Historical Thinking Skills Activity Rubrics (A1-A6) for assessing learning opportunities in world history assignments¶

Element · All elements
Evidence · 5 claims (3 for, 1 mixed, 1 against) · 1 study (1 design), q2 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 5 claims rest on one study

Description¶

A set of six rubric dimensions (A1-A6) meant to study the extent to which high school world history classroom activities provide opportunities for students to engage in historical thinking practices. Per the article, "EacK GLPHQVLrq KaV IRXU OHYHOV (0-3)", where 0 generally indicates absence of a historical thinking practice in the activity, 1 emergence, 2 partial presence, and 3 solid presence. The dimensions cover historical argumentation claims and evidence, causation, comparison, contextualization, continuity and change over time, and sourcing. The rubric was piloted with three expert world history teachers scoring 19 assignments.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Assignments must explicitly call for students to employ historical thinking skills to score above 0; the revised rubric states skills should be explicitly called for

Constraints¶

• Per the article, "AVVignmenWV cRnViVWing Rnl\ Rf SicWXUeV RU diagUamV cRXld nRW be VcRUed ZiWh Whe UXbUicV XnleVV Whe\ ZeUe accRmSanied b\ ZUiWWen RU RUal e[SlanaWiRnV"

Target Learners¶

• High school world history students in on-level or pre-AP 9th/10th grade classes

Target Learning Goals¶

• Historical thinking skills including argumentation, causation, comparison, contextualization, continuity and change over time, and sourcing

Affordances¶

• Historical Thinking Skills Six Dimension Taxonomy

Claims¶

• Trained scorers applied the historical thinking skills rubrics with good overall inter-rater consistency [+W]
• Two rubric dimensions (claims and evidence, comparison) showed low inter-scorer consistency in the pilot [-W]
• Scorers found all rubric dimensions important, with feedback bearing mainly on the scoring and training process rather than rubric design [+W]
• Scorers had difficulty distinguishing rubric scoring from everyday grading and AP scoring, and training took longer than expected [~W]
• World History Project assignments scored higher on most learning opportunity rubric dimensions than other assignments [+W]

Related Elements¶

• Historical Thinking Skills Student Work Rubrics (S1-S6) for assessing historical thinking in student products
• Rubrics for Examining Historical Thinking Skills in High School World History Activities and Student Work

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Iwatani, E., Means, B., Seylar, J., and Hardy, A. (2021). Rubrics on historical thinking skills for assignments and student work: Initial validity evidence. Digital Promise. https://doi.org/10.51388/20.500.12265/112