Self-Reflections: What makes a good self-assessment?

Hello Everyone,

Learning to assess your own work is very important. While it is great to get feedback from your peers and your teacher, the true superpower is being able to look critically and constructively at your work.

It doesn’t mean beating yourself up if you make a mistake! That isn’t helpful because it just makes you feel bad. Who is going to be able to do better next time when they feel bad?

But, it also doesn’t mean ignoring things you know you could do better for next time. You need to be honest with yourself. Being honest and critiquing your work doesn’t mean YOU are a bad person…..the work is separate from you as a person. You can always try to do better next time!

When I ask you to reflect using a rubric, I provide you with the basic criteria in the middle. If we were thinking of the proficiency scale you see on your report card, or on our class rubric, then generally getting all of the BASIC CRITERIA = APPLYING. You are fully able to do what I asked.

The “Evidence of WOW!” is EXTENDING, and it looks different for each person, because there are so many ways to demonstrate understandings or to show your skills beyond basic criteria. Not only can you apply the basic criteria, you are able to show sophisticated thinking about the project. Not only can you do what I asked, you are reaching beyond the understanding of the project and can probably teach someone else how to do the project!

The “Areas for Improvement” refers to DEVELOPING/EMERGING — and these are areas you want to work on for next time. If I say you are developing a skill, it is not a negative, it just means that is an area for your focus. You have many superpowers, strengths, and skills, and with some extra effort, this may become one of those new skills you gain from your learning and projects!

Let’s brainstorm together in class what kinds of things we would write on our self-assessments that belong in each column. That way, as we start to write our self-reflections for term two, we can all be thinking about these words in the same way.

Thank you,

Ms. D