Co-creation of quality criteria means actively involving students in defining what 'good' work looks like. Instead of only receiving criteria, students reflect on examples, consider what makes work strong or less strong, and discuss this with their peers. This way, you ensure students think critically themselves about what quality criteria look like.
By first exploring possible criteria and then sharing and refining these together, students develop a shared understanding of quality. This supports evaluative judgment, as students learn to judge the quality of work based on jointly constructed criteria. After constructing the criteria, students can create a checklist or rubric to guide their own work or provide feedback to others.
- Activity goal
- Brainstorm | Reflect
- When
- In class
- Where
- Offline
- Duration
- < 60 minutes
- Group size
- Small | Medium
Step-by-step plan
Step 0: Preparation
Decide how you want to use co-creation and in which context. Will students formulate criteria together, develop a rubric, translate a rubric into a checklist, and/or give each other peer feedback? Consider whether they will work individually, in pairs, or in groups. Make sure to prepare supporting materials such as exemplars, rubrics, and clear assignment instructions.
Step 1: Explanation
Make the goal explicit to students: why are they co-creating the criteria? How will they use the criteria? Then, let students think about what quality criteria could be, either individually, in pairs, or in groups. If a rubric is available, they can derive the criteria from it and translate them into a checklist. When working with peer feedback, you can have students discuss and agree on criteria before giving feedback to each other. When using exemplars, students can critically analyse the examples and derive the quality criteria from them. Emphasize that students should justify their criteria (why is this important?). Do not only present good examples, but also include less effective ones, and let students analyse why these are not strong examples by using the criteria from the rubric. Check the teaching activity the wrong example.
Step 2: Design the criteria
Let students share their criteria to reach a shared understanding within the group. Students compare and discuss their ideas, helping each other refine the criteria. This can be done in an interactive way, for example using activities like placemat discussion to help build consensus on the criteria. Encourage students to critically compare and question criteria, and merge them if possible.
Step 3: Gather the outcomes of the co-creation plenary
What criteria did the students come up with, or what should be included in a checklist to assess the assignment? As a teacher, you can reformulate, merge, and cluster the criteria to a usable set.
Step 4: Assessment
Let students use this shared list with criteria to assess their own work or give feedback to a peer.
Step 5: Reflection
Let students reflect on the criteria and on using the criteria. Were the criteria complete? Where they clear and useful in assessing the work? What would they add or change?
Consider the tools and materials mentioned here as suggestions. In many cases it’s possible to use alternative tools. Please turn to the Learning & Innovation team of your faculty first to see which online and offline tools are available and how to apply them.
Offline
- Exemplars
- Assignment instructions
- Rubric
- Flip chart, white board or shared document to collect criteria
Tip 1
- Encourage students to formulate criteria as concrete and observable as possible.
Tip 2
- Keep the process student-led by not giving the criteria too early, so that students can first construct their own understanding of quality (which contributes to a stronger evaluative judgement).
Tip 3
- Ensure that there is enough time left to apply the co-created criteria to their own work or to give feedback to peers. This makes the co-creation more impactful.
