All of us, whether we are educators or students, are familiar with the percentages that are presented before undergoing a major project, task, or activity. It is our light house for the specific endeavor, and as students, we grapple with “what does teacher mean/want/expect?” for multiple hours before we get an idea on what to do.

For teachers, the creation of this combination of percentages, also known as a criteria, has been a mode to communicate their expectations. We launch it right after we explain the task to be done, either in a fancy presentation or just write it on the board, but after all is said and done, the outcome is the same. We present it to students, they have questions on their faces, and then we set them off to do it while hoping for the best.

Does it not make you wonder why we are always biting our nails when it comes to student performance? Was our instructions not clear enough? Weren’t we effective in the classroom that’s why students cannot apply the supposed learning? Did I forget to give them adequate examples? Did I fail as a teacher that’s why they failed?

The answer is no. Well, Yes and No.

No. No, because we can’t be too hard on ourselves. Our understanding of feedback and grading is on our own experiences in feedback and grading. We received grades at the end of the term, and that serves as our feedback whether we like it or not. The only other feedback we receive is through our parents, and through these parent-teacher conferences, our parents find out what we did well or what we did wrong straight from our teacher’s mouth. Now this will be echoed to us; we will be given either praises, nods, or tongue-lashings and reprimands, mostly out of surprise/embarrassment or combination of both, and then we get some more. No wonder we have viewed teacher as our enemy.

Taking a bit of time to reflect on my 3 years worth of experience as a teacher made me realize that I want to be more than this. A robot that teaches, passes judgments, parrots these judgments to my co-workers and to the students’ parents, and then submits a mark. There’s got to be something more than this.

Yes. Yes it is also our fault that student performance doesn’t meet our expectations. The first question that we should be answering is this: “Were our expectations clear enough?” Because how on earth will they meet them if they do not know it in the first place? You might tell me, but I did! I did tell them my exact expectations for the project, and it goes like this:

40% Knowledge and Understanding

30% Content Mastery

20% Creativity in Presentation

10% Audience Impact (because really, this has to be included, yes?)

An underneath our pride, we teachers know that this criteria absolutely makes no sense. What do we mean by knowledge and understanding? Isn’t that the same as content mastery? If I memorize the textbook from end to end does it mean that I have mastered it? If I mimed my whole presentation, that certainly has creativity, but the audience might not think so. How do you propose to judge this fairly, teacher?

And we answer them like any pageant. Of course, we employ the help of other teachers or great-performing students to use the same criteria to judge an activity, presentation, or report. Having three heads guarantee fairness!

Wrong. There is a reason why criteria is so very vague and why it is used for contests. Contests always have to have room for marketing and individual differences that affect scoring, whereas education has not — should not — have.

Rubrics, a clear good one, should be able to communicate what we want from the students. We must articulate what exactly and how exactly we want them to perform. Make a video to present the French Revolution. The Rubrics are: 5 points for Mastery of the Subject (insert description of what you mean by subject mastery):

5 – The group showcases all key and major events leading up to the French Revolution.

4 – The group shows most major events leading up to the French Revolution but is missing 1 key event.

3 – The group shows adequate major events leading up to the French Revolution but is missing 2 to 3 key events.

2 – The group’s research is evident but…

You get the picture.

By creating a clear rubric, it paves for clear communication of expectations, and by doing this, maybe, just maybe, after we present the mechanics of a well-thought out activity and the grading system, we can finally rest easy and trust that these students have the courage, ability, and rigor to self-organize, regulate, and produce the quality output that we have only since been dreaming of.