Rubrics

About the Rubrics Tool

Rubrics are valuable tools in the teaching, learning, and assessment cycle as they can be used for assessment and feedback, as well as instructional purposes. For instructors, they are commonly used to assess an activity or assignment based on a defined set of criteria and standards. Establishing criteria and standards can streamline the grading process, ensure assignments are evaluated fairly and consistently, and help provide justification of grades. Used instructionally for students, they clarify and communicate alignment of assignments with learning outcomes, help students identify goals and priorities in assignments, and provide feedback for improvement.

Examples:

• Your department/program has a standard analytic rubric for evaluating students’ performance in online Discussion posts. The rubric assesses performance based on four criteria: Knowledge and Understanding; Critical Thinking; Communication; and Application of Knowledge. Students may achieve one of four levels for each criteria: Beginning; Developing; Accomplished; and Exemplary. The rubric clearly describes the characteristics of each level for each criterion.
• You want to encourage your students to review and comment on each others’ work during a peer review or critique session. You create an informal holistic rubric that allows course participants to evaluate the overall quality of an item using the following achievement levels: This Needs Work; Good Start; Nice Example; and Showcase Worthy.
• You want to help students self-evaluate their work before turning it in, as well as compose a self-reflection memo detailing how certain areas of their work did or did not meet the rubric criteria.

If you are using Competencies to evaluate students, we recommend you set up rubrics before you set up your competencies, learning objectives, and activities since you cannot create an activity without associating it with a rubric, and you cannot assess whether a student has completed a competency or learning objective without assessing the associated activities using the rubric.

Learn to Use the Rubrics Tool