Using+Rubrics+-+Module+6

__**Summary**__ This science lesson for self-contained Special Education students using the jigsaw strategy was taught at the end of the Astronomy Unit after basic information had been given about the inner and outer planets. Students were assigned to create an original Power Point Presentation about a specific planet using a research guide. They were to include information about unique characteristics, historic exploration, and other interesting facts along with appropriate pictures. Emphasis was placed on choosing pictures that would match the information on each slide. Students were then to give an oral presentation of their projects to the class, which was videotaped for archival purposes.

__**Reflection**__ The lesson went well, although students required more teacher assistance than I originally thought. I believe that there is a good amount of learned helplessness with the students. I had some trouble with my assistant giving too much assistance to the student. She sat with Student #2 and reworked the whole presentation during the editing phase. The problem with this was that she did not follow the directions of having the students present bulleted information in phrases or complete sentences. This had a negative impact on his score on the rubric. Student #3 did not work very hard and insisted on copying out of the book despite many efforts by all of the adults involved to try and help her paraphrase information. She declared that she did not care what we said, she did not want pictures, and she was not going to change any of her information. This definitely resulted in a poor score for her. Student #1 worked very hard and only asked for assistance on his final edit in order to check his grammar and spelling. He used an electronic dictionary to correct his spelling before asking for help. I did modify the expectations of the assignment for the Autistic students who are not capable of following the rubric for the other students (Pyramid Planning strategy). In the future when I teach this lesson, I would break the skills down even more than I did this time. I think the students would also benefit from working in partners rather than working alone. I used modeling on the SMART Board while they had laptops at their desks. I believe this was an extremely effective assessment. The same information is very difficult for special needs students to show when given on standardized assessments. They have a difficult time analyzing questions and determining the correct answers from multiple choice options.

This is a copy of the original rubric that was used with this lesson (Sheet #1 of attached file) and the updated rubric using Rubistar (Sheet #2 of attached file).
 * __Assessment Tool __**

