E-Portfolio Rubric for HHS4C

Criteria
Overall Expectation A:
Research and Inquiry Skills

Overall Expectation B:
Theoretical Perspectives on
Development
Overall Expectation C:
The Impact of Norms, Roles,
& Institution
Overall Expectation D:
Trends, Issues, & Challenges

Level 1
Makes connections between
coursework and personal life,
and demonstrates growth
through the course to a
limited degree.

Level 2
Makes connections between
coursework and personal life,
and demonstrates growth
throughout the course to
some degree.

Level 3
Makes connections between
coursework and personal life,
and demonstrates growth
throughout the course to a
considerable degree.

Level 4
Makes connections between
coursework and personal life,
and demonstrates growth
throughout the course to a
high degree.

Demonstrates research and

inquiry skills (e.g. guiding
questions, research plans,
analysis of results) to a
limited degree.

Demonstrates research and

inquiry skills (e.g. guiding
questions, research plans,
analysis of results) to some
degree.

Demonstrates research and

inquiry skills (e.g. guiding
questions, research plans,
analysis of results) to a
considerable degree.

Demonstrates research and

inquiry skills (e.g. guiding
questions, research plans,
analysis of results) to a high
degree.

There are countless sentence

errors (grammar, word
choice, spelling, &
punctuation) that take away
from the flow and
communication of the EPortfolio.

There are many sentence

errors (grammar, word
choice, spelling, &
punctuation) that take away
from the flow and
communication of the Eportfolio.

There are some sentence

errors (grammar, word
choice, spelling, &
punctuation) that take away
from the flow and
communication of the Eportfolio.

There are few sentence errors

(grammar, word choice,
spelling, & punctuation) that
take away from the flow and
communication of the Eportfolio.

Uses a minimal amount of

theories, themes and
perspectives learned
throughout the course.

Uses a partial amount of

theories, themes, and
perspectives learned
throughout the course.

Uses a substantial amount of

theories, themes, and
perspectives learned
throughout the course.

Uses a complete amount of

theories, themes, and
perspectives learned
throughout the course.

Understands the impacts,

norms, and factors regarding
individuals, intimate
relationships, and parentchild relationships to a
limited degree
Understands the
demographic and social
trends, issues, and challenges
regarding individuals,
intimate relationships, and
parent-child relationships to a
limited degree

Understands the impacts,

norms, and factors regarding
individuals, intimate
relationships, and parentchild relationships to some
degree
Understands the demographic
and social trends, issues, and
challenges regarding
individuals, intimate
relationships, and parentchild relationships to some
degree

Understands the impacts,

norms, and factors regarding
individuals, intimate
relationships, and parentchild relationships to a
considerable degree
Understands the demographic
and social trends, issues, and
challenges regarding
individuals, intimate
relationships, and parentchild relationships to a
considerable degree

Understands the impacts,

norms, and factors
regarding individuals,
intimate relationships, and
parent-child relationships to a
high degree
Understands the demographic
and social trends, issues, and
challenges regarding
individuals, intimate
relationships, and parentchild relationships to a high
degree

E-Portfolio Rubric for HHS4C

Specific Expectations in the Curriculum:

A1. Exploring: explore topics related to families in Canada, and
formulate questions to guide their research
A2. Investigating: create research plans, and locate and select
information relevant to their chosen topics, using appropriate
social science research and inquiry methods
A3. Processing Information: assess, record, analyze, and
synthesize information gathered throughout research and inquiry

B1. Individual Development: demonstrate an understanding of

theoretical perspectives and research on various aspects of
individual development
B2. The development of Intimate Relationships: demonstrate
an understanding of theoretical perspectives and research on the
development of intimate relationships
B3. The Development of Family and Parent-Child
Relationships: demonstrate an understanding of theoretical
perspectives and research on the development of family and
parent-child relationships.

A4. Communicating and Reflecting: communicate the results of

their research and inquiry clearly and effectively, and reflect on
and evaluate their research, inquiry, and communication skills
C1. The Effects on Individuals: demonstrate an understanding
of the impacts of norms, roles, and social institutions on
individuals throughout the lifespan
C2. The Effects on Intimate Relationships: demonstrate an
understanding of the impact of norms, roles, and social
institutions on intimate relationships
C3. The Effects on Family and Parent-child relationships:
demonstrate an understanding of factors that can affect decisions
about whether to have and how to care for children, and of the
impact of norms, roles, and social institutions on family and
parent-child relationships

D1. Trends and Challenges for Individuals: demonstrate an

understanding of demographic trends related to the lives of
individuals and of the impact of social issues and challenges on
individual development
D2. Trends and Challenges in Intimate Relationships:
demonstrate an understanding of demographic and social trends
and issues to intimate relationships and of strategies for
responding to challenges in those relationships
D3. Trends and Challenges in the Family and in Peer-Child
Relationships: demonstrate an understanding of demographic
trends related to the family and to parent-child relationships and
of the impact of social issues and challenges on family
development

E-Portfolio Rubric for HHS4C

Assessment Strategy:
Ontario high school teachers are obligated to use backwards design when planning assessment strategies for a course. Backwards
design refers to using the curriculum expectations to create a cumulative assessment and then creating other assessments based on the
expectations that the cumulative assessment hits.
Being as HHS4C is a college prep course, thus less theoretical and more practical than a university prep course, we decided to use an
e-portfolio as the cumulative assessment for this course. Airasian, Engemann, & Gallagher (2012) state that the benefits of using an eportfolio are that students can work on them outside of school, it promotes media literacy, it uses various VAK (visual, audio,
kinesthetic) strategies (and therefore helps differentiate for all types of learners), allows students to feel a greater purpose for the
assignment (because there is a larger audience), promotes electronic feedback, catalogues what students learn, helps build experience
using online platforms, and provides students with a creation that they can keep forever, as the project will not sit on a shelf and
collect dust, and will be easier to access in the future.
We took the various steps to create our assessment plan, beginning with this cumulative task:
Step 1:
We decided to use an analytical rubric, rather than a holistic rubric. According to Arter and McTighe (2001), a hoslistic rubric is best
used to assess a simple product or process, requiring the consideration of only a small number of criteria (as cited in Airasian et al.,
2012, p. 175). As the e-portfolio is a cumulative assessment, and uses a complex process, we decided to use an analytical rubric.
Analytical rubrics also provide the student with specific feedback to takeaway, and as this project will sum up their work throughout
an entire course, an analytical rubric seemed like the best option.
Step 2:
After viewing several different pre-existing e-portfolio rubrics, we decided to use the one listed in the link above as a reference
(further called the original rubric). We decided to use the qualifiers, levels 1-4 and the overall curriculum expectations as the criteria.
Using the curriculum expectations as the criteria is a new method that the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB) is
encouraging teachers to use when developing rubrics in order to ensure validity. It aligns with using evidence records instead of
programs such as Mark Book to track student progress. The idea is that teachers will grade assessments using only the curriculum
expectations, rather than criteria suitable to only the task (e.g. audience or academic artifacts are some of the criteria used in the
original rubric. This criterion is specific to the e-portfolio, not to the overall expectations of the course).

E-Portfolio Rubric for HHS4C

Step 3:
We took some of the criteria from the original rubric, and modified it to make it more suitable for our assessment. For example, the
criteria named reflection is important, but actually falls under overall expectation A (Research and inquiry skills), and specific
expectation A.4 (Communicating and reflecting: communicate the results of their research and inquiry clearly and effectively, and
reflect on and evaluate their research, inquiry, and communication skills). In the original rubric, the criteria Academic Artifacts
suggest that the original rubric is aimed at academic students (either in high school university-streamed courses, or in postsecondary
courses). Also, rubrics should have student-friendly language; if the students can easily understand the language in the rubric, they will
have a greater chance of succeeding on the assessment. For this reason, we removed terms such as egregious errors and replaced
them with words such as so many errors in order to give the student simple and clear expectations.
Step 4:
Each group member viewed the cumulative task in order to ensure its content-related, criterion-related, and construct-related validity
(Airasian et al., 2012).