Initial Publication Date: March 27, 2013
Working with the InTeGrate Materials Development and Refinement Rubric
Why is there an InTeGrate Rubric?
The Materials Development and Refinement Rubric was developed to assist curriculum developers as they prepare materials designed to achieve the broad goal of improving geoscience literacy among all students, from geoscience majors to pre-service teachers and beyond. In order to determine what kind of progress we are making on that goal, we need to systematically assess not only geoscience literacy among students, but whether or not the materials we are designing are effective at teaching geoscience literacy. The rubric very specifically addresses the goals of the InTeGrate project as well as research-based guidelines for best practices in curriculum development. The sub-areas of the rubric outline the goals and best practices required of the materials. View the entire
Materials Development and Refinement Rubric (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 113kB Jan18 14) for detailed descriptions of each rubric item.
Sub-Areas of the Rubric
There are six sub-areas of the rubric:
1. Guiding principles of InTeGrate teaching materials
- Connect geoscience to grand challenges facing society
- Develop students' ability to address interdisciplinary problems
- Improve student understanding of the nature and methods of geoscience and developing geoscientific habits of mind
- Make use of authentic and credible geoscience data
- Foster systems thinking
2. Learning objectives and goals
- Learning objectives describe measureable geoscience literacy goals
- Instructions and/or rubrics provide guidance for how students meet learning goals
- Learning objectives and goals are appropriate for the intended use of the course/module
- Learning objectives and goals are clearly stated for each module in language suitable for the level of the students
- Learning objectives and goals address the process and nature of science and development of scientific habits of mind
3. Assessment and measurement
- Assessments measure the learning goals
- Assessments are criterion referenced
- Assessments are consistent with course activities and resources expected
- Assessments are sequenced, varied and appropriate to the content
- Assessments address outcomes at successively higher cognitive levels
4. Resources and materials
- Instructional materials contribute to the stated learning objectives
- Students will recognize the link between the learning objectives, goals and the learning materials
- Instructional materials should be sufficiently diverse and at the depth necessary for students to achieve learning objectives and goals
- Materials are appropriately cited
- Instructional materials are current
- Instructional materials and the technology to support these materials are clearly stated
5. Instructional strategies
- Learning strategies and activities support stated learning objectives and goals
- Learning strategies and activities promote student engagement with the materials
- Learning activities develop student metacognition
- Learning strategies and activities provide opportunities for students to practice communicating geoscience
- Learning strategies and activities scaffold learning
6. Alignment
- Teaching materials, assessments, resources and learning activities align with one another
- All aspects of the module/course are aligned
Rubric Scoring
Materials are scored against the rubric by three members of the InTeGrate assessment team. The reviews are then combined by the head of the assessment team and one final score (along with comments) is presented to the materials development team. Before materials can be implemented in classrooms, materials must achieve the following scores:
- A score of 100% must be achieved on the guiding principles portion of the rubric.
- Scores of 85% or higher must be achieved in each of the other sub-areas.
Materials are officially scored against the rubric at two points in the materials development process. The first time is prior to teams implementing materials in their own classrooms. The second time is after materials development teams have revised materials based on data collected during initial implementation in their classes, prior to making materials freely available as live web pages.
Materials may be unofficially scored against the rubric during checkpoints 1-3 to give materials development teams an indication of whether materials are poised to pass the rubric officially.
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