Assessing Blogwork
(Post in progress, continued from 2005.)
The National Board of Professional Teaching Standards follows a model that asks candidates to describe, analyze, and reflect upon their classroom instruction through writing.
I once remixed a rubric into something more suited to blogging (both posting and commenting) building upon the describe/analyze/reflect strength behind the NBPTS format. (I need to find that rubric again.)
One key aspect of this model is there are no assumptions that “reflective” writing is better that “descriptive” writing. Blogs require a nice balance of all types of posts to strengthen the community.
Start with simple “community building” types of posts.
“I just landed a new job!”
Some posts go a little further to be descriptive.
“Did you see the goofy blogging picture in Edutopia? I disagree with the characterization and this is why…”
Others get deep.
“Here’s how I see filtering of content in schools, here’s how it impacts information literacy among K12 educators, here’s what people on the other side of the argument feel, and this is why I think they are wrong.”