All About Rubrics (Page 1 of 5)

What is A Rubric?

A rubric is an assessment and instruction tool that helps teachers articulate and communicate “what counts” or “what is important” in the lessons and courses they plan to teach. A rubric is usually designed as a one or two-page document formatted with a table or grid that outlines the learning criteria for a specific lesson, assignment, or project.

When used correctly, rubrics provide teachers with an accessible and effective means of for providing learning-centered feedback and evaluation of student work. As instructional tools, rubrics enable students to gauge the strengths and weaknesses of their work and learning in an on-going fashion. As assessment tools, rubrics enable teachers to provide students with detailed and informative evaluations of their final assignment or projects.


Sample rubric for composing an email message.

All About Rubrics (Page 2 of 5)

What are the features of a rubric?

  • Rubrics should identify learning criteria. Usually, effective rubrics feature 3 - 7 criteria. Rubrics that list many learning criteria are hard to manage; and those that list too few often don't provide enough information about what the students' should be learning or attending to.
  • Rubrics should identify descriptions for levels of excellent, satisfactory, and problematic work at each learning criterion.
  • Numbers rather than terms like "excellent" or "poor" quality usually denote the levels of quality. Creating informative labels can be elusive for teachers, and unclear labels can be misleading to students. Using numbers clearly indicates that students should avoid doing things that warrant low numbers, and should exhibit or produce the things described under the high numbers.
  • Effective rubrics usually feature four separate levels of quality. Having four levels provides more information for students and provides greater distinctions than three columns. Students using three-column rubrics tend to score themselves (or other students) in the middle category.
  • Rubrics describe the concrete problems and trouble spots that students will encounter in the lesson and/or in their learning. Uninformative rubrics tend to either describe mistakes students don't recognize, or they describe the levels of quality vaguely so students aren't clear about what the description means. For instance, quality statements described as "boring" or "poorly organized" are subjective and don't inform students about what exactly the problems or weakness may be in the work. A more informative description for "boring" work on an essay for instance might be, "Lacks sentence variety, overuse of passive voice, weak verb usage."
  • Effective rubrics often identify thinking skills as one (or more) of the learning criteria. Thinking critically deepens students understanding of the lesson or subject. Identifying thinking (e.g. looking for reasons, generating options, seeking alternative perspectives, along with dozens or other types of good thinking) signals students to the kinds of thinking that they need to do to achieve a deeper understanding of the lesson or topic at hand.

All About Rubrics (Page 3 of 5)

Who are rubrics for?

Educators and students alike can use rubrics as both assessment and instructional tools. Rubrics can be used for virtually any course any level of instruction. Even K-4 teachers and students can use very basic rubrics. Note: Rubrics for pre-K-2 students tend to rely on graphics (e.g. smiley faces for excellence or sad faces for needs improvement, and the like) rather than text to describe levels of quality.

All About Rubrics (Page 4 of 5)

How are rubrics used?

Rubrics are highly versatile both assessment and instructional tools. They can be used to support self-assessment as well as peer assessment. In addition, rubrics can also be used as a resource to support and collect on-going feedback on lessons and longer-term projects. In many cases, teachers construct scoring rubrics and infuse them into their instruction in any number of innovative ways. But, rubrics prove especially effective when they are generated collaboratively with students.

All About Rubrics

Why use rubrics?

  • Rubrics are easy to use and explain. Despite their effectiveness, rubrics are easy to understand. At a glance, teachers and students can make sense of what a rubric is and what it does.
  • Rubrics make teacher's expectations for student work very clear and concrete. Typically, the criteria and standards set for student work and learning is a mystery to most students. Students tend to hand in their work and hope for the best. Rubrics communicate the teachers expectations for learning in a clear and accessible format.
  • Rubrics provide students with more informative feedback about their strengths and areas that need improvement than traditional forms of assessment. A well-written rubric gives students valuable information about their learning that they can not get from receiving just a grade.
  • Rubrics support learning. Students who use rubrics tend to be better at assessing the progress of their own work than students who do not. Also, rubric-supported assessment tends to encourage content learning as well.
  • Instructional rubrics can help students become thoughtful judges of the quality of their own work. Research indicates that students who use rubrics regularly tend to "think about their own thinking" - a high order thinking skill that fosters deep understanding of the subject or task at hand.

The rubric will focus on the online discussion groups, in which learners promote their own and each other's understandings by engaging in conversations about course content. More specifically, the rubric will be used to assess learners' responses to other learners' postings in the discussion groups.

Topic/Skill: /
  • To understand the role of feedback and assessment in understanding
  • To understand how to promote thinking, understanding, and academic achievement through the use of a variety of assessment tools and techniques
  • To understand how to monitor students' understandings through a variety of means and to adjust instruction accordingly
  • To appreciate the opportunities and challenges afforded by alternative forms of assessment, and to be able to capitalize on the former and overcome the latter.

Lesson/Project: / The rubric will focus on the online discussion groups, in which learners promote their own and each other's understandings by engaging in conversations about course content. More specifically, the rubric will be used to assess learners' responses to other learners' postings in the discussion groups.
Learning Goals: /
  • advance understanding of the issues being discussed
  • foster and sustain relationships
  • help create a sense of community

Criteria / Quality
4-Excellent / 3-Good / 2-Fair / 1-Unsatisfactory / SCORE
Top of Form
Bottom of Form
TIMELY / The response is posted within a day or two of the original posting, and during the current session. Test
/ The response is posted several days or even a week after the original posting, during the current session.
/ The response is posted too near the end of the session to allow for further discussion, or responses are posted quickly &/or frequently enough to risk putting pressure on others.
/ The response is posted after the end of the session so no one is likely to read it.
/
RELEVANT AND SPECIFIC / The response is related to the content of the original message(s). It makes a point by focusing on specific issues that strike the learner as important.
/ The response is related to earlier message(s) but the point being made is somewhat vague.
/ The response doesn’t make a clear connection to earlier responses, but has a specific point to make.
/ The point of the response and the connection between it and earlier posting(s) is unclear.
/
THOUGHTFUL AND THOUGHT-PROVOKING / The response pushes the discussion in new directions by
/ The response includes requests for clarification or more information, but doesn’t extend thinking by wondering, probing, disagreeing, considering other points of view, etc.
/ The response provides information or answers in a way that suggests the matter is closed.
/ The response does not clearly contribute new ideas, information, or questions to the discussion.
/
POSITIVE AND SUPPORTIVE / The response begins with positive comments and uses an encouraging tone.
/ The tone of the response is neutral.
/ The tone of the response is mixed. Parts of it are positive, parts are negative.
/ The response growls, barks, or bites.
/
Total /

Rubric Design Website

Overview of design process:

The Rubric Design Studio structures the rubric design process for you. You can create as many rubrics as you want. At each stage of the rubric design process, the Rubric Machine provides tips and hints to help you.

There are 6 steps to the design process. Take the time to get familiar with the steps by "messing around". You can restart or re-edit your entries at any time:

  1. Identify Learning Goals
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  1. Create Criteria: Review Models of Work
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  1. Create Criteria: Brainstorm "What Counts"
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  1. Create Criteria: Refine Criteria
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  1. Determine Qualities: "What's Excellent (and What's Unsatisfactory)"
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  1. Save / View Rubric
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