Rubrics 101 Learn About Rubrics - Discuss Rubrics
Rubrics for Assessment
In academia, rubrics are generally referred to a scoring tools used for subjective assessment. The role of rubrics in assessment can be described in three stages of assessment:
Pre-assessment Phase: When students are given a coursework (assignment), rubrics can be used to communicate the expectations. As a result, students have a clearer idea as how their work will be evalated, how much work is enough work, and how creative they can get (how much they can deviate from expectations). For example, the following rubric criterion describes standards for online participation:
Criterion: Student Participation: Students are graded based on (1) postings regarding course materials, (2) postings to ask for help, and (3) postings to provide help to others.
Level 1 - Poor: Student uses the discussion board mainly to ask for help. Student posted less than 10 messages discussing course materials or helping others.
Level 2 - Fair: Student has posted even numbers of postings, but has posted less than 50 postings during the course.
Level 3 - Good: Student has posted over 50 postings mostly discussing course materials, providing help to others, and asking course related questions.
Assessment Phase: A rubric is used as scoring tool during this phase. The evaluator usually selects a level for each rubric criterion and tallies the score. Rubrics help assessment in the following areas:
1) They provide a uniform scoring tool which keeps the evaluator fair and on-track.
2) They make subjective assessment easier by providing clearer guidelines as how student work should be graded, and
3) They help evaluators explain the grades back to students with clear explanations, removing the repetitive work of re-explaining the reasoning behind the grade.
Post-assessment: Once assessment is completed, rubrics are used to communicate performance and the reasoning behind a assigned grade to students. They help students discover their areas of strength and weakness in a clear and structured way. In many assessment methods, students are told what they've done wrong, but in most cases, they are not told what they've done right or superior. Consequently, good students are usually left to guess and continue their learning by trial and error. Rubrics help communicate both the positives and the negatives, giving students a clear path on improving their skills.
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