How Rubrics Should Drive What We Teach
Over the last couple weeks I’ve been working with one of the Phys Ed teachers at our school, and the two of us have been working on strategies to integrate inquiry-based practices and technology (two of the core goals of our school) into her Phys Ed program.
We’ve been tweaking a great football unit she designed last year, where students in grades 4-6 create football routines that incorporate core skills (throwing, kicking, running patterns, etc). The students develop, practice, peer edit and then perform these routines. The final performances are recorded, and this year, students will be recording voice overs on top of their videos, explaining and reflecting on their learning. These videos will then be uploaded to digital portfolios.
Today we were revising the rubric for the video, discussing what was the important learning that she was attempting to accomplish through the video and voiceover component. After we had revised the rubric, the Phys Ed teacher came to this conclusion:
“This rubric would have completely changed how I taught the unit”
What a powerful understanding.
Neil Stephenson
Calgary Science School
2 Comments
Steven
Tuesday, 6th October 2009 at 12:24 pm
I agree with you that rubrics are a powerful tool for teachers and students. So much so that a few years ago I set out to bring rubrics into the 21st century–developing Jeven — a system that use a special teacher created and barcoded rubrics to track performance. Together with a tiny 1 oz barcode scanner we sell, the system means you get all your information into a computer without any time lost to data entry. Check us out!
Tim Bray
Tuesday, 6th October 2009 at 9:00 pm
I really enjoyed reading this post, because I am trying to encourage members of our PE department to do the same type of learning with our students here at Korea International School. Thanks for sharing!
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