Speaker 1: Creating effective rubrics. Assessing student learning in an accurate and consistent way can be a challenge for instructors, especially as student learning takes a step towards being more remote and online. Whether used in online classes or in person, rubrics are helpful tools while assessing student learning for a number of reasons. Namely, rubrics are helpful for both the students and the instructors as they provide guidance on what evidence is required in order to be successful in an assessment. In this video, we will discuss what a rubric is, what types of rubrics exist, what to consider as you create your own rubric, when to share your rubrics with students, and finally, we will discuss their multiple benefits. So what is a rubric? A rubric is an assessment tool that clearly indicates achievement criteria across all the components of any kind of student work, from written to oral to visual. It can be used for marking assignments or overall grades. What are some common types of rubrics? We will be discussing three types of rubrics, holistic, analytical, and single point. Holistic Rubrics. Holistic rubrics group several different assessment criteria and classify them together under grade headings or achievement levels. Holistic rubrics are ideal when instructors have an overall description of what needs to be achieved to meet each grade. In a 2015 study by Sofferman at the University of Manitoba, 68% of students preferred a holistic rubric over an analytic rubric because they were able to easily interpret an A paper from a B paper. Here is an example of a holistic rubric. Analytic Rubrics. Analytic rubrics assess criteria components individually and then give an overall mark. Analytic rubrics also can permit different weightings for these different components. One axis will contain either a numeric grade or a letter grade, or a scale from excellent to poor. U of A instructors might find it helpful to use the terms excellent, good, satisfactory, poor or minimal pass, and failure so that they are able to translate their course grades to a letter grade at the end of the semester based on the U of A grading system. The other axis shows the assessment criteria for each component. When you mark the assignment with an analytic rubric, circle or highlight the achieved level of performance within each criteria component. Here is an example of an analytic rubric. Single Point Rubrics. The single point rubric describes the target and leaves room for reasons for not meeting or advancing beyond this criteria. Each assessment criteria is separated and is placed in a separate row in the middle column. In a single point rubric, it's important that instructors set the middle criteria of what they expect the average assignment to be, usually around a B. This is so that expectations aren't set so high that they're unachievable by some students, or set so low that they don't encourage student learning. Creating an Effective Rubric. If instructors plan to use a rubric, we suggest 1. Use a different rubric for each assignment. Each assignment will have unique criteria based on its own unique learning outcomes. Because of this, it can be problematic to use a universal rubric to use for all of your students' assignments. 2. To make the feedback you give students useful, make sure it is clear to the student what they need to do specifically to improve their performance. To provide effective feedback, a rubric must help students answer the three following questions. 1. Where am I going? Learning goals. 2. How am I going there? Task performance description, and most importantly, 3. Where to next? Give guidance about how to reach each desired task performance. 3. Your rubric should avoid vague and ambiguous language, and be sensitive to the use of terminology or jargon. For example, if you give the student the note, be more philosophical, does the student really understand what that means? 4. Consider having colleagues review your rubric for clarity and readability. 5. Kilgore and colleagues found that students have a strong preference for rubrics that, from left to right, start with a higher grade and move to descriptions of lesser grades towards the right columns of the rubric. 6. Leave space to add comments that don't fit into the rubric feedback. This will allow feedback to go beyond what you have placed in the rubric's criteria descriptors. We will now cover some considerations that should be taken when specifically making your assessment criteria. The Criteria 1. Identify what elements are required in your student's work to show that it is of high quality. 2. The criteria you create will guide the rubric, and should align with the learning outcomes of the assignment. 3. For each criterion, describe in detail what the performance level at each achievement level looks like. Performance descriptors in the rubric show what is good work and what is work that needs improvement. They should be worded concisely, and reflect clear gradations of quality. 4. Decide how many levels of achievement you will include on your rubric, and how will they relate to your institution's definition of grades, as well as your own grading scheme. The number of criteria varies widely depending on the rubric and its purpose. 3, 4, and 5 are the most common number of levels. 5. We recommend that instructors use the rubric wordsmith to select appropriate descriptors to define the difference in each criterion level. Unlike other assessment methods, the rubric should not be kept hidden from student view until a grade is assigned. So how should students interact with the rubric? The rubric should be provided prior to students starting an assignment. Research has shown that students benefit from interacting with the rubric before submitting the assignment. By doing this, instructors provide students with the opportunity to self-evaluate their own work before submission, can explain the purpose of each criterion to students, provide examples of previous work to illustrate varying levels of quality, allow students to practice with the rubric, marking work of different standards, consider having students complete a self or a peer evaluation with the rubric before the submission. Finally, after you've completed an assessment, give students the marked rubric along with their assignment. Here's an example of what students might receive with an analytic rubric. Now that we've covered what rubrics are, several types of rubrics, and what considerations to take while building a rubric, let's take a step back and look at the bigger picture as we ask ourselves, why should rubrics be used? The answer lies in their many proven benefits. The value of a rubric lies in its formative potential, where the same tool that students use to learn and monitor their learning is then used for grading and final evaluation by instructors. During remote teaching, rubrics are even more crucial as feedback is a critical component of effective online assessments. It must be meaningful, timely, and should be supported by a well-designed rubric. Rubrics can help instructors grade students' work in a more consistent, reliable, and unbiased manner. A well-designed rubric can help students judge their own work, identify their strengths and weaknesses, and be more objective about the quality of the work. Thanks for watching this video. We ensure you now know what a rubric is, what types of rubrics exist, what to consider while you create your rubric, when to share your rubrics with students, and the multiple benefits of using rubrics. As education takes a step towards being more remote and online, having accurate assessment can seem daunting. Thankfully, rubrics are an effective way to ensure that your assessment continues to be accurate as you evaluate student progress.