To Rubric or Not To Rubric, That is the Question

This past Thursday, David Theune came to my Teaching With Technology class to talk about student motivation for excellent work. In particular, he spoke about the rubric model and the audience model. Theoretically, rubrics offer students some sort of scaffolding for excellent work, but Theune argued that this is often not the case in real life. He argued that rubrics were often harmful because students at different points of mastery would look at the rubric and think one of two things: This is impossible, where do I even begin? or This is easy, I can crank it out in an hour. In either situation, the student doesn’t put in a lot of effort, and as a result, doesn’t not learn a great deal. Additionally, he argued that rubrics encouraged convergent thinking – everyone gets the same rubric, so everyone churns out the same essay.

Theune argued that we should stop thinking about rubrics and start thinking about audience. He argued that people do better work when they know that someone (other than the teacher, who, let’s face it, basically isn’t a real person) will see it. Theune mentioned different audiences students might have, such as parents, peers in a different district, younger students in the same district, and the world at large, and he discussed the benefits of each audience. For example, in inviting parents into the classroom, we would strengthen family-school connections. In having our students present to younger students, we would give them the opportunity to teach, which both helps them learn their material and gives them the chance to feel like rock stars. My particular subject matter lends itself more to some audiences than others. Many of my students will have parents who don’t speak any Spanish, and who would be less likely to attend a performance in my class than an English-language class. However, a pen-pal or skype-pal with a native Spanish speaker could really motivate my students to improve their speaking and/or writing skills. After all, nothing pushes you to get better at communication than having something to say and someone to say it to.

I agree with Theune that students are unlikely to turn in shoddy or perfunctory work if they know that someone who matters to them will see it. This takes care of the I can crank it out in an hour students. However, it doesn’t address the students who thing This is impossible, where do I even begin? Students are unlikely to turn in shoddy work, yes, but a perfectionist or a student who feels lost may simply turn nothing in at all. For evidence, see this very blog, which I have posted nothing on all summer and all of September. For many students, taking away the rubric and giving them an audience may be the equivalent of throwing them into the deep end and then posting the results on youtube. They might be so terrified of being laughed at by their pen-pal that they don’t write to them at all.

Another issue raised in class was the viability of inviting parents into the classroom during the workday to watch their kids perform poetry or read essays. Many parents work one or more jobs and would be unable to attend anything during the day. This could make students whose parents couldn’t come feel less motivated than their peers whose parents could make it to the performance. A possible solution to this problem could be to videotape the event and make it available to all of the parents, either online (those without home computers could watch it at a library) or on dvd’s. Another solution could be to alternate, and have one workday event each semester and one after-school or weekend event each semester, to give more parents a fighting chance of attending something.

I would make a special effort to try to get parents who speak Spanish into the classroom. Particularly in the upper-level Spanish courses, I would invite Spanish speaking parents to talk about a subject of their choice, which would not only strengthen family-school connections, but would also give my students a chance to get authentic Spanish input and to learn about an interesting topic to boot. Parent presentations in Spanish would potentially touch on 4 of the 5 C’s of language teaching: Communication (listening comprehension and question asking in the target language), Connections with other disciplines (using the target language to talk about the topic of the parent’s choice), and Communities (using the target language in the community, and not just for schoolwork), as well as potentially Culture, depending on whether the parent chooses to speak about a cultural topic.

In the end, I think Theune had some great ideas, but I don’t think that one has to see rubrics and audiences as either/or. Many students could be helped by rubrics, which serve as scaffolding for students who don’t know where to begin, while their audience would push most students to perform beyond a perfunctory checking off of each requirement. And yet, I wonder what to do for the student who is afraid to perform. Any suggestions?