Grading Differentiated Assignments with Ease

Debbie Willingham
Jan 18, 2010

One of the hesitations teachers have in making Differentiated Assignments is knowing that they need to be able to assess them all, often assigning grades. Sometimes we ask students to complete assignments with varying levels of support or challenge because of their readiness levels. Other times we give them choice in how they show us their understanding of a topic. If the expectation is not to get the exact same answers in the exact same way from each student, how can we fairly and individually grade them?

The answer is actually simple. Our assignments should be based on our essential questions, which in turn stem from the standards/indicators/objectives we want all students to learn. The first step is to list what content students need to have included when they complete the assignment. It may be helpful to look back at the assessment prompts used in initially teaching the content as well as to look back and pull from the list of "knows" on the K-U-D. Once we have a list of what students must show us they know through their completion of the assignment, we decide whether to group any of the items together, and each then becomes a category that will be assigned points on a rubric. These are usually listed on the left vertical column of the rubric.

The next step is to determine whether each category of the content students should have learned is of equal weighting. As the content expert, we know that some things we teach are more important than others, so we may decide that some things should be weighted double or triple the amount of others (put x 2 or x 3 by those).

Then we need to decide on the point values for the rubric. Most often teachers use three or four columns for assigning points (listed horizontally across the top of the rubric) dependent on how completely the student shows their knowledge of each content category. When deciding on the point value for each column, it makes sense to go ahead and assign a number of points for the first column that will equal 100 if a student were to earn the highest number of points possible. For example, if you have three categories, one of which is worth twice as much as the others, put 25 points at the top of the column. If a student earns all the points in each of the three categories, he has scored 100.

Then go to the last column of point values and think about the lowest score you will accept on the assignment. If that is, for example, a 60, you would put 15 points at the top of the column. If a student were to score the minimum on each category (15, 15, 30--remember, one category counts twice as much as the others), his grade is 60. It is then easy to assign in-between points for the other column or two on the rubric.

This now gives you the baseline for determining whether every student has mastered the content. No matter how they show their understanding (you may have given the choice of creating a brochure, a bumper sticker, or a poem), what you are grading is their knowledge of the content. For this assignment it is not neatness, color, etc. that is important so that is not included on the rubric. If the assignment is the same for all but you provide more support or more challenge for some students, they will have individualized their work based on your decision for support--but they will have all had the same content expectations they should have accomplished through the assignment.

Differentiating Assignments is good for all students, but it has to be doable and reasonable for the teacher. Using a common rubric for differentiated assignments on a common topic makes sense because of the common standards all students should master and the ease with which teachers can grade the assignments.

To learn more about Differentiated Assignments K-5 click here or 6-12 click here.