Understanding Rubrics What is a rubric? A scoring tool that lists the criteria for a piece of work, or “what counts” (e.g., purpose, organization, detail, voice, and mechanics are often what count in a piece of writing). It also articulates gradations of quality for each criterion, from excellent to poor.

Why use rubrics? Rubrics appeal to teachers and students for many reasons. First, they are powerful tools for both teaching and assessment. They can improve student performance, as well as monitor it, by making teacher expectations clear and by showing students how to meet these expectations. The result is often marked improvements in the quality of student work and in learning.

More Whys… Rubrics are useful in that they help students become more thoughtful judges of the quality of their own and others’ work. When rubrics are used to guide self- and peer- assessment, students become increasingly able to spot and solve problems in the own and one another’s work. Repeated practice with peer-assessment, and especially self-assessment, increases students’ sense of responsibility for their own work and cuts down on the number of “Am I done yet” questions.

Even More Whys… Rubrics reduce the amount of time teachers spend evaluating student work. Teachers tend to find that by the time a piece has been self- and peer-assessed according to a rubric, they have little left to say about it. Rubrics provide students with more informative feedback about their strengths and areas in need of improvement.

Flexibility of Use Teachers appreciate rubrics because they are easily adaptable to heterogeneous classes. Rubrics are easy to use and to explain. Parents are generally supportive of the use of rubrics; it provides a clear guide for what the child needs to do in order to be successful.

How to Create a Rubric Look at models: Show students examples of good and not-so-good work. Identify the characteristics that make the good ones good and the bad ones bad. List criteria: Use the discussion of models to begin a list of what counts in quality work. Articulate gradations of quality: Describe the best and worst levels of quality, then fill in the middle levels based on your knowledge of common problems and the discussion of not-so-good work.

How to Create a Rubric (cont’d) Practice of models: Have students use the rubrics to evaluate the models presented Use self- and peer-assessment: Give students their assignment, As they work, stop them occasionally for self- and peer-assessment. (Set ground rules for this.) Revise: Always give students time to revise their work based on feedback. Use teacher assessment: Use the same rubric students used to assess their work yourself.

Tips of Designing Rubrics Use clear language. If a criterion was “clear language” be very clear on what that would look like. An easy way to handle this is to quantify the criterion. For example, student work used “clear language” throughout the piece.

Designing Tips Avoid unnecessarily negative language. Don’t use words like “boring.” Describe, instead, exactly what the criterion should be. For example, if your criterion for a speech was Gains attention of audience, your gradations of quality might range from “gives details or an amusing fact, a series of questions, a short demonstration, a colorful visual or a personal reason why they picked this topic,” “does a one- or two-sentence introduction, then starts speech,” or “does not attempt to gain attention of audience, just starts speech.”

What to do with your rubric? Creating a rubric is the hard part—using them is relatively easy. Once created, give copies to students and ask them to assess their own progress on a task or project. (This should not count toward a grade.) The point is for the rubric to help students learn more and produce better final products, so including self-assessments in grades is unnecessary and can compromise students’ honesty.

What to do? Always give students time to revise their work after assessing themselves, then have them assess one another’s work. Peer assessment takes some getting used to and you will undoubtedly have to model this. Give time again for revision following peer-assessment.

A Final Thought… The distant goal is learning Each step can be a test Who shall keep us turning Toward our true success Assessment navigates our journey Keeps straight the course each day Holds back the landmines of worry Shows landmarks along the way

A Final Thought… The distant goal is learning And so now will miss success Assessment keeps us turning To the road to be our best David M. Osborne

What is next? Take a ten minute break, then Form a group of four folks each, work for approximately 15 minutes to create a rubric that reflects the qualities you value in an administrator or teacher on your team. It is perfectly fine to add a little humor to our evening. Record your rubric on an overhead and appoint a group member to be your spokesperson when presenting the rubric to the rest of our class.