Setting and Using Criteria

by Kathleen Gregory, Caren Cameron, Anne Davies

Setting and Using Criteria is chock full of practical ways to help teachers increase student engagement, learning and achievement by involving students in the process of classroom assessment. This book, written by three Canadian educators, shows teachers how to co-construct criteria with students using a simple four-step process and then how to use the co-constructed criteria for assessing products, processes and collections of evidence of learning. In Chapter 1, the authors also provide five different classroom models for setting and using criteria, and show how these ideas are adaptable to any classroom setting. In Chapter 2, there are ten ways to give students descriptive, specific feedback to improve the quality of their work, while keeping them engaged and focused on the criteria that lead to quality and success. To complete this powerful little book is a foreword written by Sandra Herbst that focuses on the power of these ideas to engage learners and increase achievement. The book also includes reproducibles for teachers to adapt to their own use in schools and classrooms.

This is the first book in the Knowing What Counts series. Other titles include Self-Assessment and Goal Setting and Conferencing and Reporting.

76 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[Joyce · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good ideas. Will try some.

[Niki · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Setting and Using Criteria" is a good "how to" for, well, exactly what the title says! The short, easy to read book was given to me at a recent professional development session by my school division. I particularly liked the first half of the book; I appreciated the guidance for setting the criteria list, how to have students sort and categorize it, and then turn that into a self-assessment checklist (met/not yet) for students. After reading this section, I immediately did this with a group of grade three students on a writing project and it worked fabulously! It was much less cumbersome than developing a rubric with them and it only focussed on the desired attributes instead of the "what not to do" attributes.
However, as a more veteran teacher, I found some of the suggestions perhaps a bit too obvious or even patronizing (i.e. telling how to record your numerical information from a rubric in your notes), but perhaps for a beginning teacher this specific, basic guidance would be more welcome.
Overall, I would recommend this book to any educator looking to tweak his/her assessment (and evaluation) practices.

[Brianna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book to help teachers learn how to co-construct criteria with their students to set clear expectations and show what is really important. This resource also provides helpful ideas to give students descriptive feedback and include things they are doing well and what they can work on to improve and meet criteria. There are also many practical examples that teachers can use to relate to what they are teaching in their own classrooms, and try to incorporate some of the assessment strategies that do not use marks. A great resource especially for beginning teachers who want to get off to the right start with assessment!