USING THE
KNOWLEDGE AND
THINKING
RUBRICS
This slide deck was developed by New Tech Network to
support the implementation of professional development
workshops. It is one of a three part series on best practices
for improving teachers’ ability to meet the goals articulated in
the Common Core State Standards for literacy.
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College Readiness Defined
Literacy Goals of Common Core Standards
1. Grappling with Complex Texts - Ensuring students are
prepared to handle the growing complexity of text found in
college, career, and daily life.
2. Using Text as Evidence - Ensuring students can cite evidence
to support positions and present careful analyses, welldefended claims, and clear information.
3. Building Knowledge Through Text - Ensuring students can
build content knowledge through text from different disciplines
and develop the reading and writing skills needed to learn
independently.
Focus Question
How do we ensure our students
are “prepared” using Project
Based Learning?
Three Essential Components
Individual
Written
Assessments
of
Knowledge
Rigorous,
External
Standards
Looking at
Student Work
Knowledge and Thinking Rubrics
Key Learning Partners
SCALE designs and develops performance assessment products and solutions for
states, districts and educational foundations. They are rubric experts- designing rubrics
and holding trainings for organizations from EPIC, to the Hewlett Foundation’s Deeper
Learning Partners (including NTN) and beyond.
Envision Learning Partners supports schools in developing systems of performance
assessments aligned with outcomes that matter. They created the original rubrics with
SCALE and continue to support schools in using rubrics and learning defenses to drive
deeper learning.
Getting Familiar With the Rubrics
Glossary of Rubric Terms
• Review the terms and definitions.
• Any questions?
Getting Familiar With the Rubrics
Review the rubrics.
• Look across the top at the score levels.
• Look at the titles and guiding questions for each
dimension (row).
• Follow one line of indicators (bullets) across the
score levels and notice the differences from level to
level. Note that this is called a learning trajectory.
• Underline a few words we may need to become
calibrated; words that might be tricky to define or
we might disagree.
Common Core and the Rubrics
Analyze the overlap between the Common Core
and the rubrics.
• Look at the appropriate CCSS.
• Examine overlaps and differences.
• In what ways do the rubrics align with the
CCSS?
Share Out and Reflect
• How do the Knowledge and Thinking rubrics
help you assess college readiness standards
such as the Common Core?
• What are your take-aways from exploring the
rubrics?