Rubrics

 What is a rubric?     

By MEd Andrea Rodríguez Vega

• A rubric is a scoring guide that seeks to evaluate a student's performance based on the sum of a full range of criteria rather than a single numerical score.
• A rubric is an authentic assessment tool used to measure students' work.
  • Authentic assessment is used to evaluate students' work by measuring the product according to real-life criteria. The same criteria used to judge a published author would be used to evaluate students' writing.
  • Although the same criteria are considered, expectations vary according to one's level of expertise. The performance level of a novice is expected be lower than that of an expert and would be reflected in different standards. For example, in evaluating a story, a first-grade author may not be expected to write a coherent paragraph to earn a high evaluation. A tenth grader would need to write coherent paragraphs in order to earn high marks.
• A rubric is a working guide for students and teachers, usually handed out before the assignment begins in order to get students to think about the criteria on which their work will be judged.
• A rubric enhances the quality of direct instruction.

Why use rubrics?

Many experts believe that rubrics improve students' end products and therefore increase learning. When teachers evaluate papers or projects, they know implicitly what makes a good final product and why. When students receive rubrics beforehand, they understand how they will be evaluated and can prepare accordingly. Developing a grid and making it available as a tool for students' use will provide the scaffolding necessary to improve the quality of their work and increase their knowledge.

In brief:

• Prepare rubrics as guides students can use to build on current knowledge.
• Consider rubrics as part of your planning time, not as an additional time commitment to your preparation.

Once a rubric is created, it can be used for a variety of activities. Reviewing, reconceptualizing, and revisiting the same concepts from different angles improves understanding of the lesson for students. An established rubric can be used or slightly modified and applied to many activities. For example, the standards for excellence in a writing rubric remain constant throughout the school year; what does change is students' competence and your teaching strategy. Because the essentials remain constant, it is not necessary to create a completely new rubric for every activity.

There are many advantages to using rubrics:

• Teachers can increase the quality of their direct instruction by providing focus, emphasis, and attention to particular details as a model for students.
• Students have explicit guidelines regarding teacher expectations.
• Students can use rubrics as a tool to develop their abilities.
• Teachers can reuse rubrics for various activities. 

 As you decide which rubric to use...
· Decide whether the rubric addresses the most important aspects of student performance.
· Decide whether or not the rubric addresses the instructional outcome(s) to be measured.
· Decide whether the rubric includes anything extraneous. If so, change the rubric or use a different one.
· Don't pay too much attention to the rubric's stated grade level. It may be usable at other grades with little or
no modification.
· See if a rubric from a different subject area can be adapted to fit your needs. Reading rubrics can often be
used to assess listening, writing rubrics may be adapted to assess speaking, and fine arts rubrics can
sometimes be applied to several different art forms.
· Make sure the rubric is clear.
· Use this criteria to evaluate the rubric.
· Try the rubric out on some actual samples of student work.
· See if you and your colleagues can usually arrive at consensus about what scores to assign a piece of
student work.
· Feel free to combine or modify rubrics to make them work better.

What are the different types of scoring rubrics?
Several different types of scoring rubrics are available. Which variation of the scoring rubric should be used in a given evaluation is also dependent upon the purpose of the evaluation. This section describes the differences between analytic and holistic scoring rubrics and between task specific and general scoring rubrics.
Analytic verses Holistic
In the initial phases of developing a scoring rubric, the evaluator needs to determine what will be the evaluation criteria. For example, two factors that may be considered in the evaluation of a writing sample are whether appropriate grammar is used and the extent to which the given argument is persuasive. An analytic scoring rubric, much like the checklist, allows for the separate evaluation of each of these factors. Each criterion is scored on a different descriptive scale (Brookhart, 1999).
The rubric that is displayed in Figure 1 could be extended to include a separate set of criteria for the evaluation of the persuasiveness of the argument. This extension would result in an analytic scoring rubric with two factors, quality of written expression and persuasiveness of the argument. Each factor would receive a separate score. Occasionally, numerical weights are assigned to the evaluation of each criterion. As discussed earlier, the benefit of using a scoring rubric rather than weighted scores is that scoring rubrics provide a description of what is expected at each score level. Students may use this information to improve their future performance.
Occasionally, it is not possible to separate an evaluation into independent factors. When there is an overlap between the criteria set for the evaluation of the different factors, a holistic scoring rubric may be preferable to an analytic scoring rubric. In a holistic scoring rubric, the criteria is considered in combination on a single descriptive scale (Brookhart, 1999). Holistic scoring rubrics support broader judgements concerning the quality of the process or the product.
Selecting to use an analytic scoring rubric does not eliminate the possibility of a holistic factor. A holistic judgement may be built into an analytic scoring rubric as one of the score categories. One difficulty with this approach is that overlap between the criteria that is set for the holistic judgement and the other evaluated factors cannot be avoided. When one of the purposes of the evaluation is to assign a grade, this overlap should be carefully considered and controlled. The evaluator should determine whether the overlap is resulting in certain criteria are being weighted more than was originally intended. In other words, the evaluator needs to be careful that the student is not unintentionally severely penalized for a given mistake.

Rubrics do not stand alone. They are one means of communicating 
expectations to students and supporting them as they improve the quality of their work.