Assessing Inquiry

How do you plan an assessment when you want students to explore and investigate on their own? Process and content are two separate things that are not well suited for combining in test questions, but they can be combined in authentic assessment. Well that is right up my alley. I have done nothing this year if it hasn’t been creating authentic assessments of a multitude of types. We have had papers, tweet boards, trioramas, posters, time machines with brochures, and a variety of others.

Students still need to know what to do. Rubrics can be used to separate out the process skills they used to find information and the content skills to show what they understand. A clearly written rubric is a great tool for students to properly plan out their assignment.

I still find it hard to create rubrics when I would like to give my students choices. I have here a snippet of my government choice board. In each of these choices my students will be able to choose a topic we have learned about and dig deeper into the topic. There are a total of nine choices. The first time I did a project like this, I created an individual rubric for each. It was a logicistial issue to keep it straight with the students. I spent more time managing those paper than I wanted to. So this time, rather than rubrics, they simply have a list. I was able to keep the same layout as the choices on the front, focus on what is most important in each activity on the back. That way as students are choosing, they know how it will be evaluated. The projects tie directly to lesson essential questions.

I have not tried this yet with my class, I am hoping that the end result will be something that is clearer to them from the start and matches with my end goals for understanding the topic of our government. We shall see if this is an improved form.