a sample scale.
Figure 1.1: Sample scale for generating claims, evidence, and reasoning at grade 8.
Figure 1.1 is a scale for the topic of generating claims, evidence, and reasoning at grade 8. While there are many ways to create scales and rubrics, I recommend the format in figure 1.1. It has five levels of proficiency, ranging from 0.0 to 4.0 with half-point scores. However, there are only three levels of explicit content at scores 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0. Score 3.0 is the desired level of proficiency students are to meet. Score 2.0 content is that which is foundational to score 3.0 content and is directly taught. Score 4.0 involves inferences and applications that go beyond score 3.0 content. Score 1.0 indicates partial success with help; score 0.0 indicates no success even with help. The half-point scores show the partial success necessary to achieve each score. (For a detailed discussion of proficiency scales, see Marzano, 2006, 2009a, 2010b.)
There are a variety of specific strategies that make the use of scales effective and efficient. These appear in table 1.1 along with brief descriptions.
Table 1.1: Strategies for Providing Scales and Rubrics
| Strategy | Description |
| Clearly articulating learning goals | The teacher clarifies learning goals that state what students will know or be able to do at the end of a unit or set of lessons. |
| Creating scales or rubrics for learning goals | Learning goals are much more useful when embedded in a proficiency scale (also referred to as a performance scale). Teachers do this by articulating a learning target for score 3.0, a simpler learning goal for score 2.0, and a more complex learning goal for score 4.0. |
| Implementing routines for using targets and scales | The teacher uses routines to encourage students’ attentiveness to learning targets and proficiency scales. A routine could be as simple as reviewing a scale or learning target at the beginning of each class, or it could be more complex and require students to explain components of the target or scale. |
| Using teacher-created targets and scales | After designing scales with embedded learning targets, the teacher uses them as the basis for instruction. For example, at the beginning of the set of lessons focused on a particular scale, the teacher might spend a class period or two on each of the score 2.0 targets. |
| Creating student-friendly scales | The teacher asks students to translate scales into student-friendly language. After the teacher explains the target, as well as the simpler and more complex learning goals to students, students work in small groups to create their own wording for the 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0 learning goals. |
| Identifying individual student learning goals | The teacher asks students to identify a personal learning goal that interests them and that relates to the teacher-identified learning goals. Students record their personal learning goals. |
Source: Adapted from Marzano Research, 2016ee.
Some of the strategies in table 1.1 focus on the creation of proficiency scales. For example, the strategy clearly articulating learning goals deals with the internal structure of a proficiency scale. In essence, a proficiency scale is a continuum of learning goals (also referred to as learning targets).
Other strategies deal with the use of proficiency scales for instructional purposes. For example, consider the strategy implementing routines for using targets and scales. One routine is to refer to learning goals on a daily basis and describe where the learning goals fit within the proficiency scale. A teacher might have the proficiency scale for a particular unit posted on the wall. Before she begins a lesson, she refers back to the scale and points to the precise element of the scale on which the current lesson will focus. She refers to the element of focus as “today’s learning target.” She then asks students to restate the learning target as an “I can” statement.
Some of the strategies deal with making proficiency scales more understandable to students. For example, the strategy creating student-friendly scales involves translating a scale into student-friendly language by having groups of students or the class as a whole rewrite score 2.0, score 3.0, and score 4.0 descriptors.
When the strategies in this element produce the desired effects, teachers will observe the following behaviors in students.
• Students can explain the proficiency scale in their own words.
• Students can explain what learning goal is being addressed in the current lesson.
• Students can describe how the current activity relates to the target goal.
• Students can explain the progression of content on the scale.
Element 2: Tracking Student Progress
With proficiency scales in place, the teacher can help provide each student with a clear sense of where he or she started relative to a topic and where he or she is currently. This is one of the most powerful uses of a proficiency scale because it allows students to see their growth along a continuum of knowledge. To illustrate, consider figure 1.2.
Figure 1.2: Student growth across five assessments on the same topic.
Figure 1.2 depicts an individual student’s progress on one topic for which there is a proficiency scale. The student began with a score of 1.5 but rose to a score of 3.5 over five assessments. Observing their growth on a topic is intrinsically motivating to students simply because people react positively to evidence that they are progressing (Hattie & Timperley, 2007).
Table 1.2 lists a number of strategies and activities that relate to element 2.
Table 1.2: Tracking Student Progress
| Strategy | Description |
| Using formative scores | Using formative scores throughout a unit of instruction helps teachers and students monitor progress and adjust if necessary. This is different from summative scores, which represent a student’s status at the end of a particular point in time. |
| Designing assessments that generate formative scores | To design assessments that generate formative scores for a particular proficiency scale, a teacher develops items or tasks that correspond directly to content in levels 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0 of the scale. |
| Using individual score-level assessments |
The teacher uses assessments that evaluate only one level of a scale (for example, only 2.0 content)
|
