Teaching Excellence Learning Modules
Things to Know About Rubrics
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A rubric is an authentic assessment
tool used to measure students’ work. It is based on the sum of
a full range of criteria as opposed to a single numerical
score. It is a working guide for students and teachers and is
usually handed out before the assignment so that students can
understand exactly what the teacher is looking for and what the
grade will be based on.
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Rubrics all contain three common
features
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they focus on measuring a
stated objective (performance, behavior or quality)
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they use a range to rate
performance
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they contain specific
performance characteristics arranged in levels indicating
the degree to which a standard has been met
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Rubrics are very helpful in
increasing the quality of students’ work. If students have the
ability to see exactly how they will be graded before the
grading process begins, they can focus their energy on those
specific areas, and learn more thoroughly as an end result.
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Several advantages offered by
rubrics include: students becoming better judges of the quality
of their own work, allowing assessment to be more objective and
consistent, forcing teachers to clarify criteria in specific
terms, promote student awareness about the criteria to use in
assessing peer performance, provide students with more
informative feedback about their strengths and areas in need of
improvement, and, they are easy to use and explain.
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Rubrics also reduce the amount of
time teachers spend evaluating students’ work. If you use self
and peer-assessment in association with rubrics, most of the
grading has been done.
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Tips on designing rubrics: avoid
unclear language, such as the word “creative”; define ambiguous
words as a class so students know exactly what is meant by the
word and what the teacher is looking for; avoid unnecessarily
negative language, such as boring, uncreative, etc.
Resources for building rubrics:
Tutorial on how to build a rubric from scratch:
http://intranet.cps.k12.il.us/Assessments/Ideas_and_Rubrics/Create_Rubric/create_rubric.html
Rubric Builder:
http://landmark-project.com/classweb/tools/rubric_builder.php
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