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Developing Evaluation Criteria for Quality Student Work —
Jorge Perez

Student presents her work

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Background

Spanish 440, Roundabouts of Culture: Transatlantic Encounters in Hispanic Studies, is a pilot course my department intends to include in the curriculum. Traditionally, Departments of Spanish and Portuguese have taught two separate courses on Spanish and Latin American Culture. The idea for this new course as a crossover stems from the current trend toward a transatlantic understanding of Hispanic culture to overcome old hierarchies and disciplinary boundaries (see course syllabus). Since the course covers a wide range of topics, it leads to relying too much on lecturing. I decided to do a teaching project on strategies to make such a lecture-driven course more participative and interactive, so that students do not just sit, take notes, and memorize facts for a test. Specifically, I wanted students to develop an oral presentation as an important component of my class.

When I taught a Cultura course before, it had an oral presentation component. Although I thought this type of student work was valuable, I did not like the results. Most of the time, students picked a subject about a well-known facet of Hispanic culture and included no new information. Also, they tended to only use a couple sources, and those sources always came from the Internet. I am aware now that I was not giving students enough guidance to succeed in that process. I wanted to find a way to make this learning experience more meaningful. I worked on these issues as part of the Best Practices Institute (BPI) that was facilitated by the Center for Teaching Excellence. During BPI, I met with fellow KU faculty members to discuss teaching ideas that we each would apply to a particular course.

| Implementation

Implementation

I thought that one way of converting lectures into an active learning process could be to have students participate in the lectures by lecturing themselves. The class size was 16 students, so I divided the class into eight teams of two members. Each team had to choose one topic from specified content areas and one class period in which they would be responsible for guiding the class. The dates and topics of the presentations were already marked in the syllabus, so students had time to think about which topic and which date they wanted to do their presentation.

My task in this project was to provide the appropriate project framework by developing, with the students, these different steps of the process. This took place in six basic steps. First, I increased the percentage of points for the oral presentation. Second, I verbally explained my ideas in class. Third, the class worked with me to create assessment criteria, also called a rubric. Fourth, I drafted their ideas. Fifth, we discussed that plan. And sixth, we looked at the steps involved in the oral presentation as delineated by the rubric.

| Student Performance

Student Performance

Throughout all six steps in creating the rubric, I felt that students fully understood what I expected from their performance and what skills they were developing, such as research skills, oral communication, and the ability to synthesize information.

After several presentations, the results were very satisfactory. The students took the work seriously, did lots of research, and turned in an outline to the class before the presentation. The oral presentations were very organized and well structured. Students successfully integrated a wide range of materials from different sources and presented them in a very appealing manner through the use of handouts, outlines, visual aids, and PowerPoint presentations. Moreover, they succeeded in engaging the rest of the class in their presentations by raising questions for further discussion, leading a follow-up activity in pairs or groups, or presenting a final quiz to highlight the most important aspects of their presentation. All the presentation elements that we discussed as a class were met, and I thought their work was much better than it would have been without our preparation. I liked the way that the whole process became a collaborative event for the students.

| Reflections

Reflections

By having the students involved in creating the rubric, they internalized the elements of the presentations. Their participation made them aware of what they needed to do in order to create a successful presentation. If I am going to evaluate them on such a product, it makes a lot of sense to have them involved so that they know what to expect. It was very detailed and took time, but it was really helpful. I am considering using this format for oral presentations in other courses because it was so useful.

Not only did the students benefit, but I did as well. I think using the rubric made my evaluations more objective, fair, and thorough. Plus, it saved me time during that portion of the assessment. It was harder to draw the line regarding assessment in the past, and I liked having this document to help me with that. One concern that I have about this project is capturing the improvement that comes from doing it with the new guidelines. I know that their work is better, but it is difficult to provide any data, let alone empirical data, for an oral presentation. This is especially true because there is not a tangible paper product.

| Summary

Project Summary

Developing evaluation criteria with students for their oral presentations in an Hispanic culture class results in high quality student work.

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