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Rubrics for Assessment and Grading
What is a rubric?
“A rubric is a scoring tool that lists the criteria for a piece of work, ...it also articulates gradations of quality for each criterion, from excellent to poor.”
From “Understanding Rubrics” by Heidi Goodrich Andrade (http://learnweb.harvard.edu/alps/thinking/docs/rubricar.htm)
Rubrics and Authentic Assessment
Assessment rubrics are seen as part of the “Authentic Assessment” movement in education which has largely come about in response to the overwhelming prevalence of multiple choice exams, “Scantron” tests, and simple letter grades in education. Most educators feel that while multiple choice test might have a small place in education for assessing content knowledge, it is impossible to really assess the most important things a student has learned (e.g. learning to revise according to feedback, knowing how to synthesize a lot of information into a large project) through such simplified tools. The Authentic Assessment aims to assess the important, complex learning that is going on in the classroom—the big projects, the research skills, groupwork skills, assembling portfolios of work that has been completed over the course of semester or a school year.
Advantages to using rubrics:
1. They help define “quality” - or a letter grade.
2. They establish a shared vocabulary for the class to use in critique.
3. Students can also use them to judge their own and their peers’ work. Using the same rubric that the teacher is using helps them to internalize the concepts.
4. They reduce the amount of time teachers spend evaluating student work.
5. They can be adjusted to suit particular classes.
Developing your own rubric:
1. List the criteria you are judging the work on.
2. Look at examples of a range of work done in response to the assignment.
3. Describe the levels of quality—the best, the worst, and the levels in between—for each criterion.
» Avoid vague language
» 2. Avoid unnecessarily negative language
4. Test your rubric on some other pieces.
5. Revise as necessary.
6. (When possible holding a norming session with other instructors can be invaluable. In a norming session, teachers all use the same rubric and score the same pieces without looking at each others’ scores. After three pieces have been scored, the teachers look at all of the scores together and discuss discrepancies, clarifying as they go. This process is repeated until the scores are the same most of the time—depending on the purpose of your norming session.)
Holistic Rubrics
Holistic rubrics do not separate out the criteria for discrete feedback. Instead, holistic rubrics describe the general features of a piece at each level. They are often used in placement exams.
Example of a holistic rubric for an oral presentation
| 3 | Speaker was engaging and stayed on topic for entire speech. Examples were interesting and pertinent. Body language was appropriate. Speaker had very smooth, strong transitions, introduction and conclusion. Volume and clarity of speech was good. |
| 2 | Speaker was generally on topic, though some transitions and examples may have been weak. Introduction and conclusion were present and on topic, though not strong. Speaker may seem uncomfortable at times. Speaker may have been unclear or difficult to hear at times. |
| 1 | Topic was not immediately clear from the speech. Point of most examples was not clear, or no examples were used. Speaking was very difficult to hear and understand at times. Transitions were choppy; introduction and conclusion were weak, or not present. |
Rubrics Available Online
There are MANY rubrics available online. When doing a search, be sure to type in “scoring rubrics” or “assessment rubrics”. The following websites might be good places to start:
» http://www.goshen.edu/art/ed/rubric3.html
» http://www.makeworksheets.com/tools/rubric.pdf
» http://intranet.cps.k12.il.us/Assessments/Ideas_and_Rubrics/Create_Rubric/create_rubric.html
» http://intranet.cps.k12.il.us/Assessments/Ideas_and_Rubrics/ideas_and_rubrics.html
» http://www.phschool.com/professional_development/assessment/rub_electronic_portfolio.html
» http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/assess.html
» http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php
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