Evaluating students is one of the hardest tasks that instructors face.  Instructors want to be fair, accurate and informative in their evaluation efforts.  This means they want to select assessments that give students the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge and skills.  One of those ways is to use a grading rubric to help students to see what they have accomplished and where they need to concentrate their efforts for improvement. 

The format for a grading rubric is to seperate the assignment or project into sections so the students can see exactly where they received or lost points within each section.  Think back to your student days when you handed in a major assginment or project and receive 63 points out of 100.  You really didn't know where the points were erned or lost just that you received 63 points.  Your instructor might have made a note or two under the score and that was your feedback.  You had to interpret the points yourself in relation to how you did on the assignment or project. 

With a grading rubric each section of the assignment or project is broken out and given a number of points.  For example the "Intoduction of the Problem" section would be worth 25 points.  This way if a student received 23-24 points in this section he/she would know that they understand and can identify problems, making them ready for the next step.  If they received 5 points they would know that they need to work on their abilitiy to indentify problems.  The grading rubric sections would progress this way throughout the students' paper/project.  When they look at each section they would see the cumulative total adding up. 

When talking with students individually it is more efficient to look at the grading rubric and then go to the section they are asking about knowing what the points are for that section.  When a grading rubric is used the students most often will have  questions about one or two sections so time is saved talking about those sections rather than you trying to think back to when you were doing the grading and what you were thinking at the time you gave the entire paper/project a score.  You and the student can zero in on specific sections and develop strategies for improving both knowledge and skills in these areas.