Using Rubrics to Assess Learning Tamara H. Rosier Assistant Director for Assessment, Pew FTLC, Fall 2007

Why are you here today? What do you need to know?

After this session, you will be able to… Articulate the advantages of a rubric Describe the pitfalls to rubrics Evaluate projects using a rubric Learn how to how to develop a rubric Evaluate rubrics

What is a rubric? “Rubrics are explicit schemes for classifying products or behaviors into categories that vary along a continuum.” (Allen, M. 2002).

Rubrics are A brief statement describing a certain quantity or quality of work, learning or behavior. Often organized in descending order

Rubric affect the quality of assessment. Define expectations Evaluate complex projects Quantify papers/projects Inter-rater reliability Criterion rather than reference based assessment Ratings can be completed by others

Rubrics affect the quality of learning. Clarifies content and objectives. – Students understand what they must do or learn in order to achieve a satisfactory grade. Encourages students to self-monitor. – Students assume responsibility for the quality and quality of their work. Allows the grading process to be clearer. – Student learning has been specified and therefore easier to measure.

Challenges associated with rubrics. Validity - aligned with curriculum? Reliability – same score for same quality? – Inter-rater reliability Even steps – are the levels within the rubric approximately equal? Weighted scores - are all attributes equally important?

Developing a rubric… 3 key questions What to do want your students to accomplish through this assignment? What is it worth? What scale will I use?

What to do want your students to accomplish through this assignment? 1. Create a list of these objectives. 2. Group similar objectives in categories or themes. (For example, quality of content and synthesis of information may be categorized as “critical thinking”.)

What is it worth? Decide the overall point value for the assignment. Organize the identified criteria from most important to least important. (for example, a biology professor may decide that while grammar and other surface features are important and should be counted, he does not need to weigh it as heavily as he may weigh the analysis criteria.) Decide how you will calculate a grade.

What scale will I use? Decide how many levels of ability you will identify in your grading. List characteristics that describe each objective. Identify ways to describe above expectation, meets expectation, and below expectation. Criteria like "clear," "organized," and "interesting" may not mean much to students when they sit down to revise.

Using a rubric when teaching… Distribute rubric to students when you assign the paper or project. Teach students how to use the rubric. Collect their paper or project after they have assessed their work. It is very useful to ask students to write about the quality of their work. Decide what you will do if a student realizes that he or she did not meet the requirements while writing this assessment.

Using a rubric to assess… Read definitions of terms Examine project/paper Start comparing project to the worst level first Proceed through the rubric one step at a time Project must satisfy ALL elements of the step before moving to next step No half scores

Assessing a Rubric…

Bibliography Arter, J., & McTighe, J. (2001). Scoring rubrics in the classroom: Using performance criteria for assessing and improving student performance. Thousand oaks: Corwin Press. Goodrich, H. (1996). Understanding rubrics. Educational Leadership, 54(4), Popham, J. W. (1997). What's wrong—and what's right—with rubrics. Educational Leadership, 55(2), Stevens, D. D., & Levi, A. J. (2005). Introduction to Rubrics: An assessment tool to save grading time, convey effective feedback, and promote student learning. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing. Wiggins, G. (1998). Educative assessment: designing assessments to inform and improve student performance. San Francisco: Jossey- Bass.