Assessments in Journalism Studies 20 should reflect the range of students' learning and use a variety of information-gathering activities and strategies which allow students a range of opportunities to demonstrate their learning. Throughout this curriculum, teachers are encouraged to develop and apply criteria to assess students' performance, to develop with students a clear focus of requirements and expectations to guide their work, and to improve instruction and learning. In addition to conferences, observations, log books, project plans, portfolios of students' work, and anecdotal comments, consideration should be given to assessment and scoring tools such as checklists, rubrics, rating scales, and task-specific guides. A rubric is a set of criteria that describes student performance at different levels of proficiency. A rubric may involve a simple checklist or more categories of specific descriptors.
Rubrics help teachers score work more accurately and fairly.
Teachers are expected to make judgements based on the information collected and to translate these assessments into grades. Evaluative procedures and allocation of grades should reflect the expectations outlined in this curriculum guide and the time and effort devoted to each of the modules. The final grade received should be based on the quality of work completed in each module and reflect the weighting of the respective modules. Students should know the objectives for each module. A summary of weekly work can be itemized.