The benefits and advantages of rubrics have been well-documented. For teachers, rubrics provide a consistent way of assessing students. Rubrics also help teachers communicate expectations for the quality of the work the students are expected to produce. For students, the rubric clarifies what the teacher is expecting. A well-designed rubric can also help the student understand the components of the work. Along the way, the rubric can be used as a checklist by the student as they progress toward the goal. The rubric completed by the teacher as part of the assessment can help the student understand their grade (Dueck, 2021).
Rubrics can be developed to assess processes or products. The table below shows some examples for both.
Whether you are creating a holistic rubric (an overall justification for grade) or an analytical one (description for each criteria/step of the process or product), there are several considerations that are worth noting about rubric design (Dueck, 2021).
Language of Rubrics
- Pay attention to the words used: Use clear and concise language. Define terms such as emerging, basic, considerable, or in-depth in advance. If necessary, come to a shared understanding with the team of teachers at your school. Be sure to communicate the meaning of these to your students as well!
- Be sure to use strength-based language at all levels, but especially at the beginning level. The language must describe what the student can do and it should reflect student growth and ability (Dueck, 2021).
- Avoid using absolutes, such as all, none, every, always. Absolutes do not allow room for small errors and risk-taking. They could ‘force’ a teacher to give a lower score for an otherwise creative project.
- Avoid quantitative language, such as requiring students to include two pictures or five resources, or six pages of writing. These required elements should not be part of the rubric because they do not measure a learning goal or standard. Rather these are compliance elements that could be provided for the students in a checklist format (Dueck, 2021). MLA/APA formatting, specific font requirements, etc. are additional examples of compliance elements and should not be part of the rubric.
Standards used in Rubrics
- The criteria used in the rubric must be linked to a standard or a learning goal within the grade level (Dueck, 2021). Rubrics often contain descriptions like ‘exceeds expectations’ or ‘above grade-level performance’. This means, for example, that a 4th grader to exceed he/she must perform at a fifth-grade level. This should be avoided as it is quite unfair to measure this year’s ‘material’ using next year’s expectations. If you want to challenge the advanced students, provide advanced materials in the form of enrichment activities.
- When designing an analytic rubric, make sure that only one criterion is measured in each row of the rubric. Combining multiple criteria or multiple variables could lead to inaccurate assessment (Dueck, 2021).
Additional Tips:
- Best Practices for Designing Effective Rubrics
- 7 steps on creating a rubric for students
- Creating and Using Rubrics
- Using Rubrics to Assess Performance (This source is the website of the book I used to write this blog.)
References:
Dueck, M (2021). Giving Students a Say: Smarter Assessment Practices to Empower and Engage. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.