1. Rubric Design
Denise White
Office of Instruction
WVDE

2. How Do We Assess?
Have participants suggest assessments that they use in their classrooms.

3. How Do We Assess?
Tests and quizzes that include constructed-response items?
Reflective assessments (reflective journals, think logs, peer response groups, interviews)?
Academic prompts with a FAT-P (audience, format, topic, purpose) clearly stated?
These were probably some of the things that you mentioned in your discussions Which ones require carefully-designed rubrics so that we can assess our students’ knowledge, understandings and ability to apply both to real-world situations?
Culminating performance assessment tasks and projects?

4. Why Rubrics?
A rubric is one authentic assessment tool which is designed to simulate real life activity where students are engaged in solving real-life problems.

5. Why Rubrics?
A rubric is a formative type of assessment because it becomes an ongoing part of the whole teaching
and learning
process.

6. Why Rubrics?
When a rubric is well-defined, learners know exactly what is expected of them and how they can achieve
the top grade.

7. What is a Rubric?
A rubric is a scoring guide that enables the teacher to make reliable judgments about student work and allows students to self-assess.

8. A Rubric …
is based on a continuum of performance quality, built upon a scale of different possible score points to be assigned
identifies the key traits or dimensions to be examined and assessed
provides key features of performance for each level of scoring (descriptors) which signify the degree to which the criteria have been met

9. Checking for Validity
Validity requires that all of these elements be aligned:
The understandings/learning goals/power standards
Performance objectives (Know-Do)
Driving question
Performance Task(s)
Student products/performances
Assessment criteria
This check for validity is what keeps the products/performances of the students aligned directly with the learning goal. A well-designed rubric that is in alignment with the learning goals, the performance objectives and the student products/performances assures that student learning and assessment is focused on what we want all students to know, understand and be able to do.
Let’s look at page 177, a flawed example of validity, and then the notes related to the problems with this design on p.178 in your UbD workbook. This is an example of a check for validity that reveals problems.
On page 179 you see the revision that improves that validity check.

10. How Do I Start?
Make a list of the things you want students to accomplish as a result of your instruction.
2. Decide what type of rubric you want to use.
Focus on the goals for the instruction. What CSOs did you identify as important for your PBL plan? These are the things around which you will build your rubric.
Move to next slide.

11. Types of Rubrics Criterion-based Performance Lists Holistic Rubrics
Analytic Trait Rubrics

12. Criterion-based Performance Lists – Page 181
List the criteria, elements, or traits of a performance
May have point values assigned to each item on the list
Do not contain a detailed description of the performance levels
May be judged using Yes or No
Refer to page 181 of the Understanding by Design workbook.

13. Academic Prompt
You are a restaurant critic who has been assigned the task of evaluating your waitperson. With a partner (or as a group) design a checklist of qualities upon which you would judge a waitperson’s performance.

14. Criterion-based Performance Checklist
Yes No
Promptly greets patron  
Attentive to patron’s needs  
Courteous  
Friendly, but not overly so  
Delivers the food while still hot  
Gets the order right  
Calculates the check correctly  

15. Holistic Rubric – Page 182
Provides an overall impression of a student’s work
Yields a single score for a product or performance
Is well-suited to judging simple products or performances
Does not provide a detailed analysis of the strengths and weaknesses

16. Academic Prompt
The editor of the restaurant magazine is not satisfied with the checklist and has asked for you to create a holistic rubric with which to give the waitperson a score from 3 to 1. Take the criterion-based performance checklist and use it to help you determine the levels in your holistic rubric.

17. Holistic Rubric 3
The waitperson greets patrons promptly, and is courteous and friendly, but not overly so. He/she takes the order accurately and serves the food while it is still hot. He/she is attentive to the patron’s needs and calculates the bill correctly. 2
The waitperson is not quite as prompt or courteous. He/she may be unfriendly or overly so. He/she may forget minor parts of the patron’s order or serve the food slightly cool. He/she neglects the patrons or miscalculates the bill. 1
The waitperson is not prompt. He/she is rude or unconcerned with patron’s needs. He/she gets the order wrong or makes the patrons wait . Many mistakes are made in the bill.

18. Analytic-Trait Rubric – Page 183
Divides the product or performance into distinct traits and judges each separately
Is better suited to judging complex performances involving several dimensions
Provide more specific information or feedback
Helps students better understand what quality of work is expected.
Is more time-consuming to learn and apply

19. Academic Prompt
After seeing your evaluation of his wait staff in the magazine, the owner of the restaurant asks you to design an analytic-trait rubric by which he can assess his people. Use the information from your checklist and from your holistic rubric to create this assessment.

20. Analytic-Trait Rubric
Greeting
10%
Attentiveness
15%
Service
60%
Billing 3
The waitperson greets patrons promptly.
The waitperson is attentive to patron’s needs.
The waitperson takes the order accurately and serves food promptly.
The waitperson calculates the bill accurately. 2
The waitperson lets patrons sit for a few minutes before greeting.
The waitperson is somewhat attentive to patron’s needs.
The waitperson makes a minor mistake in the order or does not serve food promptly.
The waitperson makes a minor mistake in the bill. 1
The waitperson lets patrons sit for several minutes before greeting them.
The waitperson totally ignores the needs and requests of patrons.
The waitperson gets the order wrong or serves the food cold or both.
The waitperson completely miscalculates the bill.

21. Examples

22. Collaboration Rubric 20% 20% 20% 40%
Here is an example of an assessment rubric for the skill of collaboration. The author identified 4 categories that were part of collaboration. The author also chose to have 4 performance categories. It is better to have an even number of fields rather than an odd number. If there is an odd number, people tend to choose the middle. The descriptors are written in full, complete sentences. There is a range given across the bottom of each box that allows teachers to choose scores within the range. This will make the calculation of grades much easier.
You may also weight the categories. For instance, if I considered Research and Information Sharing the most important category, I might give that a weight of 40%, with 20% for each of the other 3.
20%
40%

23. In talking with Rody Boonchouy this weekend at training done by the Buck Institute, he suggested that during oral presentations it is hard to have out multiple rubrics to assess each student. He says in his classes at New Tech High he used a combination rubric where he assesses the 21st century skills (in this case, Oral Presentation skills and Media Literacy) along with Content Knowledge.

24. 7th Grade Math Rubric – Graphic Representations
This is a rubric from an Instructional Guide created by Jeremy Knight. What type of rubric is this? (holistic).
You can tell that the descriptors are about the entire project, not just one part of it.

25. This Is My Country! Criterion-Based Performance List
Yes No Points 
Student has chosen a name for their new  
country. (5 points)
Student has identified five requirements  
for citizenship. (10 points total, 2 points each)
Student has justified the reason for each  
of the five requirements. (10 points total, 2 points each)
Student has presented the requirements  
to a small group of students. (5 points)   
Total Points /30
Final Grade _________
This is a checklist example from one of the Instructional Guides on Teach 21.

26. How Do Rubrics Change Instruction?
The teacher commits to teaching quality.
The teacher commits to assisting the student self-assess.
The focus is on each product and/or performance.
The labels are removed from students.
Specificity appears in all communications.
Everyone gives and receives feedback.
If a teacher gives students a rubric, the teacher is making a commitment to help all students achieve at the top level. The focus shift from the student as a learner to the quality of the product or performance. The rubric provides a measuring stick for students to gauge their work and effort, and for teachers to assign a grade.

27. To Design a Rubric… Identify exactly what you are assessing.
Identify the characteristics of what you are assessing.
Describe the best work you could expect using these characteristics. This is the top category (4).
Describe the worst acceptable work. This is the lowest acceptable (2).
Describe unacceptable work. This is the lowest category (1).
Develop descriptions of the intermediate work (3).
To identify what you are assessing, you have to look at your Content Standards and Objectives. What learning targets are involved?
You must assess what you set as your goals in the beginning of the project.
If you can, have the students help you design the rubric. They will sometimes be harder on themselves than you would be. Having students help set the criteria for a performance or product will help them understand the evaluation standards and make them aware of what will be required to get a good grade.

28. Steps in Modifying a Canned Rubric
Find a rubric that most closely matches your performance task.
Evaluate and adjust to reflect your instruction, language, expectations, content, students
Criteria
Descriptors
Performance levels
We know that sometimes it is easier to find a rubric, rather than create one from scratch. If you do use a rubric that you found online, please customize it to fit your students and their needs. It would be extremely unlikely that you would find a rubric that would match the learning targets you identified for your students.

29. Remember …
The rubric that you choose to use must assess what you set out to assess.
Align your goals and your assessment for a true picture of what the student can do.
Show the rubric to the students BEFORE they start to work on the product or performance.

30. Questions?