With a well-designed rubric, an instructor can communicate expectations for an assignment, provide focused feedback on works in progress, and grade final products.  This session will present research-based practice on the use of rubrics in teaching and learning and demonstrate how to use the Blackboard rubric tool to provide descriptive feedback on projects, papers, and assignments.

Benefits of Rubrics

There are many benefits to using rubrics.  Wolf and Stevens (2007) identified five advantages for instructors and learners:

• Rubrics make the learning target(s) clearer.  When students know the target, they are better equipped to hit it.  This is especially true of complex tasks.
• Rubrics guide instructional design and delivery.  Here the benefit is to the instructor.  Taking time to clearly define what students are to learn and to identify what must be demonstrated as evidence of that learning will strengthen  instructional delivery. The "think work" involved in rubric construction helps the professor to stay focused on the important elements of the course content.  
• Rubrics increase the accuracy and fairness of assessment.  Using a rubric will most likely result in a more consistent approach to scoring student work.  Rubrics help instructors to anchor their judgments by continually drawing their attention back to the key criteria in the assignment or performance.  In this way, there is less likelihood that the scoring will vary from student to student.
• Rubrics are tools for self-assessment and peer feedback.  Rubrics allow students to critique their own performances, a valuable professional skill worthy in and of itself.  Classmates can give one another formative feedback on work in progress.  Peer review also helps students to internalize the rubric criteria and become better at applying this understanding to their own work.
• Rubrics show potential for advancing the work of students of color, non-traditional students, and first-generation students.  Rubrics make learning expectations explicit.  Cultural assumptions may lead instructors to assume that everyone has an understanding of the expectations for academic performance.  Rubrics level the playing field by making expectations clear and known to everyone in the room.  This benefit is especially valuable when models and examples are used in conjunction with the rubric.

Steps in Developing a Rubric

1. Identify the performance criteria.  The performance criteria are also known as the dimensions of the rubric.  What are the key features of the assignment or performance task?  Think in terms of categories.  What will you be looking for as you evaluate student work?  For instance, in an oral presentation, content, organization, use of rhetorical devices, and delivery might be identified as the key criteria.  Somewhere between three and six criteria will work well for the rubric.  Too many categories can be overwhelming.  If there are too few categories, you will not be able to make meaningful distinctions in the quality of the performance. The criteria should be observable and measurable.  If some of the criterion are more important than others, you can weight the categories.
2. Set performance levels.  Decide how many levels of quality are appropriate for the assignment or performance task.  If the purpose is summative, fewer levels are better.  If the purpose is formative, you might include up to six levels of performance.  (Three to four levels of quality are typically found in a rubric that will be used for formative assessment.)  Labels for levels of quality can vary, depending on the context and nature of the assignment or task.  You can use word labels--such as beginning, developing, and accomplished--or you can use numbered levels--such as 1, 2, and 3.
3. Write descriptions for each level of quality within the performance.  In each cell of the rubric grid, you will need a description that captures the level of quality for the criterion being evaluated.  The descriptions should be detailed enough to be distinct but not so lengthy as to be overwhelming to the evaluator or the performer.  Each description should be written in parallel structure.  The more consistent the descriptions are, the more reliable and accessible the tool will be.
4. Determine whether the rubric will be analytic or holistic.  The final rating (score or grade) can be based on an analytic process or a holistic judgement.  With an analytic process, criteria scores are calculated -- either by adding them together, calculating, an average, or applying a weighted formula.  With a holistic judgement, the evaluator considers each score and then blends them into an overall judgement based on the strength of the performance.   

References

Wolf, K. & Stevens, S. (2007). The role of rubrics in advancing and assessing student learning.  Journal of Effective Teaching, 7(1), 3-14.

Stiggins, R. (2001). Student-Involved Classroom Assessment (3rd ed.). New York: Merrill.

Resources for Designing and Using Rubrics

Rubistar Rubric Generator - Developed through a research grant at the University of Kansas Center for Research in Teaching and Learning, this tool provides a quick start for creating a rubric. Start by choosing from a variety of performance task and project categories.  Select the dimensions (criteria) that are most important, customize the description to reflect specific requirements of your project or assignment.  In a few minutes, you can build a rubric, make it available for students to access online, or download it into an Excel spreadsheet. 

Assessment and Rubrics : Kathy Schrock's Guide to Everything - Schrock has compiled an impressive collection of rubrics, scoring guides and checklists.  In addition to these models, links to rubric generating tools and articles on the use of rubrics for learning and assessment are provided.  If you have a rubric you'd like to share, you can submit it for inclusion in the collection.

Grading with Rubrics:  Developing a Fair and Efficient Assessment Tool - Little (2006) describes how rubrics can be used to support and deepen learning in higher education settings.  The author describes the process of creating a rubric and provides an example to illustrate each of the components.

Session Presentation - May 13, EdTech Institute, Northern Kentucky University