I’ve learned that getting kids involved and invested in what they’ll be graded or judged on is a crazy powerful thing. Five years ago, I committed to implementing a 20% Time project into my Advanced Accounting course. It was a good deal of work to get it up and running, but has been worth every second that I put into it. The passion that students show for a problem that THEY have identified and a solution that THEY have chosen to come up with for that problem is amazing. In this process, THEY also choose the specifics on which they will be graded. I spend ample time talking about project management, goal setting, and the importance of the process instead of just the end result. This process includes an important decision about how they’ll be judged and evaluated...or in their world, graded.
The world of handing over decisions and ownership to students can be overwhelming and daunting...for many reasons. From a logistics side, rubric creation can be tough enough for teachers...let alone students. This is why I love Rubistar, a simple rubric creation tool that not only can teachers use very easily, but they can also put the creation in the hands of students. With this smooth tool, teachers can feel very comfortable turning the “judging” process over to the kids to let them have a voice in how they are graded.
