Assessment Overview
Week A: Teacher as Problem Solver—Team
 Knowledge-Building Assignment & Rubric
Weeks 4, 7, 10, and 13

Assignment Rubric

Goal: Build ESS knowledge as a team about the event described in the scenario.

Background: While Piaget helps us to understand that we are not blank slates, but rather creatures with rich and complex theories that we construct and reconstruct, a Russian psychologist, Lev Vygotsky, helps us to understand how we learn together.

Since we have theories, we need opportunities to make them visible and to examine them. Vygotsky found that we evolve our theories when we communicate them to others, and they respond with their own theories, connections to what they know, and feedback about what we believe--mirroring. These interactions provide a safe and yet challenging environment, in which the goal is knowledge-building through considering different perspectives.

To begin knowledge-building you need to know what you know and what you want to know--your questions. Work with your team to create a list of questions.

In the typical "go find out about it" method, learners are familiar with a traditional, formal, linear classroom approach where they find answers to questions posed by the teacher. This knowledge acquisition is teacher-directed and limited to what the teacher asks. The knowledge-building in this course is based on your questions and is limited only by your curiosity. In working together to develop a shared understanding, teammates: 

  • value multiple perspectives; 
  • ask each other for evidence for their ideas; 
  • provide evidence; 
  • actively make connections among the ideas; 
  • share responsibility for regularly summarizing information; and
  • generate more questions from team discussions. 

These are the signs of a successful knowledge-building community at work.

Also, the goal of knowledge-building in this course is not to find only the "right" answer, but rather answers that are most supportable with evidence. The evidence needs to support the answers and the answers need to explain the evidence.

Team knowledge-building results in more thoughtful answers, more powerful questions, and more confidence by individual members in their ideas.

Based on your questions, you and your team will determine "what you need to know" and will develop a problem statement to focus your thinking toward making your recommendations or solutions for the problem described in the scenario. Remember to post in Resource Space any new resources that are worthy of sharing as you come across them. Your team assignment will be assessed according to the rubric below, so you may want to refer to it while you are doing your assignment.

Use the directions below to complete your team knowledge-building assignment.

Assignment (by midnight Sunday)

Posting Instructions for steps 1-5
Go to the Classroom, then click on the event name (Volcanoes, Coral Reefs, Tropical Forests, Ozone, Global Change) you are studying in this particular cycle to enter the appropriate event classroom. Click on the Teacher as Problem Solver graphic.

1. Post a list of team-generated questions (PBL Step 4). This list of questions structures your team's search for evidence to help you make recommendations or solutions for the problem described in the scenario.

2. Develop a plan for how you, as a team, will answer your questions (PBL Step 5).

3. Answer the questions and support them with evidence.

4. Actively summarize and make connections between your teammates' questions, answers, and ideas.

5. Write a team problem statement (PBL Step 6). This problem statement provides the basis of the arguments you will use to build a model during the team assignment in Week B: Teacher as Model Builder. You will use the information you find to build your model to make your recommendations and solutions concerning the problem in the scenario.

Posting Instructions for step 6
Go to the Classroom to select the appropriate event classroom, then click on the Teacher as Problem Solver graphic.

6. Assign one team member to lurk in the other team's discussions to see how their ideas are developing.

Rubric
Your team Week A: Teacher as Problem Solver assignment corresponds to PBL Steps 4, 5, and 6. The rubric below assesses how well you do PBL Steps 4 and 5 in your effort to build knowledge as a team. PBL Step 6 is to develop a problem statement, which is a natural outcome of the work you do in Steps 4 and 5.

You can earn as many as five points for completing this assignment. You will automatically earn one point for submitting your assignment on time. See the Time Rubric. Use the criteria and indicators below to gauge your success in earning the remaining four points.

Rubric Criteria: Questions
4 Rating: A rich list of questions (profound and trivial) with contributions from all the members of the team. 3 Rating: Every member contributes a variety of questions to the list. 2 Rating: Question list contains a variety of questions. 1 Rating: Question list is limited.
Rubric Criteria: Multiple perspectives on each question
4 Rating: Multiple perspectives evident as all members begin to answer team questions. 3 Rating: Different perspectives emerge as most members begin to answer most team questions. 2 Rating: More than one perspective is apparent as some members begin to answer some team questions. 1 Rating: Perspective lacking because individual members answer only their own questions.
Rubric Criteria: Evidence to support answers
4 Rating: Answers and ideas are supported with detailed evidence from experience, research, and reading. 3 Rating: Answers are supported with some evidence from experience, research, and reading. 2 Rating: Answers are supportable. 1 Rating: No support for answers.
Rubric Criteria: Team member exchanges
4 Rating: Ideas show knowledge construction or insight beyond the facts to make inferences and draw conclusions through team member exchanges. 3 Rating: Ideas show knowledge construction with insight beyond the facts through synthesis of ideas. 2 Rating: Ideas show some knowledge beyond the facts through summary. 1 Rating: Ideas show knowledge acquisition and confirmation from more than one source for accuracy.
Rubric Criteria: Creation of problem statement
4 Rating: There is continual summarizing and making connections among all member ideas leading to the Problem Statement. 3 Rating: 
All members contribute to summarizing all member ideas and Problem Statement 		2 Rating: Some summarizing is done by a few members leading to the development of the Problem Statement. 1 Rating: Little or no summarizing of member ideas preceding the development of the Problem Statement.

References
 Piaget, J. (1990). The child's conception of the world. New York: Littlefield Adams Quality Paperbacks.

Piaget, J. and Inhelder, B. (2000). The psychology of the child. (Paperback). New York: Basic Books.

Singer, D. G., and Revenson, T. (Contributor). (1996). A Piaget primer: How a child thinks. Plume.

Vygotsky, L., Vygotsky, S., John-Steiner, V. (Ed.). (1980). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Vygotsky, L., and Kozulin, A. (Ed.). (1986). Thought and language. Mount Press.

Wertsch, J. V. (1988). Vygotsky and the social formation of mind. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

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