Rubrics

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Rubrics!

• Linda Suskie
• Middle States Commission on Higher Education
• University of Wyoming
• September 19, 2005

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Rubrics

• scoring guidelines
• grading criteria
• A list of things youre looking for when youre
  grading tests, papers, or projects
• Often with guidelines or standards for assessing
  them

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Why Use Rubrics?

• Help students understand your expectations.
• Inspire better student performance.
• Make scoring easier faster.
• Make scoring more accurate, unbiased, and
  consistent.
• Improve communication with students.
• Stop arguments with students.

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Checklist Rubrics

• A list to indicate the presence/ absence of the
  things youre looking for

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Rating Scale Rubrics

• A scale that shows the degree to which the things
  youre looking for are present.

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Descriptive Rubrics

• More detailed descriptions of each possible
  rating.

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Holistic Scoring Guides

• A single score that reflects an overall
  impression of performance
• Scores are defined by
• descriptions or
• model answers

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Holistic Scoring vs. Rubrics

• Holistic
• Creative projects
• When theres little time to score

• Rubrics
• Formative and diagnostic evaluation
• When task has separate, specific categories
• CYA situations
• When reliability is important

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Steps to Creating a Rubric
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List the Things Youre Looking For

• Why are you giving students this assignment?
• What are your objectives/learning outcomes?
• What do you want your students to learn from the
  assignment?
• Focus on significant tasks, skills, abilities

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Next

• Create the rating scale.
• Watch out for vague terms.
• adequate
• appropriate
• acceptable
• Try the rubric.

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Write a Rubric!
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Scoring Models

• Compensatory Low performance on one criterion
  can be offset by high performance on another.
• Conjunctive Must earn minimum on all criteria to
  pass.
• Disjunctive Must earn minimum on certain
  criteria to pass.

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Keeping the Scoring Burden Manageable
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Finding Time to Score

• Limit the volume of assessment info
• Shorter papers, charts, etc.
• Stop doing something else.
• Substitute a paper for the midterm.
• Get students involved.
• Score own work.
• Score peers work.
• Stagger assessments.

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Scoring More Quickly

• Dont score inadequate work.
• Give students gateway criteria.
• Richard Haswells Minimal Marking
• Use rubrics!
• Saves time writing comments.