Rubrics
As you reconsider and revise your course assignments for online delivery, you may be wondering, “How do I grade some of these new evaluation practices?” It’s not unusual to struggle with determining the best weight distribution for new assessments, especially if you’re unsure how much student effort (and grading effort) will be required for successful completion. One of the ways you can articulate your expectations and determine potential student effort required to complete an assignment is by designing a rubric.
Creating a rubric for assignment grading can benefit both you and the students in a few ways:
- It helps you determine the most important elements of an assignment
- It helps you envision the potential student effort required to complete the assignment
- It can decrease the time spent on grading each assignment
- It can support more consistent grading
- It communicates to students what they need to do to successfully complete an assignment
- It decreases student confusion about assignment expectations
Rubrics can be basic or extensive depending on your grading goals, but typically they provide a consistent system to assess an assignment. There are three essential parts of a rubric:
Category descriptions are the elements of the assignment that will be assessed, e.g., categories for a writing assignment might include a thesis statement, structure, synthesis of ideas, use of scholarly literature, etc.
Definitions within the category provide students with the expectation affiliated with each category, e.g., use of scholarly literature might be defined as “the ability to identify, analyze, and synthesize key debates about the topic through the use of contemporary journal articles, beyond the readings assigned for the course.”
Weighting Criteria indicate the level of performance and could be expressed as a number scale or a descriptor, e.g., 1, 2, 3 or not evident, meets expectations, exceeds expectations.
| Rubric | Level 0 | Level 1 | Level 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Category 1 | Definition of Category 1 at Level 0 | Definition of Category 1 at Level 1 | Definition of Category 1 at Level 2 |
| Category 2 | Definition of Category 2 at Level 0 | Definition of Category 2 at Level 1 | Definition of Category 2 at Level 2 |
| Category 3 | Definition of Category 3 at Level 0 | Definition of Category 3 at Level 1 | Definition of Category 3 at Level 2 |
Rubrics can be especially useful for assessing discussion boards and online participation because they decrease the grading workload for instructors and TAs, and they provide clear expectations for students.