Hello Donovans,
There were many good beginnings in our class yesterday. Beginnings to tease through how to better attune to the constant assessment occurring in classrooms, beginnings to be more precise about constantly assessing our own work as educators, and beginnings to discerning more desirable assessment practices. So this essay in today's Washington Post is timely for us.
As you may have noticed, I do not use rubrics in our course. I don't use rubrics because I find that, in the context of a graduate course where I want you to stretch and we are not (yet) trying to demonstrate performance of flat abilities, rubrics create fake increments of ability and also set ceilings of possibilities. Your case study is governed more by 'enabling constraints.' You have to address a few key ideas, and there are some things you can't do (e.g., interview your sister), but beyond those constraints, lots is up to you. You'll also notice that the case study opens up design in ways that those who are proficient at, say, web design, are not pervasively privileged because not everyone has to do the same format. Accounting for that kind of variation strains any rubric, because it is harder to create increments across radically different formats.
Does this mean I never ever use rubrics? No.
Does this mean you shouldn't use rubrics? No.
It means that you should think rigorously about what any kind of assessment can afford, what you can tell about a student's learning from the assessment, and what you can't.
Keep thinking hard about assessments. Start logging, in your mind or maybe even on paper, where and how you see assessment happening through formal and informal conduits.
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