in great detail all that we know about our students as readers, writers, mathematicians, scientists, social scientists, and community members. In place of a grade we provide examples of what they are doing to demonstrate their learning and capabilities. The checklist reports do not offer near the same amount detail but, rather, offer brief comments on areas of interest. These reports are intended to provide balance over the course of the year in terms of the type and format of information you are receiving on your child.

Ideally, is my child working to improve toward achieving an “Extending” mark in all areas?

No. “Extending” is not the same as an “A” on a traditional report card.  Rather, it is meant to communicate that a child’s work is well beyond what would be considered the normal range for a student at his or her age. Many teachers assign a designation of “extending” in very few cases. This is very important to know. If a child receives a report full of “achieving” marks it does not mean he or she is just doing “okay.” It means that he or she is doing all that is expected and possibly even more.

My child was listed as “extending” or “extending/accomplishing” last year but now has received an “accomplishing.” Does mean that s/he is backsliding, slacking, or struggling?

No. It is common that a student in second grade could really demonstrate great ability to pick up new concepts and do exceptional work only to see his or her peers catch up the following year. These early and mid-elementary years see a lot of change over the course of just a year or two. Take reading, for instance. We started this year with a handful of readers who were not ready to tackle an entry-level chapter book. Many others in the classroom were just beginning to try these books but struggled through them because they were longer, had more characters to keep track of, had more complex stories than they were used to reading, and had vocabulary that stretched their decoding and word solving capabilities. Still, there were a few readers in the classroom who were quite capable readers. 

Fast forward to next year and you will find that this group of “high” readers will not appear quite so “high” any longer because the class will have worked to close the gap. Therefore, there will be some readers who are marked as “extending” this year but may be marked as “accomplishing” next year. They are still great readers, writers, mathematicians, etc. They just have far more company than they used to.

I hope this helps you understand these rubric reports. Look for them to come home this week. As always, if you have any questions or concerns do not hesitate to contact me!