Day #1: Present orally to students: My husband Kevin has been having Fig Newtons® in his lunch every single day for 3 years and frankly, is getting sick of it. He asked if I would pick up some chocolate chip cookies for him on my next trip to the grocery store. Last night I was at the grocery store looking in the cookie aisle and saw that there are many different brands of chocolate chip cookies. I had no idea which type was best, so I bought them all. I need your help today in determining which cookie is best. Let's brainstorm qualities by which we can judge these cookies. (Students brainstorm qualities.) Now let's pick the most important qualities from our brainstormed list. (Students will tend to choose 3 or 4 overall qualities which encompass many items on their list. This can be an excellent sorting and classifying activity). Let's take one quality, size for instance and describe the best of all possible sizes a cookie could be (students brainstorm, "Bigger than the size of this bowl." pointing to a bowl on the shelf in the classroom. "No. Bigger. How about..." This conversation continues until the class reaches consensus). OK, if this is the best size of a cookie, how can we describe it? (Students arrive at finding the diameter or circumference of an object they have chosen.) If this is the best, what is the least desirable size a cookie could be? (Students go through same process and then define levels in-between best and least desirable. This procedure is used for creating a scale for all categories the students choose). Tonight I will type up your ideas on a spreadsheet and we will use this system you have created for assessing these chocolate chip cookies tomorrow. Day 2: Presented orally to students: Here is the criteria you came up with to assess these chocolate chip cookies. This form has a special name called a "rubric". A rubric is a set of rules to give direction to the scoring of a task or activity. Today we are scoring the chocolate chip cookies using this rubric. (Students are given the rubric and a form on which to record their cookie scores. Students are then asked to determine which cookie is best, based on the scores the cookies receive. Students are asked to write a letter to "Kevin" discussing their findings.) Day 3: The teacher can then introduce the Exemplars rubric and show students how this rubric can be used to assess their mathematical problem-solving responses the way they used their cookie rubric to assess the chocolate chip cookies.
The purpose of the activity is to introduce the concept of using a rubric as a tool for assessment. This was a high interest activity undertaken during the second week of school, which provided students with experience participating in the development and use of an assessment form new to most of them. Since the cookie test rubric was developed by the students, most were able to internalize the process and actually utilize the rubric to evaluate several varieties of cookies. The universal appeal of chocolate chip cookies and the direct relation to the reality of student lives (and lunches) made the task accessible and enjoyable to all students. The development of the rubric helped students to quantify the quality of "good" which they often apply to their work and was a concrete introduction to the Exemplars rubric. As a whole group the class brainstormed the qualities of a good chocolate chip cookie, recording ideas on chart paper. They then decided which qualities were actually related (chocolate taste, yummy and sweet can all be combined into one category, taste). The two times I have done this activity with students resulted in the same four general categories; texture, taste, number of chocolate chips and cookie size. Other teachers who have done this activity have shared that their classes decided on similar categories. Once the criteria/categories were decided, we broke down each criteria into different levels starting at either the optimum level, or at the lower end of the range. The rubric my class developed had four levels for each criteria, but certainly a variety of levels could be appropriate. I took the charts from our class discussions and transferred the criteria to a spreadsheet with boxes for each level of performance. The next day we used the rubric to taste test five brands of cookies and recorded the results. Three or four, 30-minute periods One period each for developing criteria, taste testing and summarizing results. Students wrote letters to my husband Kevin discussing their findings. A lesson on marketing strategies and advertising could be an extension. Following this activity, students designed a rubric to assess a travel brochure they were doing as a geography project. Other mathematics task extensions may include determining the typical size or number of chocolate chips in a certain brand cookie. This would require students collect, organize and analyze data and draw conclusions. Once the students have developed the rubric, provide several practice examples. "If I bite into the cookie and it crumbles, what level will it score for texture?" This is especially important for students who have had little experience with rubrics. A colleague who did this activity with her students developed a chart for students to record their findings as they conducted the test. Requiring students to design a record keeping method could also be an additional component to the problem. Results could also be compiled and analyzed in graph form.
- Chart paper
- Markers
- Napkins
- Variety of cookies to sample (in-store baked brands are nice to include)
- Rulers
- Scales
- Any other measuring devices
These will vary depending on the class.
A Novice will not draw a conclusion, which is mathematically based. The student will neglect to use the data gathered to draw a conclusion, but will tend to exhibit an opinion. Little or no mathematical language or representations will be used to communicate and an approach and mathematical reasoning will be absent.
An Apprentice will attempt to communicate some aspect of an approach, but work will lack documentation of what the student did and the reasoning behind conclusions. Some mathematical language or representations may be used to communicate, but there will be severe gaps in documentation, so the reader is unsure what was done to obtain a solution.
A Practitioner will communicate an approach and draw a conclusion, which is mathematically based. Mathematical language or representations may be used to communicate, although it may not be precise or sophisticated. Evidence of correct mathematical reasoning is present.
An Expert will communicate an approach and will communicate that approach with rich and precise mathematical language and representations. The Expert will make mathematically relevant observations about the data and will have work to support effective mathematical reasoning.
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