Developing Rubrics & Scoring Guides
Rubrics are often used to evaluate student work based on predetermined criteria. Scoring rubrics include evaluative criteria with performance descriptors and are either applied collectively as a holistic score or individually as an analytic score (Popham, 2017). The evaluative criteria defined by a scoring rubric should focus on the specific skills the teacher wants to measure. In other words, your rubric should directly align with your learning objective(s). Therefore, it makes sense to complete the creation, adoption, or modification of a scoring rubric during the second stage of the Backward Design process. In this chapter, you will explore different types of rubrics along with how to develop effective rubrics.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this chapter, you will be able to
- Design scoring tools that allow learners to identify quality work and teachers to provide feedback when assessing student work.
Types of Scoring Rubrics
There are a variety of methods to evaluate student work. Scoring rubrics can be holistic or analytical. The following sections will provide details about both analytical and holistic rubrics along with learning roadmaps. This alternative rubric option often works well in skill-based content areas like the arts and PE.
The Analytic Rubric*
The Analytic rubric is perhaps the one most commonly used by teachers. It features a grid of criteria (columns) and “levels” of achievement (rows). By separating the total activity score into separate criteria (e.g.: summary, argument, grammar & mechanics), the rubric provides detailed feedback to students on the strengths and weaknesses of each aspect of their work. This provides students with targeted information they can employ to improve their grades in subsequent assignments. By providing students a copy of the rubric when you give them an assignment, you help students focus on assignment criteria that you have identified as most important, which may help relieve student apprehension.
The rubric below is an example of an analytic rubric. The evaluative criteria are listed in the left-most column: summary, argument, grammar & mechanics, and formatting & citations. Each of the evaluative criteria should align with a SMART learning objective. The remaining columns define the various performance levels with descriptions of student work at various levels. I strongly encourage you to consider Mark Wise’s suggestions from an administrator perspective on how to Build Rubrics that Get Results. Wise shares insight into how to positively state your performance descriptors and how to assign points to ensure that the most important components of your task are carrying the correct amount of weight in the final score.
| Example of an analytic rubric, Science | |||||
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
| Level of understanding | The student has no understanding of the question or problem. The response is completely incorrect or irrelevant. | There is evidence in the resp