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This is a guide from Northern AZ U. I'm not a huge fan of rubrics for assessment, but I think they can sometimes help students get an idea of your expectations. If you can implement them without stifling creativity, they might be useful to you.

I think this course is a good example of how rubrics can fall short. We've got a small group of students with very diverse experience. You all want and need something very different from this course. Your projects should all be different. While I can give you some idea of expectations, it's difficult to plan in advance for your audience and still provide the individualized learning necessary in some disciplines and courses.

I find myself feeling somewhat torn regarding how the rubrics for online student participation are presented on this Northern Arizona University website. On one hand, it provides a rock-solid method for accurately measuring various levels of student engagement. On the other hand, it means the instructor has to parse out dozens of tiny point assignments for every student - ie. a potential micromanagement purgatory. Since I haven't tried this NAU recommended approach to online assessments, I should rein in my initial resistance, and take a plunge into this rubric pool to see how it works in practice.

How might this process look for an on-line course? I don't think the QM folks would think highly. Do you? A great idea to have a two-pronged approach to the rubric - Make your own rubric while you're planning the unit. Figure out what students need to demonstrate to master the objectives. In class, explain the project. Place students in think-pair-share groups to discuss what criteria they would use to judge the project. Ask for a volunteer to take notes for the class on the whiteboard and take criteria suggestions from the crowd. Circle those items that have more than one vote. Underline those that you have in your own rubric. Talk about the products and how each criterion will be evaluated. Show the class your rubric and add suggestions from the class's discussion. By having this pre-work discussion, students can show their creativity on the front end of the project. They have a say in what distinguishes a successful project from one that doesn't meet expectations. The students have ownership and have begun the thought process that will lead to the project development. This isn't a waste of class time; it's think time. Best of all, when you receive the students' projects, you'll have a rubric to guide you. You won't be surprised with a clay sculpture when you expected a lab write up. And you'll be assured that your lesson's objectives, the students' work, and everyone's expectations all line up.

Helen, I enjoyed reading this article on the value of clearly stated assignment rubrics. As the author Diane Trim says: If students don't know what product they should turn in and I don't know how to grade the random essays I receive, how can I assess whether or not a student understood the material?