Chapter 8 :Criteria & Validity (by Wiggins and McTighe)

In this chapter, Wiggins and McTighe explain how important is for teachers to use criteria when they assess students in the classroom. Evaluating learners’ results is important for their learning. However, what is needed to assess is not just their knowledge, but also how they apply what they know in context. For example, it is different to evaluate activities with one correct answer and assessing open-questions activities. According to Wiggins, “clear and appropriate criteria specify what we should look at to determine the degree of understanding and serve us in making a judgement-based process consistent and fair” (Wiggins, 172), what is to say that teachers must be aware of what are the most important points they need to consider in students’ assessment.

The most complex issue in assessing students is when teachers evaluate not just items of yes or not questions, like multiple choice, but assessing students performance that can be demostrated in quiestions that evaluates real comprehension, quality or proficiency in a certain topic. In order to organize what to assess, teachers need to follow a rubric. This is defined as a

“criterion based scoring guide consisting of a fixed measurement scale [...] and descriptions of the characteristics for each score point”

(Wiggins, 173), therefore this rubric will evaluate and determine which points are the student’s strenghts and weaknesses.

In this chapter it is also emphazised the concept of validity, now as a challenge within the classroom. As we know, the validity allows the teacher to determine how are students performing in the clase by basing in the scores. It also determine how effective the contents were for students understanding. However, teachers have to relate that evidence they get from the students with teachers’ criteria. Teachers need to interpretate how well students understood the lesson very carefully which makes validity a challenging issue. Besides, teachers need to be aware of how his lessons, activities or tests assessment will measure what is needed to evaluate in terms of students’ understanding.

Therefore we can conclude that developing an appropriate criteria is important for teachers to evaluate students performance by following the most important points which are organized in a evaluative rubric. Besides the concept of critaria can not be separated from the concept of validity, because in order to interpretate students understanding teachers must be aware of how effective the content was in comparison to what teachers expect from students.

Wiggins, Grant –McTighe, Jay. “Understanding by Design”. Chapter 8: Criteria and Validity. (2005)

Chapter 3“Gaining Clarity on our Goals”(Wiggins-McTighe)

In the chapter called “Gaining Clarity on our Goals”, Wiggins and McTighe focus on how to solve the mistake that teachers make when planning a lesson: "aimless coverage of content, and isolated activities that that are merely engaging (at best) while disconnected from intellectual goals in the learners’ minds"(Wiggins-McTighe,56). It means that teachers are constantly designing the lesson without having learning goals clear. In order to solve this problem teachers must be aware about the concept “Backward Design”, whose role is to help teachers to design the class content and the activity in a meaningful way, both aiming to the desired results. Taking a Cooking Class, the teacher must set the objective of the lesson, for example “in this lessons students will be able to bake a cake” which is what the teacher expect students to learn.

As soon as teachers understand the importance of backward design, they will start planning the lesson by identifying and setting the objectives of the lesson for the class. Teachers must know about content standards or learning outcomes in the class lesson. “[T]hese goals specify what students should know and able to do in various disciplines”(Wiggins-McTighe,60), therefore the objectives of the content or activity the students will learn or do respectively must be conected with what students will apply in a real context. For example, the teacher mentioned in the first paragraph teachs the learners about how to bake a cake. Apart from teaching the ingredients they need and the rules of baking correctly the teacher must be aware of how important is for students to learn how to do it if they want to work as bakers in the future.

One way to organize the content we will teach to our students is basing it on a prioritizing framework in order to compare the ideas that are wanted to teach and choose which are important for students to learn. Here the important issue is “to identify knowledge that students should be familiar with”(Wiggins-McTighe, 72). For example, in the lesson about baking a cake, students are not expected to know about the first person in baking a cake in the world, but they should know about how to bake it by themselves. In order words, teacher must prioritize the important information, abilities and concepts “that have connective and transfer power, within this unit and with other units of study on related topic” (Wiggins-McTighe, 72) that are important for students’ vocational training.

Wiggins, Grant –McTighe, Jay. “Understanding by Design”. Chapter 3: Gaining Clarity on our Goals. 2005