Grading Assessments
Rubrics
A rubric is a tool to assist students and faculty in measuring the ways in which students have met the desired learning outcomes of an assignment or task. Essentially, a rubric is a tool for assigning grades and providing feedback to students.
Although there are different kinds of rubrics, the one most commonly used at Niagara College is an analytic rubric, which evaluates multiple criteria in one rubric. An analytic rubric has the benefit of highlighting how different aspects of an assessment are weighted and making clear to students how well they achieved different criteria.
Example Rubric
| Excellent-/3 | Competent -/2 | Developing -/1 | Need Improvement -/0 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Argument | Argument is specific and original and critically engages with the technology, application, or activity. | Argument is specific and critically engages with the technology, application, or activity. | Argument is included but is vague, obvious, or simplistic. | No argument is included. |
| Support | The analysis provides thorough and convincing support/evidence and applies key concepts from class resources to the argument. | The analysis provides adequate support/evidence and applies at least one key concept from class resources to the argument. | The analysis provides cursory support/evidence and notes key concepts, but does not connect, specifically to class resources. | The analysis provides minimal support/evidence and does not note or apply class concepts. |
| Organization | The analysis has clear and effective organizational structure, creating cohesion and coherence. | The analysis has an evident organizational structure, through some connections may be loose or weak. | The analysis has an inconsistent organizational structure with evident flaws. | The analysis has little or no obvious organizational structure. |
It is often beneficial to develop a rubric at the same time that you’re developing an assessment, since you’re already likely to be thinking about what you’re looking for from students and how you value different elements of the assessment. There are several steps involved in creating a rubric. Expand the rows below to review each step.
While developing your rubric, it is important to design for inclusion and accessibility.
Removing barriers that are not related to the learning outcome(s) and allowing options regarding how a student can show they met the learning outcome(s) being assessed supports a more inclusive and equitable learning environment. Additionally, try not to assume that students know the vocabulary or jargon for your field or assume that they’re comfortable working in English. Reviewing the rubric with students and using simple, straightforward language can help to make rubrics more accessible for students.
Additional information on rubrics that support UDL can be found in module 5 of this course.
Benefits of Rubrics
Although they do take some time to construct, rubrics can also help reduce grading time, ensure that assessments are graded more consistently, help students concretely identify where they can improve, and create a shared sense of expectations between students and instructors.
Rubrics can be a useful tool and it is worth considering the various ways that you might use them in your teaching. Watch the below video on how rubrics can be used as a learning tool even before the task or assessment has been graded.
Get the Tool!
Use the Rubric Template to start designing rubrics for your assessments.
Feedback
Assessments work best as learning tools when they’re followed up by effective feedback provided in a timely manner. At the beginning of the term, be sure to clarify the role that feedback will play in your course, the types of feedback that you will offer, when students can expect to receive feedback and where they will be able to access it. This will help to give students a clearer sense of what to expect from you and will likely help to reduce their anxiety regarding assessments in your course. Expand the rows below to review the characteristics of effective feedback.
Great working leaning about TLPS and assessment design! Let’s now dive into a final summary of everything you’ve learned in this module.
Attribution Statement
This chapter is an adaptation of Unit 5 and 6 of Assessment Foundations by College Educator Development Program (CEDP) and is used under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 International License. Changes include removal and rewriting some of the passages and adding original material.