Bresciani+Journal+4

While visiting my classroom I was able to observe the students giving presentations on the Presidents of the United States. Each student was assigned a President. Next, the students were asked to complete a worksheet regarding the President’s date of birth/death, the years that they served in office, their political view, the name of the President’s wife/family members, and five interesting facts about the President. The students were also asked to complete a timeline of 10 specific events that occurred during the President’s term of office. Lastly, the students were asked to make a puppet of their President, and present to all of their newly acquired information to the class.

The presentation was not timed, and the teacher sat in the back of the classroom to assess the students. The students were assessed on a 15 point rubric. The rubric consisted of three different areas of grading including accuracy of facts, neatness/clarity, and whether or not the students followed directions. This rubric did assess the main points of the project, however, there were three parts of this assessment that I disagreed with.

First, I did not find it helpful that the student did not receive a copy of the rubric prior to the presentation. Therefore, the students were only basing their project off of the directions. Thus, the student did not have a clear idea towards what the teacher was looking for in terms of grading. I believe it’s always fair for the students to have a copy of the rubric so that they are better able to understand what the teacher is looking for as far as grading.

Next, I did not agree with the aspect of the rubric titled “neatness/clarity”. The rubric simply stated “neatness/clarity” with no explanation below. Therefore, what the students might see as neatness/clarity may be different then what the teacher sees as neat at clear. I believe that the rubric should have better described neatness/ clarity so that the students did not have any misunderstandings.

Lastly, although this project did have intentions of teaching the children basic facts about the Presidents of the United States, simply creating a puppet and presenting the information to the class does not seem completely authentic. A lot of times when the teacher would say “Very good Johnny, how did you go about making your puppet?” the student would say “Well I drew the face and my mom helped me put on all of the clothes and decorations and she also helped me find the book to answer the questions” This shows that students heavily rely on their parents to complete their “at home projects” which takes away from the students comprehension. Although this project was interesting and involved creativity, the rubric and authenticity of the assessment are questionable.