ASSESSMENT

Grading with Rubrics: Best Practices and Tips

24 March 2024/ By Zineb DJOUB

Assessment is an integral part of the teaching process but is often seen as tedious and time-consuming for many of us. The need for regular formative assessments often leaves us grappling with a pile of papers awaiting our attention, struggling to meet the deadline, and provide timely and constructive, formative feedback. Besides overthinking grading, another assessment issue is identifying appropriate criteria and scoring fairly and consistently students’ presentations, laboratory work, creative projects, and any performance that goes beyond the yes or no answer. So, how can we speed up our grading process and make it easier while still giving detailed, formative feedback? Rubrics facilitate grading and are more effective as assessment and teaching tools.

In this blog post, we’re exploring the components of rubrics, their benefits, and the process of creating them. We also share valuable tips for using them effectively in the classroom.

What is a rubric?

A rubric is a scoring guide that identifies a coherent set of criteria for a given assignment, along with descriptions of levels of performance for these criteria.

This implies that in a rubric, an assignment is broken down into its components, and a detailed description is given for what qualifies as either acceptable or unacceptable performance for each of those components.

The main purpose of using rubrics is to assess performances, such as presentations, group work, portfolios, reading aloud, research papers, laboratory reports, concept maps, and more.

The components of a rubric

Rubrics include four elements:

1. A task description: This is the assignment or what your students are expected to do with the task. It can also cover the estimated time to complete it and behavioural expectations in the classroom (how they should present their work in class). Placing the task description at the top of the grading rubric won’t just grab students’ attention but also remind you of the expectations as you grade.

2. The scale: Also called performance levels, the scale describes how well or poorly any given task has been performed on each criterion. It may include numerical scales (e.g., 1-4, 1-5, 1-10) or qualitative scales (e.g., excellent, good, fair, poor).

3. Dimensions: These are the specific elements or criteria of performance that contribute to the overall quality and effectiveness of the work that is being assessed. So dimensions outline the skills and competencies that students must combine for a successful performance.

These are put into categories. So, when writing them don’t include any description of the quality of the performance.

While it’s not compulsory to assign varying weights to different dimensions, allocating points or percentages to each dimension serves to highlight the significance of each in determining the final score.

4. Description of the dimensions: This includes the detailed explanations or guidelines provided for each criterion that is being assessed. So, using clear and concise language to describe each level of performance is necessary.

Why use rubrics?

Rubrics can serve teachers and students in a variety of ways:

Enhance learning

Using rubrics can help improve instruction. The focus is on what students need to learn rather than what you intend to teach. Besides, not only do they help students understand what is expected of them, but they also provide us with details of what they may or may not have learned.

Further, with clearly defined dimensions, students understand what the desired performance is and what it looks like. Immediate feedback also helps in identifying their strengths and weaknesses and how they should improve further their performance. Such reflective practices can enhance students’ critical thinking, and encourage autonomy and active learning.

Time-savers

Using rubrics can save us time in grading assignments and providing timely and detailed feedback which is essential for facilitating learning.

In a rubric, we include straightforward notes in the “descriptions of criteria” section. When it’s time to grade, we just circle or check off relevant comments for each student and may add a note where the rubric lacks precision, requires additional emphasis, or needs to highlight connections between aspects of the student’s performance.

Track students’ progress

Rubrics can provide detailed information about the dimensions in which a student’s work is improving and is not improving. In doing so, they help us communicate not only our goals and intentions to students, colleagues, parents, and administrators but also how students are progressing and the existing learning gap. So, rubrics can provide data that serves for decision-making processes.

How to create rubrics for grading?

Creating your first rubric may take time. Yet, with practice and revision of the rubrics you have constructed, the process gets easier and faster.

Here are four stages to create or revise your rubrics

#Define the learning objectives

To identify the specific learning objectives or outcomes you want students to achieve through the assignment or task being assessed, you need to reflect on the course and task objectives, the assignment, and students’ learning needs.

For a fruitful reflection, here are the questions to address to help you decide what kind of rubric will meet your needs and the needs of your students:

• What is the purpose of the assignment? (to assess understanding, practice skills, encourage engagement, prepare for exams, etc.)
• How does this assignment relate to the course objectives?
• Have students had a similar assignment before (are they familiar with the instruction)?
• What kind of prior knowledge and skills do students need to possess to complete the assignment?
• What are they expected to do to demonstrate their knowledge and skills?
• What does a good performance look like? How about the worst one?

 

Answering these questions will help you identify the learning objectives your students need to achieve by completing the task.

It’s necessary to note here that your list of learning objectives should be aligned with the curriculum standards or course goals but also cater to the specific needs of your students.

An example of learning objectives for a writing assignment (persuasive essay) include:

• Demonstrating effective argumentation
• Developing clear and coherent writing
• Integrating persuasive techniques
• Demonstrating proficiency in grammar, punctuation, spelling, and citation formatting

# Identify the dimensions

The second stage is to determine the key criteria or dimensions that will be used to assess student performance. To do so, read carefully through the list of learning objectives you created in the previous stage and list categories of performance expectations in a single word. These will ultimately become your dimensions on the rubric.

For instance, following the same example of the task above (persuasive writing), dimensions or criteria that could be included in the rubric are argumentation and evidence, organization and coherence, persuasive techniques, language, and conventions (see the example of the rubric below).

# Write performance-level descriptions

Before writing performance-level descriptions, you need to decide how many levels there should be to describe the continuum of performance quality. Yet, it’s important to strike a balance between having enough levels to capture a range of performance and keeping the rubric manageable and clear.

So, keep it simple. Four to five levels (e.g., exemplary, proficient, basic, needs improvement) are generally sufficient to differentiate between varying degrees of achievement.

Once you have decided on the number of levels, you need a description of performance quality for each level of each criterion.

So, ask yourself: What does student work look like at each level of quality, from high to low, on this criterion? Then, start with a high-quality performance level describe that, and then adjust the remaining descriptions from there.

# Design the rubric structure

Decide on the structure of your rubric, analytic (each criterion is evaluated separately) or holistic (the overall performance is assessed as a whole without breaking it down into specific criteria).

 

 

Use Word processing software or Excel to make a chart. Place the dimensions in the left column of the rubric grid. If certain dimensions are more important or carry different weights in the overall assessment, assign appropriate weights to each.

Then, include the different levels of performance along with their descriptions. You can also provide examples or sample responses for each level of performance to help students understand what performance might look like at different proficiency levels.

How to use rubrics?

For effective use of rubrics, here are some useful tips:

-Before using the rubric for grading, consider testing it with a sample of student work to ensure fairness and consistency.

-Introduce your rubrics before students start the assignment. Be sure to clarify the criteria, and descriptors, and model how to meet the expectations.

-Involve students in rubric construction. This will not only motivate them to do the assignment but also give them a sense of ownership of the assignment.

-Use your rubrics not only for grading purposes but also for learning by providing constructive feedback to students.

-Encourage students to reflect on their performance using the rubric after receiving feedback.

-Periodically review and revise your rubrics to ensure they are relevant and consistent with the learning objectives.

-Seek students’ feedback concerning the clarity, fairness, and usefulness of the rubric to bring the necessary adjustments.

-Collaborate with your colleagues to construct effective rubrics or share rubrics with them. This can reveal whether grading is more or less consistent.

To conclude, we can support students’ learning and maximize their success through effective assessment practices while making the grading process more efficient and less overwhelming. So, embrace rubrics as integral components of the assessment process. You’ll see the difference.