1. Assessment Instruments and Rubrics Workshop Series
Part 1: How to build a customized rubric for your assignment/assessment
March 9, 2016
Drs. Summer DeProw and Topeka Small

2. Workshop Agenda Quick Review Assignments (15 minutes)
Aligning outcomes to assignment
Aligning assignments to rubrics
Step-down descriptions (15 minutes)
Why???
Borrowed
Original
Hybrid
Examples
Small group break-out sessions

3. Alignment
What is it you hope to accomplish with the assignment you are requiring? In other words, what is the student learning outcome that is being assessed with this assignment? What are you trying to determine if students know?
Does the assignment you are considering actually get at the learning that you are trying to measure? What components must be a part of the assignment in order for you to determine if students have learned the material?

4. Alignments cont…
Now that you know what you are looking for, how does this information translate into rubric components? For example, you know you want students to articulate theories. So, theory explication should become one of the rubric components. You determined that documentation style is important. Which format is most prevalent in the student’s field? MLA formatting or APA formatting etc. should then become a component of the rubric. These components are also known as criteria. Think about the levels of performance. How many levels will be possible? Consider determining number of levels by looking at how many points the assignment is worth…you may want to make the number of levels evenly divisible by the number of points the assignment is worth. For example: 50 point assignment, 5 levels of performance, each criteria worth 10 points or you can determine how many points each criteria is worth based upon how each criteria is weighted.

5. Alignment cont…
At this point, your rubric should be shaping up into a table
with and x and y axis that looks similar to this:
Level 5
Level 4
Level 3
Level 2
Level 1
Theory Explication
APA formatting
The rows represent the grading criteria and the columns
represent the levels of performance. Notice that no points have been assigned to each level. To avoid central tendency, we recommend making Level 1 worth 0 points.

6. Step-down Descriptions
Step down descriptions are the explanations for each level of performance. In other words, what should the assignment include on a particular criteria to achieve each of the levels of performance?
These descriptions are important because they remove most of the subjectivity involved with analytical grading. These descriptions take the guess work out of determining what it takes to earn a certain score on an assignment. The more detailed the descriptions, the clearer the expectation for each level of performance.
Consider starting with the highest level of performance. Articulate what that looks like and then determine how the highest level of performance differs from the next step down in performance. Continue this process until you get to the lowest level of performance. Thus, the name “step-down descriptions.”

7. Step-down descriptions cont.
Borrowed-pre-designed rubrics; task specific or general. Ex. VALUE rubrics
Original-all criteria and levels of performance are original and crafted by the instructor, and may be task specific.
Hybrid-borrow some descriptions on levels of performance from a pre-designed rubric and add some original pieces that make the rubric specific to the task.

8. Examples of Rubrics

9. Breakout Sessions Divide up into groups of two
Answer the questions from the alignment slides
Craft your x and y axis and insert criteria and levels of performance
Begin to describe your levels of performance for each criteria

10. Next Step
Homework:
complete your rubric (s)
Send it to a colleague or someone from the workshops to get feedback; make appropriate adjustments
Bring completed rubric and a corresponding assignment to the next workshop
Next session (3/30): Test your new rubric and introduction to data reporting
Thank you! Any questions?