Teaching Tip Tuesday: Rubrics




Fast Facts: Getting Started with Rubrics

Why You Should Consider Rubrics

“Rubrics.” Rubrics. Web. 23 Nov. 2015. <https://teaching.berkeley.edu/rubrics>
Rubrics help instructors:
  • Provide students with feedback that is clear, directed and focused on ways to improve learning.
  • Demystify assignment expectations so students can focus on the work instead of guessing "what the teacher wants."
  • Adapt your approach to teaching aspects of a course based on thematic gaps in student learning that are easily identified by reviewing rubrics across a class.
  • Develop consistency in how you evaluate student learning across students and throughout a class.
  • Reduce time spent on grading; Increase time spent on teaching.
Rubrics help students:
  • Focus their efforts on completing assignments in line with clearly set expectations.
  • Self and Peer-reflect on their learning, making informed changes to achieve the desired learning level.

Developing a Rubric

First Things, First
  • It will be overwhelming to create a rubric for every assignment in a class at once, so start by creating one rubric for one assignment. See how it goes and develop more from there!
  • Do not reinvent the wheel. Rubric templates and examples exist all over the Internet, or simply ask colleagues if they have developed rubrics for similar assignments.
The Process
  • Select an assignment for your course - ideally one you identify as time intensive to grade, or students report as having unclear expectations.
  • Decide what you want students to demonstrate about their learning through that assignment. These are your criteria.
  • Develop the markers of quality on which you feel comfortable evaluating students’ level of learning - often along with a numerical scale. (i.e., "excellent-2," "fair-1," "poor-0"; or, "Mastery," "Emerging," "Beginning" for a developmental approach)
  • Give students the rubric ahead of time. Advise them to use it in guiding their completion of the assignment.
Resources for making Rubrics



Teacher Rubric is an add-on that will increase your grading productivity and it professionally presents a scored rubric and grade for your students. Google docs and Classroom are fantastic applications to create, distribute and receive submitted assignments from students.

However, the grading process seems to bring the efficiency to a screeching halt. Where can the grade be placed so it stands out from the assignment? How can rubric selections be made easily? I like rubrics but the final grade can be tedious to calculate. It takes too many highlights, clicks and time to format grades on 125 submissions. 

 OrangeSlice: Teacher Rubric increases the teacher’s grading productivity by eliminating repetitive clicks, presenting the rubric selections in an easy to use format and presenting the final grades in a consistent, professional format. More time is created for the teacher to provide the needed constructive feedback their students need for success.




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