| The
logic of raising expectations through more purposeful, higher
quality work for students to do is transparent. Students who
rarely see an essay question or a higher-level writing task,
will be unlikely to graduate with good written communication
skills. What students are asked to do defines the depth of
the content knowledge and communication skills they develop.
District accountability for learning opportunities provided
to students means that teachers need some consistent guidance
in thinking about what it means to have purposeful, challenging,
and ultimately meaningful assignments and assessments.
In SERVE's
work with districts that were interested in helping teachers
improve the quality of the work assigned students to do, we
have developed "quality rubrics" as a starting point
for teacher reflection. Such rubrics are like guideposts.
Without guideposts along the way to help them, teachers may
not know how to improve the quality of their lessons, assignments,
assessments, and units. (To see an example of a rubric for
assessing the quality of a lesson plan, go to www.beaconlearningcenter.com
and go to Teacher Resources for the lesson plan template and
rubric.)
In addition
to a lesson plan rubric, teachers may also benefit from rubrics
that help them examine the quality of an assignment, assessment,
or unit. You will find rubrics on the following:
For further
reading:
More on Rubrics
Standards
of Classroom Practice: Defining a Vision of Quality in the
Classroom  .
This
article describes how the SERVE districts got started in
their thinking about quality work.
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