Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics, Grades K-12: 14 Teaching Practices for Enhancing Learning (Corwin Mathematics Series)

by Peter Liljedahl

4. Reduction in Language The fourth visible difference is the absence of language in the middle column. When we were working with three-column rubrics with language in each column, the students treated each column as a discrete level of the competency being evaluated. So, when they were asked to self-evaluate their group’s competency, they highlighted their performance as fitting in one of the three columns (see Figure 12.4). This is how they had been evaluated on four-column rubrics, so it made sense that they would do the same on a three-column rubric. When we removed the language in the middle column, however, their way of self-evaluating completely changed. Students no longer thought of the rubric as a collection of discrete levels, but rather as a continuum with the first and third columns acting as endpoints, and the way they highlighted reflected this (see Figure 12.5). Even students who had previously used three-column rubrics for self-evaluation almost seamlessly switched to seeing this as a continuum. Students no longer thought of the rubric as a collection of discrete levels, but rather as a continuum.