Tips For Effective Rubric Design

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Tips For Effective Rubric Design

• How to
• design a rubric that does its job
• write precise criteria and descriptors
• make your rubric student-friendly

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What is a Rubric?

• A coherent set of criteria for student work that
  describes levels of performance quality.

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Expert Input

• Experts agree
• Rubrics are hard to design.
• Rubrics are time-consuming to design.
• A rubric is only as useful as it is good. Using
  a bad rubric is a waste of time
• --Michael Simkins in Designing Great Rubrics
• Experts disagree
• how to design a good rubric
• Bottom line Is it working for you and for your
  students?

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The Cookie

• Task Make a chocolate chip cookie that I would
  want to eat.
• Criteria Texture, Taste, Number of Chocolate
  Chips, Richness
• Range of performance
• Delicious(14-16 pts)
• Tasty(11-13 pts)
• Edible(8-10 pts)
• Not yet edible(0-7 pts)

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The Rubric
Delicious 4 Tasty 3 Edible 2 Not yet edible 1
chips Chips in every bite 75 chips 50 chips Less than 50 chips
texture Consistentlychewy Chewy middle, crispy edges Crunchy Like a dog biscuit
color Even golden brown Brown with pale center All brown Or all pale Burned
richness Buttery, high fat Medium fat Low-fat flavor Nonfat flavor
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Assess The Cookie

• Overall score
• Delicious
• Tasty
• Edible
• Not yet edible
• By criteria
• Number of chips
• Texture
• Taste
• Richness

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Oops, What Went Wrong?

• Did the product match expectations?
• Effective rubrics dont exist in a vacuum.
• The good news

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Holistic Or AnalyticWhich To Use?

• HOLISTICviews product or performance as a whole
  describes characteristics of different levels of
  performance. Criteria are summarized for each
  score level.
• (leveldegree of successe.g., 4,3,2,1 or
  Tasty)
• (criteria what counts, facets of
  performancee.g., research or number of chips or
  presentation)

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Holistic Or Analytic?

• HOLISTICpros and cons
• Takes less time to create. Well
• Effectively determines a not fully developed
  performance as a whole
• Efficient for large group scoring less time to
  assess
• - Not diagnostic
• - Student may exhibit traits at two or more
  levels at the same time.

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Holistic Example

• Cookie
• Delicious level (4)
• Chips in every bite
• Consistently chewy
• Even golden brown
• Buttery, high fat

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Holistic Or Analytic?

• AnalyticSeparate facets of performance are
  defined, independently valued, and scored.
• Example Musicskillstring improvisation
  development
• Facets scored separately melody harmonics
  rhythm bowing backup confidence

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Holistic Or Analytic?

• Analyticpros and cons
• Sharper focus on target
• Specific feedback (matrix)
• Instructional emphasis
• -Time consuming to articulate components and to
  find language clear enough to define performance
  levels effectively

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Sample Of Analytic Rubric

• See Packet

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Tip 1

• Dont make task-specific rubrics.
• Efficiency issue
• Function as scoring directions for grading not
  helpful to see student growth in learning
• Use general rubrics instead
• - supports learning because students see
• good work as bigger than 1 task
• - characteristics apply to a variety of
  tasks

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Tip 2

• Dont use generic or canned rubrics without
  careful consideration of their quality and
  appropriateness for your project.
• These are your students, not someone elses.
• Your students have received your instruction.

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Tip 3

• Avoid dysfunctional detail.
• in most instances, lengthy rubrics probably can
  be reduced to succinctmore useful versions for
  classroom instruction. Such abbreviated rubrics
  can still capture the key evaluative criteria
  needed to judge students responses. Lengthy
  rubrics, in contrast, will gather dust (Benjamin
  23).
• --Includes wordiness, jargon, negativity

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Tip 4

• Limit the number of criteria
• Whats really important?
• Dont combine independent criteria.
• very clear and very organized (may be clear
  but not organized or vice versa).

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Tips 5 and 6

• Use key, teachable criteria (What counts)
• Dont vaguely define levels of quality.
• Concrete versus abstract
• poorly organized (Organization sharply focused
  thesis, topic sentences clearly connected to
  thesis, logical ordering of paragraphs,
  conclusion ends with clincher)
• inventive creative imaginative (see charts)
• Key Question to ask yourself What does it look
  like?

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Tips 5 and 6

• Use measurable criteria.
• --Specify what quality or absence looks like
• vs. comparatives (not as thorough as)
• or value language (excellent content)
• ---Highlight the impact of the performance
• ---Was the paper persuasive or problem solved?
  (Note importance of PURPOSE)
• --What are the traits of effective persuasion?

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Tip 7

• Aim for an even number of levels
• Create continuum between least and most
• Define poles and work inward
• List skills and traits consistently across levels

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Tip 8

• Include students in creating or adapting rubrics
• Consider using I in the descriptors
• I followed preciselyconsistentlyinconsistentlyM
  LA documentation format.
• I did not follow MLA documentation format.

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Tip 9

• Motivate students to use rubric.
• Instructional rubric (Buy one, get one)
• At their very best, rubrics are also
  teaching tools that support student
  learning (Andrade 13).
• Do they understand the criteria and descriptors?
  How do you know?
• When do you give the rubric to your students?

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Tip 10

• Provide models of the different performance
  levels.

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Steps in Developing a Rubric

• Design backwardsrubric first then
  product/performance.
• Decide on the criteria for the product or
  performance to be assessed.
• Write a definition or make a list of concrete
  descriptorsidentifiable-- for each criterion.
• Develop a continuum for describing the range of
  performance for each criterion.
• Keep track of strengths and weaknesses of rubric
  as you use it to assess student work.
• Revise accordingly.
• Step back ask yourself, What didnt I make
  clear instructionally? The weakness may not be
  the rubric.

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Steps in Modifying a Canned Rubric

• Find a rubric that most closely matches your
  performance task.
• Evaluate and adjust to reflect your instruction,
  language, expectations, content, students
• Criteria
• Descriptors
• Performance levels

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When to use these rubrics

• Usually with a relatively complex assignment,
  such as a long-term project, and essay, or
  research-based product.
• Informative feedback about work in progress
• Detailed evaluations of final projects

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Caution

• Dont let the rubric stand alone
• ALWAYS, ALWAYS provide
  specific Comments on your rubric and/or
  on the student product itself.

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Sentence Stems

• To establish 4 levels of performance, try
  sentence stems.
• Example
• Yes, I used surface texture and deep carvings
  effectively to create individualizing detail.
• Yes, I used surface texture and deep carvings,
  but I needed to include more for individualizing
  detail.
• No, I did not use surface texture, but I did use
  deep carvings or vice, versato create some
  individualizing detail.
• No, I did not use surface texture or deep
  carvings.

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Rubric Criterion Across The Curriculum

• Content (substance, support, proof, details)
• Relevant
• Specific
• Thorough
• Synthesized
• Balanced
• Convincing
• Accurate

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Rubric Criterion Across the Curriculum

• Research
• Uses variety of sources (primary, secondary,
  electronic, traditional, human)
• Note Watch minimumsIs minimum minimal or is
  minimum proficient?
• Uses appropriate sources (credible, timely,
  scholarly)
• Documents sources accurately

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The Best Rubrics

• Analytic and holistic
• Developmental
• Generalizable and specific
• Instructional
• The best rubrics WORK
• for students and teachers!

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Works Cited/Consulted--draft

• Andrade, Heidi Goodrich. Using Rubrics to
  Promote Thinking and Learning. ASCD. Feb. 2000
• Baggio, Christine. Designing Rubrics Revising
  Instruction and Improving Performance.
  PowerPoint presentation. www.edutech.org.br.
• Benjamin, Amy. An English Teachers Guide to
  Performance Tasks and Rubrics. Larchmont Eye on
  Education, 2000.
• Classroom. Assessment Framework, Grades 4-8.
  PDE, Fall 2002.
• Leavell, Alexandra. Authentic Assessment Using
  Rubrics to Evaluate Project-Based Learning.
  PowerPoint. WEBLIBRARY.
• Matthews, Jay. Writing by the Rules No Easy
  Task. lthttp//washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/
  A63599-2000Oct23.htmlgt.
• Simkins, Michael. Designing Great Rubrics.
  Technology and Learning. August 1999.
• Wiggins, Grant and Jay McTighe. Tips for
  Developing Effective Rubrics. Understanding by
  Design. ASCD,1998.