Group items tagged

they should articulate the vital features that they are looking for and make these features known to the student

the criteria must be made clear to them

A rubric that tells students, as a typical example, that they will get an A for writing a 1000 word essay that “cites x number of sources and supports its thesis with at least three arguments” will lead students to perceive writing as a kind of “paint-by-number” endeavor (Mathews).

it is no longer appropriate to assess student knowledge by having students compute answers and apply formulas, because their methods do not reveal the current goals of solving real problems and using statistical reasoning.

‘some rubrics are dumb.’

general” or “specific.

facilitate, rather than obviate, student learning

five-paragraph essay

guide their own learning

. Rubrics can be designed to measure either product or process or

credit

Clearly defining the purpose of assessment and what you want to assess is the first step in developing a quality rubric.

we need a meta-rubric to assess our rubric.

the habits of mind practiced in the act of self-assessment

extra credit

a system designed to measure the key qualities (also referred to as “traits” or “dimensions”) vital to the process and/or product of a given assignment,

points along a scale

“use an existing one ‘as is

Works Cited

Moreover, some teachers have noticed how students who were good writers become wooden when writing under the influence of a rubric. Dona Patrick, an elementary school teacher noticed that while her sixth grade students did well on their state writing test, those students who had been natural writers, those students who had “stylistic voices full of humor and surprises, produced less interesting essays when they followed the rules [as outlined in a rubric]” (Mathews).

Rubrics can be designed to measure either product or process or both; and, they can be designed with dimensions describing the different levels of that “deep learning” so valued in WAC programs.

cross the board; meanwhile, the teacher that uses specific rubrics is always composing new descriptions of quality work, but their students have cle

Consequentially, when rubrics are published in the classroom, students striving to achieve the descriptions at the higher end of the scale in effect guide their own learning. We must keep in mind, however, that other aspects of good pedagogical practice play into student success: rubrics that are outside of the students “zone of proximal development” are useless to the students.

Usually a numerical value is assigned to each point on a scale. You can weight dimensions differently if you feel that one dimension is more important than another. There are two ways in which you can express this value judgment: 1. You may give a dimension more weight by multiplying the point by a number greater than one. For example, if you have four dimensions (content, organization, support, conventions) each rated on a six-point scale, and you wish to emphasis the importance of adequate support, you could multiply the support score by two. 2. You may devise scales of unequal length, which would mean that the shorter scales would count less than the longer ones. For example, organization, support, and content could each be rated on separate 6 point scales, while punctuation and / or spelling could be rated on separate 3 point scales. A paper that was well organized and punctuated would yield 6 for organization and 3 for punctuation. A paper that was perfectly punctuated but poorly organized might yield a 3-3 score.

Or you can build your own rubric from scratch—convert existing revision or discovery heuristics into rubrics; convert comments that used to show up on A, B, C, D, and F papers into descriptive phrases, or start completely anew. The Chicago Public Schools web-site offers simple guidelines to follow when designing your own rubric. If you visit the web page I cut and pasted this from, you will find that each item is hyperlinked to a full explanation of the step.

Clearly defining the purpose of assessment and what you want to assess is the first step in developing a quality rubric. The second step is deciding who your audience is going to be. If the rubric is primarily used for instruction and will be shared with your students, then it should be non-judgemental, free of educational jargon, and reflect the critical vocabulary that you use in your classroom.

well-designed rubrics help instructors in all disciplines meaningfully assess the outcomes of the more complicated assignments that are the basis of the problem-solving, inquiry-based, student-centered pedagogy replacing the traditional lecture-based, teacher-centered approach in tertiary education.

they should articulate the vital features that they are looking for and make these features known to the student

The result is many students struggle blindly, especially non-traditional, unsuccessful, or under-prepared students, who tend to miss many of the implied expectations of a college instructor, expectations that better prepared, traditional students readily internalize.

rubrics, in effect, dehumanize the act of writing. According to Thomas Newkirk, an English professor at the University of New Hampshire, “rubrics promote ‘mechanical instruction in writing’ that bypasses ‘the human act of composing and the human gesture of response’” (Mathews).

if we have assigned ourselves the task of getting a good rubric to use, we need a rubric to judge our performance—that is, we need a meta-rubric to assess our rubric.

When instructors do not explicitly delineate the qualities of thought that they are looking for while grading, they reduce learning to a hit or miss endeavor, where “assessment remains an isolated […] activity and the success of the learner is mostly incidental” (Montgomery).

When instructors do not explicitly delineate the qualities of thought that they are looking for while grading, they reduce learning to a hit or miss endeavor, where “assessment remains an isolated […] activity and the success of the learner is mostly incidental” (Montgomery).

When instructors do not explicitly delineate the qualities of thought that they are looking for while grading, they reduce learning to a hit or miss endeavor, where “assessment remains an isolated […] activity and the success of the learner is mostly incidental” (Montgomery). T

Moreover, some teachers have noticed how students who were good writers become wooden when writing under the influence of a rubric.

A rubric with two or more separate scales is called an analytical rubric, as it takes apart or breaks up the rating system for each trait; a rubric that uses only a single scale is called a holistic rubric. A holistic rubric is more efficient and the best choice when criteria overlap and cannot be adequately separated; an analytical rubric, however, will yield more detailed information about student performance and, therefore, will provide the student with more specific feedback.

A rubric with two or more separate scales is called an analytical rubric, as it takes apart or breaks up the rating system for each trait; a rubric that uses only a single scale is called a holistic rubric. A holistic rubric is more efficient and the best choice when criteria overlap and cannot be adequately separated; an analytical rubric, however, will yield more detailed information about student performance and, therefore, will provide the student with more specific feedback.

The issue of weighting may be another area in which you can enlist the help of students. At the beginning of the process, you could ask a student to select to select which aspect she values the most in her writing and weight that aspect when you assess her paper.

While many educators make a compelling argument for sharing rubrics with students, others worry that doing so will encourage formulaic writing. That “rubric” is listed in most thesauruses as a synonym for “formula” does nothing to dismantle such fears. Well-designed rubrics, though, should not do this; unfortunately, most state issued rubrics used in secondary school standardized testing are poorly designed rubrics that list specific static elements encouraging students to simply make sure their essays have those features.

Rubrics that are prescriptive rather than descriptive will promote thoughtless and perfunctory writing; such rubrics are as limiting to the development of rhetorical mastery as the five-paragraph essay.

adopt a rubric

While the fundamental focus of assessment is always to promote learning, there are other reasons why we engage in assessment: curriculum reform, placement, promotion, diagnosis, accountability, and so on (Critical Issue).

will lead students to perceive writing as a kind of “paint-by-number” endeavor (Mathews).

advocates of rubrics at all educational levels have argued that rubrics provide students with clear and specific qualities to strive for in those assignments that “are open-ended, aligned more closely to real-life learning situations and the nature of learning”

Indeed, since rubrics allow for widespread assessment of higher-level thinking skills, performance-based assessment is replacing or complementing more traditional modes of testing; this in turn means that teachers are changing their instructional modes to prepare their students for these tests

Share the rubric with your students and their parents.

“rubrics promote ‘mechanical instruction in writing’ that bypasses ‘the human act of composing and the human gesture of response’” (

More conceptually, critics claim that rubrics, in effect, dehumanize the act of writing. According to Thomas Newkirk, an English professor at the University of New Hampshire,

You can adapt a rubric—

“The Effects of Rubrics on Learning to Write,” has found that, while rubrics increased her students’ knowledge of the grading criteria and helped most of her students (especially the young male students) do well on the state writing test, many of the young female students, who had been more expressive in previous writing assignments, wrote poorly when writing, as we might say, to the rubric.

The issue of weighting may be another area in which you can enlist the help of students. At the beginning of the process, you could ask a student to select to select which aspect she values the most in her writing and weight that aspect when you assess her paper.

When instructors plan on grading

, rubrics cannot be the sole response to a student’s paper; sound pedagogy would dictate that

sions differently if you feel that one dimension is more important than another. There are two ways in which you can express this value judgment: 1. You may give a dimension more weight by multiplying the point by a number greater than one. For example, if you have four dimensions (content, organization, support, conventions) each rated on a six-point scale, and you wish to emphasis the importance of adequate support, you could multiply the support score by two. 2.

The instructor’s comments on papers and tests are done after rather than before the writing, so they cannot serve as guidelines, compromising the value of writing comments at all.”

In any case, withholding assessment tools (whether they are rubrics or more nebulous modes of evaluation) from students is not only unfair and makes self-assessment more difficult

hose students who had been natural writers, those students who had “stylistic voices full of humor and surprises, produced less interesting essays when they followed the rules [as outlined in a rubric]

Doing so, many educators argue, increases the likelihood of a quality product.

evaluate your rubric

no longer appropriate

features known to the student

ull partners

Build a metarubric

a system which some educators see as stultifying and others see as empowering.

gineering programs

Closer to home, our own successful Allied Health programs depend on rubrics to both assess and encourage student learning.

rubrics can help the student with self-assessment

“In short, explicit performance criteria, along with supporting models of work, make it possible for students to use the attributes of exemplary work to monitor their own performance.

Is the description of criteria judgemental