Rubrics

Assessment is a fundamental part of the learning journey. It is a tool that allows students to know what is expected of them and helps them to achieve their goals. It is also a tool that allows them to understand how much they have developed and become proud of their efforts. Being a determinant factor in students’ lives (powerful enough to determine whether they move on to the next grade or if they will be able to enrol in the superior course of their choice) student assessment has the potential to impact them in a very meaningful way. Furthermore, students feel pressure from their parents, peers and teachers to perform well on their assessment, which altogether turns assessment into a stressful and impacting aspect of their lives.

Considering this, when talking about student assessment it is important to consider the following:

• Student assessment should be considered as a tool to promote learning and development and never as a tool for judgment and comparison.
• Assessing competencies is important and should be accommodated in schools.
• Students’ sense of self as well as their self-esteem, self-regulated learning, self-control, as well as interpersonal competencies are all influenced by their learning environment where assessment plays a big role.
• A positive student assessment can make the difference between a student believing that they are able to improve and develop a Growth mindset or not.

Growth Mindset x Fixed Mindset @ASSESS project

SYNAPSES aims to foster the creation of opportunities for students to develop competencies related to sustainability citizenship. Therefore, the project intends to offer teachers the means to assess whether their students are developing such competencies or not. Furthermore, it intends to foster a sense of citizenship and common values, which begins by having a positive sense of self. Therefore, a positive, meaningful, and effective student assessment framework is a fundamental part of the process.

The student assessment framework presented in here is based on and adapted from the one developed in the ASSESS project, which can be consulted here: https://assess.nuclio.org/an-innovative-assessment-framework. It is an assessment that calls for a mindset of promotion of diversity and equity in the classroom, competencies that are also integral part of citizenship and sustainability. It is based on rubrics that describe the achievements that are expected of the students, which are divided into indicators, each having descriptors of achievement valued from 1 to 5.

Example of rubric of competence development. ©ASSESS project

Assessing competences:

The competences integrated in the app and available to the SYNAPSES teachers are listed here along with a short description. These skills and descriptions were developed during the ASSESS project and were retrieved and adapted from Sanchez, A. V., & Ruiz, M. P. (2008)²⁸:

• Critical Thinking: “The habit of questioning things and analysing information before making a judgment. It concerns itself with the foundations on which ideas, actions and judgements are based.”
• Creativity: “Searching to find and form new and valuable ideas/solutions that make sense in different areas of life.”
• Interpersonal Communication: “Interacting positively with others through empathetic listening and through respectful, clear and assertive expression of what one thinks and/or feels, by verbal and non-verbal means.”
• Collaboration – Teamwork: “Actively joining and participating in the attainment of shared goals with other people, departments and/or organisations.”
• Problem Solving: “Identifying, analysing, and defining the significant elements constituting a problem in order to solve it effectively and with good criteria.”
• Diversity and Interculturality: “Understanding and accepting age, cognitive, sex/gender, social and cultural/religious (and all forms of) diversity as something that is personally and collectively enriching, coexisting with other people without incurring in discrimination.”
• Oral communication: “Expressing clearly and opportunely one’s ideas, knowledge and feelings in speech, adapting to the audience and situation to ensure good comprehension and attention.”
• Writing skills: “Relating effectively to others through clear written expression of what one thinks and/or feels, using graphic support as necessary.”
• Learning Orientation: “Being committed to personal growth and learning. Actively seeking to learn and engaging in learning activities and proposals, assuming learning goals as own.”
• Ethical Sense: “Being positively inclined toward the moral good of oneself and of others (that is, toward everything that is good or tends toward the wholesomeness or realisation of the individual) and perseverance in that moral goodness.”
• Project Management: Effectively planning, directing, evaluating, and monitoring a complex project, developing an idea until it is materialised in a service or product.

The complete rubrics can be found here: https://assess.nuclio.org/assessment-toolkit

Other competences that will be added to the app and promoted in Synapses are the Green Competences: The following competencies were adapted from the Green Competence Framework

GreenComp consists of 12 competencies (in bold) organised into the four areas (in italics) below. The descriptions are fully retrieved from the document. (Bianchi, G., Pisiotis, U., & Cabrera Giraldez, M. (2022). GreenComp The European sustainability competence framework (No. JRC128040). Joint Research Centre (Seville site).)

Embodying sustainability values

• Valuing sustainability: To reflect on personal values; identify and explain how values vary among people and over time, while critically evaluating how they align with sustainability values.
• Supporting fairness: To support equity and justice for current and future generations and learn from previous generations for sustainability.
• Promoting nature: To acknowledge that humans are part of nature; and to respect the needs and rights of other species and of nature itself to restore and regenerate healthy and resilient ecosystems.

Embracing complexity in sustainability:

• Systems thinking: To approach a sustainability problem from all sides; to consider time, space and context in order to understand how elements interact within and between systems.
• Critical thinking: To assess information and arguments, identify assumptions, challenge the status quo, and reflect on how personal, social, and cultural backgrounds influence thinking and conclusions.
• Problem framing: To formulate current or potential challenges as a sustainability problem in terms of difficulty, people involved, time and geographical scope, in order to identify suitable approaches to anticipating and preventing problems, and to mitigating and adapting to already existing problems.

Envisioning sustainable futures:

• Futures literacy: To envision alternative sustainable futures by imagining and developing alternative scenarios and identifying the steps needed to achieve a preferred sustainability.
• Adaptability: To manage transitions and challenges in complex sustainability situations and make decisions related to the future in the face of uncertainty, ambiguity, and risk.
• Exploratory thinking: To adopt a relational way of thinking by exploring and linking different disciplines, using creativity and experimentation with novel ideas or methods.

Acting for sustainability:

• Political agency: To navigate the political system, identify political responsibility and accountability for unsustainable behaviour, and demand effective policies for sustainability.
• Collective action: To act for change in collaboration with others.
• Individual initiative: To identify own potential for sustainability and to actively contribute to improving prospects for the community and the planet.

The assessment framework: https://assess.nuclio.org/an-innovative-assessment-framework/