Rubrics are a relatively well understood assessment instrument, although it doesn't appear to be heavily used in CSE. "Learning increases, even in its serendipitous aspects, when learners have a sense of what they are setting out to learn, a statement of explicit standards they must meet, and a way of seeing what they have learned." [Loac86] "Assessment requires [faculty] to articulate... explicit and public statements of criteria of performance. By doing so, faculty refine their own understanding of expected abilities, clarify for their colleagues the basis of their judgment, and enable students to understand what performance is required."
When looking at how the different forms of modern media have been used for educative purposes and which particular instances have been chosen, one notion stands out – the majority of the most remarkable and effective “lessons” taught to us have been created by extraordinarily talented writers, directors, and producers together with their teams. They have, by and large, not been created by professional educators or instructional designers. Far from trying to sell educators and instructional designers short, we should recognize the opportunities afforded us in studying these outstanding examples of “educational” objects, and try to learn why they have the impact they do. By “studying the...