Bridging the Rubric Gap

Using rubrics in your course is a great way to improve the quality of your teaching experience. It improves the learning experience for your students since it will help them understand your expectations and, more importantly, it makes grading easier for you. If you are like me, then you enjoy interacting with students, but grading – not so much. That is where rubrics come in. They are a useful tool that, along with an investment in your time up front, will make the grading experience easier, faster, and smoother. Rubrics can help assign partial credit more equitably and be more consistent and objective across all the students in your course(s). Using rubrics can also increase the detail and specificity of the feedback you provide. Quality feedback is one of those items that many of us take a hit on in course evaluations. We try, but it is hard to do well. You may have already attended seminars and workshops and believe in the value of rubrics. Putting them into practice, however, is another matter.

What is a Rubric?

A rubric is a guide listing specific criteria for grading academic papers, projects, activities, or tests. The overall goal of a rubric is to clarify for students the quantity and quality of elements required in their work. The criteria for grading need to be coherent and each one needs to include descriptions of the different levels of performance. This is the upfront investment you need to make. The genius of rubrics is that they are descriptive and not evaluative. They can be used to evaluate, but the operating principle is that you match the performance to the description, rather than “judge” it. Thus, rubrics are only as good as the criteria selected and the descriptions of the performance levels under each.

The rubric shown above is an analytic rubric, distinguished from a holistic rubric, because it has multiple, separate, and distinct evaluation criteria for the product being graded. For most classroom purposes, analytic rubrics are best. Focusing on specific, separate criteria in relation to the quality of a product is better for instruction and assessment because students can see what aspects of their work need attention. In addition, focusing on a specified criteria helps for decisions about the future – for example, how to follow up on a unit or teach something next year.

Implementing Rubrics

Even if you have not been using rubrics, there is a very good chance you have been doing so informally. When you grade something, you have mental criteria in your head that you are using. So, start by writing it down.

In practice, there are two levels of rubrics in terms of what students will actually see. The first is the high-level course requirement you publish in the syllabus. The second is the more detailed and specific rubric that explains the grading criteria for the assignment. We can think of the example that follows as the implementation of the high-level course requirement.

Let’s suppose a course requires weekly discussions for 10% of the grade. In the syllabus you state: “Each week students are required to participate in a Muddy Point Discussion. The purpose of the Muddy Point Discussion forums is for you to explain the content that was most challenging or hard to understand. You are encouraged to explain how you resolved the issue or to express that you are still having difficulty in this area. The goal of the forum is to bring to light areas where students are struggling so guidance and support can be provided.”

This syllabus statement provides general information about a course requirement. So how does this translate into a rubric you can use to grade? Figure 2 shows how this might translate into the Rubrics tool in Blackboard. It has checkboxes for easy selection of the scored items and a place for general feedback. It is also possible to add custom feedback on the specific item checked. The feedback box appears when the checkbox is clicked. Notice how the tool acts as a de facto list of criteria you want to remember to check.

It is also possible to deduct points for minimum standards that are not met. Here we are deducting for lateness and not responding to every group member, but you can use it for many purposes. For example, you could assume a standard of excellent grammar and spelling in written submissions and deduct on papers that do not meet that standard. A student may meet the requirements in terms of content but not get a perfect score due to substandard grammar and spelling.

By using the check boxes to manage the routine, repetitive feedback, you can focus on the content of the posts and provide encouragement and specific individual remarks as needed.

Creating Rubrics

While we have already looked at implementing rubrics using the built-in Rubric tool in Blackboard, Table 1 provides a larger summary of different tools/methods to create rubrics, as well as the pros and cons based on my extensive experience.

A document-based implementation is a great choice for a larger, more complex deliverable with several components. With this style you create a document listing the high-level criteria descriptions and then a second one that makes grading practical.Table 2 shows several work products related to my rubric process for a Hashing Analysis assignment used in Algorithms for Bioinformatics.The students are provided with a complete Style Guide that provides more information related to documentation, style, and I/O requirements.

The detailed listing has the specifics that I evaluate during the grading process. This level of detail provides me with guidance when I write feedback to students. It is also helpful when you are using graders and provides consistency and validity across the grading process. In addition, if many students are doing poorly in a specific area, it informs me of areas where I may need to adjust my instruction.

Hopefully, these examples have given you some ideas on how you can implement rubrics in your course in a way that works for you, your content, and your students, while simplifying the grading process. The benefits rubrics provide to both you and your students outweigh the initial effort required to set them up and will prove useful as the course progresses.