Rubrics are an assessment tool. As such they provide both instructors and students important guidelines as to the specific criteria that is expected and how to achieve success.
It's important for students to know what is expected from a specific assignment. They need to know this beforehand so they can put forth their best effort to achieve success.
I provide "Grading Guidelines" which act as rubrics for each assignment. Students know what is expected, the consequences of a range of performance levels and how they will be graded within that framework.
The need for a rubric reminds me of the time when I was getting a lesson on how to surf. I was taken out into the waves and basically told very little about how to actually ride a wave. Of course, it wasn't pretty. I fell off the board and while bobbing in the waves got hit in the face when an ensuing wave brought my board up close and personal.
My "instructor" paddled over and said: "You just broke the first rule of surfing; never let the board get between you and a wave."
I was not in a good mood to say the least. I responded in an unfriendly snip, "I would have liked to know those rules before paddling out."
So you see, in surfing as in the online classroom, it's important to know the rules before the game begins!
Rubrics are very helpful as they are objective, specific and visually quantify the desired outcome. This is helpful to the instructor as it facilitates consistency in the evaluation and provides clear expectations for all students.
Sincerely,
Lewis Lynn
Rubric are useful for giving constructive feedback and guide for learning evaluation. They should be based on the learning objectives and the specific learning actvity guidelines for an assignment. They give the student the competency level they hhave obtained and the areas where improvement is needed. Rubrics should be combined with personalized feedback that provides an alliance between student and professor in the learning journey and addresses specific content and process issues not covered by the rubric.
The role of the rubric is to provide assignment expectatins for the student. It also helps an instructor explain to a student what they did well and what they could improve on.
I think the role of a rubric it to provide the framework for an assignment. It let's the students know what the assignment's expectation are and how they can earn/lose points.
Rubirc also serve to keep the instructor focused when evaluating assignments. It provides a baseline for evaluation, but allows for some flexibility for subjective grading.
Interesting. Now that I use rubrics, I am surprised how did I get along without them in the past. This is one of the most important parts of the learning process for students.
I've found when faculty use rubrics, the grading distribution spread. The key to rubrics is-
1) focus it on the objectives and goals of the course material
2) communicate before the project is due
3) use the rubric as part of the feedback to the student to let them know where they can do a better job
When I use rubrics and use this as part of my feedback to students, I get little challenges from the students. When I don't use rubrics, just about everyone asks how were the grades developed (and I don't blame them for asking).
Rubrics use criteria for evaluating student performance using different levels for various tasks through the assignment. With rubrics values can be set for varying degrees of performance. The main benefit to the student is that rubrics can be used by students to develop their answers and the rubrics can help them revise their work before submission.
Early provision of all rubrics is indeed key to students' ability to use it as a guideline or checklist in completion of their assignments. Students will become discouraged with the process, the instructor, perhaps the entire university if provision of the all-important rubric is not provided at all or if the timeliness of its provision is inconsistent from one learning module to the next.
For the instructor, the role of a rubric is to help him/her fairly assess the work submitted by students and consistently so from one assignment submission to the next. For the student, the role of a rubric is to clearly identify the expected outcomes and objectives of an assignment. I explain to my students that they should use the posted rubric as a checklist to help them ensure that they have adequately met the assignment requirements before they submit it as complete.
Julie,
Wow! You include many roles of the rubric. Thanks for making us think about more things.
Dr. Eileen ,
Fair, essential, and expectations are key words to use when describing rubrics. Thanks.
John,
Yes, there is connection between students and instructors when using the rubrics.
John and Nare,
Thanks for adding to the conversation. We could talk all day about rubrics. :-)
Stephanie,
Yes, students benefit by understanding the expectations better and instructors can be more consistent in assessment. Thanks for your input.
John,
Right on. Students and instructors are both benefited.
John,
Right on. The key is that rubrics help instructors and students. They have served my students an me well.
I think rubrics have several roles in an online classroom.
1. They encourage an instructor, or department to determine what are the expectations for an assignment.
2. If shared with a student before an assignment is due, the student can understand expectations for an assignment.
3. They encourage a certain standardization of feedback in a department. Grade inflation is less possible.
4. They allow students to see where they are and what they need to improve upon.
5. They are wonderful springboards for both collaboration and self-analysis. I encourage students to fill out rubrics when peer reviewing so that they can understand the categories for assessment. Sometimes I encourage students to fill out rubrics on their own written work during the rough draft stage.
6. Rubrics come in lots of forms. There are some who are against rubrics because they believe it "boxes" in an instructor. However, there are a variety of holistic and quantitative rubrics that can be used given the style and content of the class.
Rubrics are the fairest way to judge any type of assignment that is not limited to a specifically correct answer where all others are incorrect. Rubrics shared between teachers teaching the same course insure that all students meet the same expectations in completing a course with the same grade. Without rubrics a student taking a required course might get a C from one instructor where if they had a different instructor and turned in the exact same work they would have gotten an A. Rubrics are a contract betwwen the instructor and the student so that there is agreement on how much each element of the assignment will count towards the final grade.
Rubrics are essential to the grading of assignments that require higher order thinking skills.
Class,
Hello. The role of a rubric is for an instructor to objectively grade a student’s assignment and for a student to know what areas to concentrate on when preparing an assignment.
Regards,
John Halstead
