Rubrics and Rubistar Website

Rubrics are very important for teachers and students. Rubrics allow teachers to see how they are going to assess their students' work and they let students know what they need to do to get a good score. Rubrics not only improve scoring consistency, they also improve validity by clarifying the standards of achievement a teacher will use to evaluate his/her students. Another way to record assessments of students are with checklists. Checklists consist of a list of specific behaviors, chracteristics, or activities and a place for marking whether each is present or absent. In my future classroom, I will definitely use rubrics and checklists to asses my students' work so I can be a fair grader.
I love the Rubistar Website! The first time I ever heard about it was from Dr. Luongo in my Teaching Language Arts class. I've used the website to create rubrics and checklists for my lesson plans. The website is easy and convenient. It has allowed me to create various rubrics for lesson plans I needed to do for my Language Arts class and my other education courses. In the future, the wesbsite will make it is easier for me to create rubrics so that I can assess my students' work.

Fairnes in Assessment

It is crucial for teachers to be fair in various circumstances like punishment, testing, and more importantly, assessment. It is important for assessments to be consistent and valid. One concern about the appropriateness of assessments for certain topics is if the assessment is biased against certan groups. In the text, test bias is defined as a test used unfairly against a particular group of persons for a particular purpose or decision. In order to create suitable assessments, the teacher must clearly identify the important learning targets and be sure they are well sampled by the assessment procedure. Another good thing to do is to give students more time to demonstrate the type of thinking the teacher is trying to asses. When I am a teacher I will make my assessments fair to students with disabilities and students from different ethnic backgrounds. I will also make sure my assessments help my students reach their learning goals!

Learning Targets

Learning targets focus instruction and assessment, and they also focus students and teachers on the knowledge and skills intended for learning. Teachers and students become more successful when they focus on what they are doing. Learning objectives specify what the teacher would like the students to achieve when they have completed an instructional segment. It is important for students to be aware of the learning targets before they accomplish a task. Some learning targets can be extensive and others short sweet. Learning targets help discuss the goals with students, parents, and school administrators. They also allow teachers to talk about what is expected from the students at the end of the lesson. Learning targets are a great way to communicate to students in a clear and concise manner about what they need to achieve. when selecting criteria for learning targets, it is essential to make the clear and specific but not too specific!! Teachers need to identify the key points on focus on them to create a good learning target.