Using Rubrics
Why Use Rubics?
Rubrics help instructors:
- Provide clear, direct expectations and components of an assignment to students and TA
- Clarify and provide specific and focused feedback to students to improve learning
- Demystify assignment expectations for students
- Develop consistency in how you evaluate student learning across students and throughout a class
- Reduce time spent on grading; Increase time spent teaching
- Refine teaching skills and course design by evaluating rubric results
Rubrics help students:
- Focus efforts on completing assignments with clearly defined expectations
- Self-reflect and peer-reflect on their learning
- Make informed changes to achieve their desired learning level
How to develop a rubric?
Ask colleagues for rubrics for similar assignments. Begin with one rubric for one assignment in a semester.
- Assignment: Examine an assignment for your course. Select a time insensitive assignment to grade or one that students report as having unclear expectations.
- Criteria: Decide what you want your students to demonstrate about their learning. The criteria or critical attributes must be objectively measurable.
- Quality: Develop markers of quality and add descriptors that qualify each level of performance
- You can also reinforce a developmental scale like Beginning, emerging, exemplary
- You can assign a numerical scale to each level
- Outline objective indicators.
- The criteria must clearly differentiate one performance level from another
- Draft: Give a draft of the rubric to colleagues and/ or TA’s for feedback
- Students: Give students the rubric ahead of time and advise them to use it to guide their assignment. Train students to use your rubric.
- Feedback: solicit feedback from your students to help you judge whether the rubric is clear to them. Identify any weaknesses.
Incorporating rubrics in a course
- Time: Consider how much class time is required for teaching and re-teaching the rubric
- Introducing rubrics
- Provide samples of a complete assignment. Consider asking students for permission to use their work as samples and remove their names
- Have students use the rubric to evaluate sample assignments or peer assignments
- Have students justify their evaluation and explain how they used the rubric
- Have students share their evaluations with the class. Pay attention to their interpretation of the rubric since it may inform rubric adjustments.
- Provide your evaluation of sample assignment and your justification and use of the rubric
Additional Resources:
- Rubric Samples for Higher Education (Syracuse University)
Find sample rubrics from different colleges and universities as well as the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU) VAULE rubrics. - Rubrics (Instructure Community)
Learn how to get started with rubrics, how to develop a rubric, and how to manage your rubrics in Canvas. - Using Rubrics to Assess Student Learning (Florida State University)
Find rubric examples and templates for different subjects and different levels. - A review of Rubric Use in Higher Education (Reddy, Y.M. & Andrade, H., 2010)
This article critically reviews empirical research on the use of rubrics at the post-secondary level, indentifies gaps in the literature, and proposes areas for future research.