Improv, Interview, and Skit Instruction and Assessment Rubrics

Over the thirty-two years I taught, I was committed to a differentiated instruction practice. “Differentiated Instruction” is a teaching method in which the number of students who

perform well is increased by offering a variety of equivalent ways to learn and show what they have learned. It is a far more satisfying method for teacher and student to offer alternative work product options of equivalent difficulty. This would be in contrast to a traditional method where everyone takes the same test at the end of a unit. While maintaining a healthy respect for traditional assessments in high stakes situations and the usefulness of standardized testing, one can still create a classroom environment where students can demonstrate their progress through multiple means. I have a large collection of rubrics for different kinds of "capstone" assignments for teaching social studies.

This collection includes: scoring rubrics for grading student performances in acting improv activities (these can be really fun), interview test, and short skits. Instructions for seven different improv activities are also included.

Differentiated instruction started to became popular in the late 1990s. In my view, many did not do this well because they left out an important feature: if a student has an alternative assignment to the unit test, that assignment must be of equivalent difficulty. This is a challenging feat to accomplish for the teacher, but not impossible. One way to do this is using a statistical tool called z-score standardization. In this way, scores on the traditional test and scores on the alternative assignment can be compared such that one can see how more or less difficult the alternative task is and, consequently, how to score it.

For an extensive collection of similarly designed resources, visit my store here!

The Innovation Blog

Standardized Scoring Rubric at Innovation

Acting Improvisation Activities for the Classroom

Readers who are interested in teaching methodology and practice are invited to visit the Innovation blog at InnovationAssessments.com. Innovation is a free online teaching platform that integrates with most learning management systems such as Google Classroom.