Education Commons^™

Teaching And Learning In Stem With Computation, Modeling, And Simulation Practices, Alejandra J. Magana

Purdue University Press Books

Computation, modeling, and simulation practices are commonplace in the STEM workplace, yet formal training embedded in disciplinary practices is not as standard in the undergraduate classroom. Teaching and Learning in STEM With Computation, Modeling, and Simulation Practices: A Guide for Practitioners and Researchers gives instructors a handbook to ensure their curriculum bridges the gap between the classroom and workplace by equipping students with computational skills and preparing them for a rewarding career in STEM. Grounded in theory and supported by fifteen years of education research at the undergraduate level, this book provides instructional, pedagogical, and assessment guidance for integrating modeling …

Mathematical Mindsets: Fostering Student Engagement And Positive Mindsets Through The Use Of Challenging Tasks, Alison Hall

2021-2030 ACER Research Conferences

This paper explores the planned use of challenging mathematical tasks. These tasks provide the opportunity for students to improve mathematical thinking by working on problems that they do not yet know how to answer. This research involved a heterogeneous class of year 3 students from a Catholic parish primary school in the northern suburbs of Melbourne. A rubric was also developed to use in conjunction with these tasks, to support discussions with students, broaden their strategies in finding solutions and thereby improve their conceptual understanding. These pedagogical approaches were found to support the improvement of both students’ conceptual understanding in …

Operationalizing The Duty Of Care Through Rubrics, Emily Faulconer

Publications

Laboratory experiments are a key aspect of science education. However, they do have risks, and accidents do happen. Science educators have a duty of care, which includes duty of instruction. One tool that can be leveraged for duty of instruction is course rubrics. Including clear safety criteria in the rubric operationalizes the duty of care and allows students to clearly understand safety expectations and competencies. Specifically, the use of organizing schemes such as RAMP (recognize hazards, assess risks, minimize risks, prepare for emergencies) in rubrics can provide clear communication to students.

Student Perceptions Of Scholarly Writing: Student Generation Of Collaborative Rubrics To Score Scholarly Writing, Terri Enslein, Ed Kosack, Hanna Wetzel

Faculty Scholarship

Scholarly writing is an important skill in all fields of study. Despite a strong focus on writing in many courses, faculty and students have disparate expectations related to scholarly writing. Herein, a classroom exercise is presented in which students were asked to develop a rubric that would be used to evaluate their summative writing assessment. Students were provided with a list of elements that commonly represent good scholarly writing, asked to define what effectively demonstrating these elements looks like, and asked to assign the weight that would be given to each element. The weights given to each element by students …

Practice Habits Of Instrumental Music Students In Elementary School Vapa Programs: An Empirical Mixed-Methods Survey, Timothy Johnson

Doctor of Education (EdD)

The purpose of this empirical research study was to gain knowledge about the practice habits of elementary school students in Grades 5 and 6. Sixty-five instrumental music students served as research subjects. They were enrolled in the newly established string orchestra supported by the Fairfax Elementary School District. Drawing upon my empirical experiences and instrumental music training, I identified and examined practice habits affecting motivation to learn music. Data generated from five open-ended and ten closed-ended questions were analyzed and contributed to the findings from the survey. An examination of published literature also contributed to the collection of resource data. …

A Teaching Professor Attending A Conference Called The Teaching Professor, Kurt Debord

Title III Professional Development Reports

The Teaching Professor was a conference held in New Orleans, LA in June 2023. I attended sessions and became more informed about how to better engage my students in the classroom by using group-oriented techniques that demonstrably increased participant conversation during the conference. Using rubrics to improve student performance and speed grading time was discussed at length. Useful resources were provided in all sessions.

Is It Actually Reliable? Examining Statistical Methods For Inter-Rater Reliability Of A Rubric In Graduate Education, Brent J. Goertzen, Kaley Klaus

Leadership Faculty Publications

When evaluating student learning, educators often employ scoring rubrics, for which quality can be determined through evaluating validity and reliability. This article discusses the norming process utilized in a graduate organizational leadership program for a capstone scoring rubric. Concepts of validity and reliability are discussed, as is the development of a scoring rubric. Various statistical measures of inter-rater reliability are presented and effectiveness of those measures are discussed. Our findings indicated that inter-rater reliability can be achieved in graduate scoring rubrics, though the strength of reliability varies substantially based on the selected statistical measure. Recommendations for determining validity and measuring …

Student Interpretation And Use Arguments: Evidence-Based, Student-Led Grading, Ll Aull

Journal of Response to Writing

Assigning grades is conventionally the exclusive, lonely terrain of the instructor, even as other aspects of teaching and responding to student writing are collaborative. As an alternative that promotes student engagement and agency, labor-based contract grading is used in a growing number of writing classrooms. This article strives to add to these conversations by describing evidence-based, student-led grading as an option that engages students as well as a broad construct of writing. This approach foregrounds students’ own response to their writing, in the form of evidence-based interpretation and use arguments for their grades. It engages students in the process of …

Developing Rubrics Using The New Oru Outcomes, Kim Boyd, Trevor Ellis, Leighanne Locke, Terry Shannon, Rachael Valentz

Professional Development Resources

The development and examples of key program assessments (KPAs) are shared. Dr. Boyd opens the presentation. Dr. Shannon (B.S. Sports Management) begins by providing an overview of aligning program and ORU outcomes. Prof. Locke (B.S. Mathematics) walks through how current assignments were chosen to be used as key program assessments and then how the rubrics were revised to improve alignment. Dr. Valentz (B.S. Nursing) discusses how to improve the foundational alignment between program outcomes and the criterion (rubric row headings) used to measure them. She shares how criterion can be contextualized in different assignments and demonstrates in Brightspace, by D2L, …

Artwork Assessment Is Not Bean Counting, Rouqayya Majeed

English Language Institute

Through its wide range of approaches, art teaching is the key that opens up students to healthy communication, where they are free to express themselves and enjoy the differences they find in others. While art is agreed upon as a subjective matter, the aspect of grading an artwork done within a classroom remains debatable. However, it is possible to develop rubrics that are fair yet subjective.

Evaluating An Open Educational Resource (Oer) Rubric, Mahalia Mehu

Open Educational Resources

A rubric can serve as an assessment tool of more than just a students work. Instructors can use rubrics to preemptively analyze how a given resource can aid in a students’ achievement of set course objectives. It can also serve as a way for instructors to find the necessary tools for them to guide their students towards achieving the set course objectives.

That said, this particular rubric aims to aid in the discovery, adaptation, and adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER).

Remote Labs For Automation Engineering And Technical And Vocational Education: Proposing A New Training Model, Ye Naung, Athipat Cleesuntorn

Journal of Education Studies

This research intended to explore the existing skill of automation, develop and implement a new online training model for automation engineering students who are working in the industrial automation engineering field to improve their professional skills, and lastly to evaluate the learning outcomes. This was quasi-experimental research. Two groups were performed with the use of a pre-test and post-test to compare the results of skill evaluation tests of two groups of students. Twenty working persons who have been working in the industrial automation-engineering field in Singapore were selected as samples and were grouped into two groups: the control group and …

Flexibility Is Key: Co-Creating A Rubric For Programmatic Instructional Assessment, Maya Hobscheid, Kristin Kerbavaz

Communications in Information Literacy

This paper describes a project undertaken at Grand Valley State University in which a co-creative model was used to develop a rubric for assessing student learning in library instruction. It outlines the design process as well as the training and support provided throughout implementation. It concludes with the authors’ reflections on the successes and challenges of the process and provides recommendations for future projects.

The Effects Of Formative Feedback And Assessment Tools On Writing Proficiency And Motivation In Elementary Classrooms, Amy Anderson, Beth Horihan

Masters of Arts in Education Action Research Papers

This action research aimed to determine the effects formative feedback and rubrics play on student motivation and proficiency levels in writing. This four-week intervention took place in a suburban 1st-grade classroom and an urban 3rd-grade classroom through whole group and small group instruction, collaborative conversations, student reflections, and student attitude inventories. Data was collected through the use of pre-and post-intervention writing attitude surveys. In addition, a pre-intervention, rough draft, and final draft writing sample that the teacher and student graded was utilized. Finally, data were collected during small group, reflective conversations involving student understanding and application of rubrics alongside writing …

Formative Assessment To Help Students Decode, Process, And Evaluate Social Studies Information, Cory Callahan

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

Here the author explores formative assessment within a context of research-based social studies instructional approaches. While the notions of inquiry, alternative assessment, disciplinary thinking and interpretation, and using visual documents as powerful resources each provide an important element of conceptual structure, this article purposefully concentrates on the process of constructive evaluation. The author posits a wise-practice routine for developing formative assessment practices that cohere with criteria-based assessment and its tendency to describe what students did well, what they could have done differently to improve their recent academic performance, and, importantly, how they can improve subsequent academic performance. The article also …

Rubrics - Creating Transparency For Effective Teaching And Learning, Seamus Harrington

Other Resources

No abstract provided.

Defining Feedback: Understanding Students’ Perceptions Of Feedback In The Introductory Communication Course, Drew T. Ashby-King, Raphael Mazzone, Lindsey B. Anderson

Journal of Communication Pedagogy

Feedback is an essential part of the teaching/learning processes. This statement is especially true in the introductory communication course where students receive feedback throughout the presentational speaking process. This paper explores how students define useful feedback based on 1,600 qualitative questionnaires that asked students about their perceptions of feedback. A thematic analysis of a randomly selected subset of 163 responses uncovered two themes: (1) feedback content characteristics (e.g., specific, constructive, praiseworthy, and purposive) and (2) process of instructor-provided feedback (e.g., iterative, timely). Based on these findings, a set of best practices for providing feedback is offered as a means to …

Rubrics That Systematically Identify Areas For Improvement, Judy R. Wilkerson, W. Steve Lang

University of South Florida (USF) M3 Publishing

Commonly used analytic and holistic formats for rubrics have significant limitations in their potential to yield meaningful feedback to students. This inhibits students’ potential to improve their work. Consistent with the recommendation of the Gordon Commission for the Future of Assessment in Education that the focus of assessment shift from accountability to improvement, this research presents one easily-implemented step toward that goal. An alternative rubric format that is designed to provide meaningful feedback to students in order to trigger necessary learning and improvement is illustrated, and feedback from students on its utility is documented. The alternative rubric format, which focuses …

Rubrics And Teamwork Development In Online Higher Education Business Courses: Exploring The Connection, Maureen Snow Andrade, Jill Jasperson, Ronald Mellado Miller

International Journal for Business Education

Effective teamwork is important in higher education business courses to prepare students for future professional contexts. Learning outcomes resulting from teamwork include motivation, knowledge retention, deep learning, critical thinking, and professional competency development. Effective teams typically work toward a common goal. When teams know what that goal is, they can collaborate and share their skills to achieve it. Instructors can assist in this process by making assignment goals clear through the use of rubrics that outline assignment expectations and by providing feedback to help students achieve the goals. This study examined the use of teamwork and rubrics in three different …

Teaching Candidates To Assess Student Learning: A Covid Collaboration With Arts And Sciences Faculty, Nancy B. Ruppert, Jessica Pisano

Current Issues in Middle Level Education

In the fall of 2020, due to COVID, our candidates did not have access to student work samples early in the semester. In order to learn how to assess student learning I reached out to an Arts and Sciences faculty who teaches a freshman course. The Arts and Science faculty was a former middle school teacher who was scheduled to talk about the teaching of writing in our methods class. We decided to add using work samples from her current students to provide an assessment experience. This exercise allowed candidates to create a one-point rubric, analyze student work, give feedback, …

Teaching Second-Grade Students To Write Expository Text, Angenette Cox Imbler

Theses and Dissertations

Writing is necessary to participate in public discourse. Much of today's communication is based on information, yet many students do not adequately learn how to write expository text. Learning to write is difficult, but expository text can be especially difficult as it requires knowledge of both a subject and special text structures. The purpose of this study was to give teachers a research-proven method for teaching students to write expository text and to give more information on how to evaluate students' writing. In this quasi-experimental quantitative research design, the expository writing of students before and after receiving a new science …

Implementation Of Rubrics In An Upper- Level Undergraduate Strategy Class, Herbert Rau

Southern Business Review

Herbert Rau, PhD, is an assistant professor of management and marketing, School of Business and Justice Studies, Business and Economics Department, Utica College, Utica, New York 13502.

Using Rubrics And Self-Monitoring With Young Children, Jackie White

Master's Theses & Capstone Projects

This action research project studied the effects of using rubrics with preschool children. Research has shown the benefits of using rubrics with older students. This research project studied the effects of the Teaching Strategies Gold name-writing rubric with preschool-aged children. The literature review shows that young children are capable of metacognitive awareness to determine what needs to be learned. Rubrics can be implemented to aid students in evaluating their progress toward a learning goal. One group of preschool-aged children, three- to five-years of age, used the name-writing rubric to monitor their progress toward independently writing their name and was compared …

Fors 411: Forensic Comparative Analysis – A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Larry Barksdale

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This benchmark portfolio presents my work in reworking the goals, objectives, course design, teaching methods, student assessments, and learning outcome assessments of the undergraduate Univeristy of Nebraska-Lincoln core course FORS 411: Forensic Comparative Analysis. It reflects my application of the backward design concept of thinking about and identifying the desired outcomes of the course, what the students need to learn, and designing instruction and evaluations to directly address the outcomes [3]. My goal for the course is to embed in the intellectual framework of students an analytical orientation for understanding use of pattern evidence as viable information for the valid …

Concept Mapping As A Mechanism For Assessing Science Teachers’ Cross-Disciplinary Field-Based Learning, Joanna K. Garner, Avi Kaplan, Stephanie Hathcock, Bradley W. Bergey

Publications and Research

Two common goals of science teacher professional development (PD) are increased content knowledge (CK) and improved readiness to teach through inquiry. However, PD assessment challenges arise when the context is structured around inquiry-based, participant-driven learning, and when the content crosses scientific disciplines. This study extended the use of concept mapping as an assessment tool for examining changes in the content knowledge of 21 high school science teachers who participated in a field-based environmental science summer institute. The scoring rubric focused on documenting concepts, links, and map organization and scope in an attempt to capture development of cross- disciplinary knowledge in …

Designing Rubrics For Authentic Assessment, Kathryn Richardson, Anne-Marie Chase

Dr Anne-Marie Chase

This presentation looks at the steps in developing authentic rubrics, from determining the constructs that will be assessed; breaking down the constructs into a set of broad capabilities that need to be observed; transferring capabilities into indicative behaviours (indicators or criteria); and determining the different levels of proficiency.

Implementing New Strategies In Flan 312: Pedagogies In Foreign Language Teaching, Valerie Morgan

Q2S Enhancing Pedagogy

FLAN 312 is a pedagogy course that will be offered during the semester system as WLL 3112. The ACUE course provided evidence-based teaching practices which were examined to improve on FLAN 312 as the campus transitions to a semester system. Several strategies were tested in class or developed for subsequent classes. They include aligning assignments with learning objectives and creating transparent assignments, developing rubrics and checklists, and using large group activities to encourage collaboration and discussions.

A Rubric Guide For New Academics, Pearlean Chadha, Louise Lynch, Barry Nevin, Edmund Nevin, Anushree Priyadarshini

Practitioner Research Projects

Early career academics entering Higher Education face many challenges. The demands of a new work environment – particularly a third-level institute – can lead to struggles for identity and purpose together with uncertainty of how to fit into a new role (Archer, 2008; Houston, Meyer, & Paewai, 2006). The importance of supporting new academics is identified by many authors including Adcroft and Taylor (2013) and Sadler (2012), and is a crucial issue where assessment of student performance is concerned. Assessment is a major driver of student learning, and scholars have extensively documented the importance of constructively aligning assessment types to …

Towards Engaging Students In Curriculum Transformation: What Are The Effective Characteristics Of Rubrics?, Anthony Williams, Maria T. Northcote, Jason K. Morton, Jack Seddon

Maria Northcote

Rubrics are tools commonly used by educators to accurately and consistently mark student assessments and communicate achieved learning outcomes. The teachers, having a clear understanding of the assessment's intended learning outcomes, have traditionally constructed rubrics; however, an enhanced shared understanding of an assessment’s outcomes has the potential to be achieved if rubrics are developed as a collaboration between staff and students. Such practices provide potential for assessment, and its subsequent feedback, to be more highly valued by students not simply as an end-point, but rather as an opportunity for them to be active in their own learning, this becoming a …

One Team’S Journey With Irubrics, Danan Myers, Amy Peterson, Angela Matthews, Miguel Sanchez

Current Issues in Emerging eLearning

This study explains the process of incorporating electronic grading rubrics into multiple sections of one Digital Literacy course at one online university. Researchers share their experience transitioning from paper rubrics to electronic iRubrics linked directly into each assignment, a process that involved evaluating existing course rubrics, revising them to align with assignments and institutional learning outcomes (ILOs), running pilot courses using the automated iRubrics tool, and training faculty on the use of these new rubrics and the iRubrics tool. The experiences suggest that using iRubrics instead of paper rubrics can significantly increase the efficiency of grading and offer quick access …