Reflect and improve your criteria and standards

Criteria and standards are not something you develop once and use forever; you'll want to tweak them over time, based on student feedback, questions from markers and from your own experience as you see how others interpret them. As you mark against your criteria and standards, keep notes for yourself so you can remember what needs to be tweaked for next time.

Points of reflection

We're all so busy that it's easy to forget the problems; keep note of:

1. Any criterion that doesn't seem to apply to the work students have actually submitted – do you need to change the language so students understand it better, or perhaps the criterion isn't relevant to the task you've set and needs to go? Do you need to revise the task description to make it clearer?
2. Times when you can't decide which level of performance or standards descriptor is the most appropriate – do you need to add more guidance within your descriptors? Or perhaps there isn't enough differentiation between the levels (e.g. between pass and credit) and they need to be rewritten?
3. Any vague or subjective language (good, adequate, high quality etc.) – ask yourself what are the specific knowledge and skills you are looking for, can you make this more explicit in the standards descriptors? This will give students a clearer understanding of your expectations, as well as enable a more consistent application of the standards between markers.
4. Criteria or standards that are interpreted differently by different markers – do you need to tighten up the language so your intent is clear? Do you need to have more discussions with the subject team prior to marking? Are students also confused as to what you mean?
5. Feedback that you find yourself giving over and over again – perhaps this requirement wasn't made clear in the task description, marking criteria and standards, or needs more focus in your teaching?
6. Any student work you think represents a 'typical' response at each level (pass through to high distinction). Read over these when you start revising your criteria and standards and write a list of what makes them a pass or credit or high distinction response. These elements will help you see what it is that you value in the students' work, and once you can identify them it makes it much easier to share this knowledge with your students.

Make sure you also capture feedback from other markers working on your subject as their insights will also help you improve your criteria and standards.

Remember, there is no such thing as the perfect criteria or standards; you will continue to tweak these over time as your confidence and understanding of this new skill grows. Yes, this tweaking goes on all the time – it is part of a continuous improvement cycle even when the skill is not new. Just keep in mind, one of the key benefits of criterion referenced standards based assessment is the self-assessment and improvement that students can undertake when presented with well-written criteria and standards. Try to think of the criteria and standards as a communication tool: they communicate to students (and markers) what you are looking for when you mark their work, and once it has been marked it gives students a clear indication of where they can improve.

Even if you won't be teaching this subject again until next year, reflecting on what worked and what didn't will help you develop new criteria and standards for the subjects you have next session. Your reflections will also be valuable to whoever inherits the subject next time it is offered. If you need assistance, involve others working in the subject, discipline or course, or call on an Educational Designer.

Watch this video to see how Jonathan Howard developed and improved the assessment task and rubric for BIO327. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQvNtc08t_E&t=292s

The slides Jonathan refers to are available here.

https://youtu.be/KQvNtc08t_E

You may like to use this blank template to start writing your own criteria and standards, and refer to the PowerPoint to help you get started.

Examples

With the approach advocated here, we are trying to avoid unhelpful, general descriptions that provide little guidance to students (or markers), and ensure there are informative descriptions to distinguish among performance at each level.

For example, consider these descriptors for one criterion within a marking rubric:

Can you see the problems with this rubric?

1. The language is vague, making the rubric mysterious and disempowering for the student, e.g. how does the student differentiate between 'good', 'thorough' or 'exceptionally high'?
2. The standards are too general, it is hard to know exactly what the marker is looking for, and in terms of feedback, the student cannot see what needs to be fixed.
3. The criterion is too generic and may or may not relate to the subject's learning outcomes.
4. The validity of standards is also questionable; should a student pass (ultimately a graduate) who has only demonstrated 'basic understanding'?

We can address these issues by providing clear and specific text in the criterion that links back to the learning outcome using action, content and context to format the descriptor. We can also extend the description in the standards to clearly indicate what is required for each grade. This removes the potential for confusion and misinterpretation by both students and markers.

Using one of the learning outcomes for a subject we have reworked the above criterion and standards to more clearly articulate what is being assessed and the standard required to achieve each grade level.

Learning outcome that links to this criterion - Be able to understand the different frameworks through which sociologists and human geographers interpret issues of inequality in society.

Information and workshops to help guide you are available here. You can also find some examples to guide you on the Example Rubrics page. If you would like to review your final marking rubric the following Self-evaluation form provides a number of questions that will help. For more information contact the QLT Assessment Leaders.