I think the rubric has a role for the student and the instructor. For the student, the rubric helps clarify expectations and feedback. If a student looks at the rubric before an assignment they see expectations and how differing levels of performance will be graded. After an assignment, they can see where they performed well and where they can improve.
For the instructor, it helps us grade and provide us feedback. It also has create uniform grading across differing instructors. This is something I only realized lately. Instructors that are professional academics tend to grade more stringently (in my experience) than professionals who are not full time academics. This can cause wide fluctuations in grades for the same assignment amongst different instructors. Once a rubric is used, however, grade variation drops substantially.
Best,
Brian Stout
Brian,
Your first sentence says it all. The rubric does assist both the students and instructor. And, thanks for bringing up the fact that grade variation is lowered through the use of rubrics. Thanks!
Dr. Crews,
A rubric is a tool that can be used for instructors to create an emphasis on the learning outcomes expected for an assignment. This can then be used by both the instructor and the student to ensure the outcomes are clearly defined, met, and the relative weighting of each element are appropriately applied to the student's grade.
Rodney C.
James,
Very good point on the rubric being used as a post assignment analysis tool also.
Rodney C.
Kathleen,
Good point on balancing the assignments. This could also include reassigning the point value for assignments.
Rodney C.
Rodney,
Yes, excellent point. Anyway you can use the rubric in the learning environment, the better. Thanks.
Rodney,
We have to think carefully about how we assess and distribute all assignments within the grading scheme. Thanks again for your input.
I believe the role of the rubric is to take some of the subjectivity out of grading and to give students clear guidelines on expectations. It helps clarify how the assignment will be grades and the points allocated to each category.
Hello Tena,
Rubrics are essential to effectively complete assessment of the students’ assignments as they allow for standardized evaluation. Also, rubrics help instructors to communicate expectations clearly to their students.
Rodney,
Love that you added the rubric can help both the instructor and the students. We want the students to understand what they are working toward and why. Thanks!
Wendy,
Yes, the expectations should be more clear to the students when using a rubric. We want them to know how to achieve the learning outcomes. Thanks!
Eman,
Right on! Rubrics help all of those individuals involved in the assignment: students and instructor. Thanks for your input.
Rubrics help with standardizing evaluation making the process simple and transparent. It gives consistency of evaluation. It also gives instructors an opportunity to think through the outcomes/objectives of an assignment to ensure that each is being measured completely and consistently.
A well-designed rubric provides both the instructor and student with a common lens through which to view a specific assignment. It can set out each of the intended learning objectives as well as a measuring device for the level of success achieved in each of those objectives.
Certain objectives, while consistent throughout every assignment such as proper language usage, syntax, etc., should nonetheless be evaluated progressively in each assignment rubric to assure progress is made and to encourage student effort.
While true understanding of specific knowledge associated with a particular objective is difficult if not impossible to assess, it is important for a rubric to provide an evaluation of a student’s demonstrable accuracy in presenting the lesson information provided in the area of intended learning.
Posting the rubric ahead of time helps students understand beforehand how the evaluation will be conducted, what general as well as specific factual demonstration will be assessed and what constitutes the achievement levels for each learning objective.
Rubric is an effective communication tool. It eliminates bias in providing feedback to students as the rubric is used to evaluate students’ responses to assignments in the context of defined objectives. Bottom-line, it uses the same benchmark and promotes fairness in evaluation. Thanks
A rubric's role is to make the assessment process objective for all students. Students will then have a better idea about why they might have received a particular score. This will be easier on the instructor, since rubrics will provide an answer to student questions and reduce to amount of time needed by instructors to explain how a particular grade was calculated. I find rubrics to be very helpful when grading weekly discussion question responses and assignments for my online courses. The important thing to remember is to be sure to link categories in the rubric with course outcomes!
Rubric will offer guidelines for grading and communicate the expectations of the the assignment to the student.
Rubric will communicate the expectations of the assignment to the learner. It also provides a framework and guideline to the instructor when grading assignments.
I do not think that subjective always means unfair. There is always an element of subjectivity and I feel that there always should be. That is, after all, why we are expected to have the proper expertise and credentials to teach the subject matter we teach. Our subjective opinion should be an expert opinion.
I fully agree with this. I have seen many different interpretations of the same rubric :-)
