Dear Potential Contributors,
First let me begin by telling you how thrilled I am for you to be checking out my resources. I am building a databases of sources that will hopefully help you as a teacher develop a rubric for your class projects that will work for your grading principals, rather than force you to follow a structure you don’t believe in. Through research, and mild experience, I’ve come to the conclusion that rubrics can be a slippery slope and must be handled with care if we as teachers are to be using them to guide our student evaluation. My goal is to help you develop a rubric that can be used by both you as an evaluator and as a guide for student expectations. Some critical evaluators might undermine the use of a rubric, and this is a commendable methodology; however, I do ask that my doubtful reader to cycle through my gathered material so that they can understand an approach that is different from their own. The same applies to my dedicated reader; read through the sources and question their usefulness. By no means will any teacher be able to fully evaluate all aspects that all rubrics ask students to be aware of; your outcome should find specific points of interest into the construction and implementation of a rubric that work for you as an instructor. I encourage feedback, and hope that the experience from using a rubric in practice is not gone to waste; don’t be afraid to share your experience of how your rubric was received.
Best wishes in the construction (or deconstruction) of your rubric,
Justin Littlefield
East Carolina University.
B.A. English
Best wishes in the construction (or deconstruction) of your rubric,
Justin Littlefield
East Carolina University.
B.A. English
Literature Review
When it comes to grading, first year teachers have the difficult task of deciding how to grade their assignments. A standard for Graduate Teaching Assistants at East Carolina University is to use a common syllabus with a rubric that may or may not be used. The decision to use a rubric, or not, can be a difficult one, especially for first year teachers who have no prior background when it comes to evaluation.
To begin, it is necessary to decide what the standard of evaluation will be. Experienced teachers will have the distinct advantage of using dynamic criteria mapping (Broad 2003) to determine what they are most concerned with. Often it can be difficult to determine what it is you value as an instructor. While you might feel that you are strongly concerned with grammar, dynamic criteria mapping can show you that you may be more concerned with other areas like structure. Broad’s instructions for this ask students to help you determine what you value most by looking at the feedback you have given to them. This becomes a problem for first year teachers, as they have no past feedback to review. In alternative option for first year teachers would be to rely on the feedback they have given peers in the past. Once these criteria are determined, teachers can adapt these criteria into a rubric. Rubistar is a free to use tool that can be used to generate a rubric into a standard grid-based format using previously generated criteria and standards, or as an alternative, teachers can insert their own. While dynamic criteria mapping allows teachers to better understand the criteria they value, they must further understand their standard for evaluation. Jon Mueller, professor at North Central College, has developed the authentic assessment toolbox for building rubrics (2014). Mueller’s first step however, is for teachers to determine the standard at which they expect students to achieve. Once this standard is developed, teachers have a stronger understanding of what will constitute a specific letter grade.
Rubric consistency in practice is necessary for students to better understand the expectations of the instructor. “Everyday rubric grading” switches the way in which rubrics are implemented in the classroom. Based on a four-point scale, students are evaluated from a four (excellence) to a one (“fragmentary attempt”); however, this is not an attempt to say a three is a seventy-five percent grade. Grades are averaged together so that a grade is a measure of total work rather than a compartmentalized grade. A four with a two might show that one assignment was strong while another needed revision, resulting in a three for the student. This system relies on a flow chart style rubric in contrast to the standard grid-based system to evaluate where a student lands in terms of expectations (Stutzman, Race, 2004). Hopefully this will eliminate subjectivity. Using rubrics in practice are means in which to evaluate, and justify said evaluation, but they offer little in terms of guiding students to improvement. They allow students to understand where they rank, but additional guidance is needed to understand how to transition from one level to the next. Peter Elbow (1993), Summer Smith (1997), and Richard Haswell (2006) offer their advice when constructing feedback for students. This, along with the combination of the rubric, can allow students further insight into why they ranked in a certain section of the rubric and offer them advice in moving forward to the next level.
Some critics have come to a conclusion that rubrics offer little insight for students on how they are being evaluated. At the same time, rubrics can feel constricting to the evaluator because they box students into standards that can seem ridiculous. A strong paper could lose valuable points on a rubric based on something as superficial as mechanical typos on the grounds that the rubric demands “no errors” for grammar to achieve an A. Alfie Kohn (2006), Maja Wilson (2007), Eric D. Turley and Chris W. Gallagher (2008) question the use of rubrics in student evaluation. In an attempt to better understand how students interpret grades, Linda E. Holmes and Lois J. Smith discover that students enjoy having rubrics that help them understand how they can improve on a given assignment (2003). Alternatives to the use of rubrics altogether can be used with Elbow’s and Jane Danielewicz grading contracts (2009). These allow students an opportunity to focus on their growth rather than meeting grade specifications. As long as the student meets the requirements set by the instructor, they will receive a specific grade set by the instructor. General grading can often leave student feeling that writing is a “demonstrative act” (Bauman 162), and evaluative rubrics can add to this. Lynn Holiday offers even more on feedback that can be useful for students (1997).
In short, these tools can be used to evaluate students in other means. Not all rubrics rely on formulaic approaches and can have value in being used. Critical arguments against rubrics may state that they offer students little feedback, but they can be paired with other strategies to make them more beneficial to fostering growth.
To begin, it is necessary to decide what the standard of evaluation will be. Experienced teachers will have the distinct advantage of using dynamic criteria mapping (Broad 2003) to determine what they are most concerned with. Often it can be difficult to determine what it is you value as an instructor. While you might feel that you are strongly concerned with grammar, dynamic criteria mapping can show you that you may be more concerned with other areas like structure. Broad’s instructions for this ask students to help you determine what you value most by looking at the feedback you have given to them. This becomes a problem for first year teachers, as they have no past feedback to review. In alternative option for first year teachers would be to rely on the feedback they have given peers in the past. Once these criteria are determined, teachers can adapt these criteria into a rubric. Rubistar is a free to use tool that can be used to generate a rubric into a standard grid-based format using previously generated criteria and standards, or as an alternative, teachers can insert their own. While dynamic criteria mapping allows teachers to better understand the criteria they value, they must further understand their standard for evaluation. Jon Mueller, professor at North Central College, has developed the authentic assessment toolbox for building rubrics (2014). Mueller’s first step however, is for teachers to determine the standard at which they expect students to achieve. Once this standard is developed, teachers have a stronger understanding of what will constitute a specific letter grade.
Rubric consistency in practice is necessary for students to better understand the expectations of the instructor. “Everyday rubric grading” switches the way in which rubrics are implemented in the classroom. Based on a four-point scale, students are evaluated from a four (excellence) to a one (“fragmentary attempt”); however, this is not an attempt to say a three is a seventy-five percent grade. Grades are averaged together so that a grade is a measure of total work rather than a compartmentalized grade. A four with a two might show that one assignment was strong while another needed revision, resulting in a three for the student. This system relies on a flow chart style rubric in contrast to the standard grid-based system to evaluate where a student lands in terms of expectations (Stutzman, Race, 2004). Hopefully this will eliminate subjectivity. Using rubrics in practice are means in which to evaluate, and justify said evaluation, but they offer little in terms of guiding students to improvement. They allow students to understand where they rank, but additional guidance is needed to understand how to transition from one level to the next. Peter Elbow (1993), Summer Smith (1997), and Richard Haswell (2006) offer their advice when constructing feedback for students. This, along with the combination of the rubric, can allow students further insight into why they ranked in a certain section of the rubric and offer them advice in moving forward to the next level.
Some critics have come to a conclusion that rubrics offer little insight for students on how they are being evaluated. At the same time, rubrics can feel constricting to the evaluator because they box students into standards that can seem ridiculous. A strong paper could lose valuable points on a rubric based on something as superficial as mechanical typos on the grounds that the rubric demands “no errors” for grammar to achieve an A. Alfie Kohn (2006), Maja Wilson (2007), Eric D. Turley and Chris W. Gallagher (2008) question the use of rubrics in student evaluation. In an attempt to better understand how students interpret grades, Linda E. Holmes and Lois J. Smith discover that students enjoy having rubrics that help them understand how they can improve on a given assignment (2003). Alternatives to the use of rubrics altogether can be used with Elbow’s and Jane Danielewicz grading contracts (2009). These allow students an opportunity to focus on their growth rather than meeting grade specifications. As long as the student meets the requirements set by the instructor, they will receive a specific grade set by the instructor. General grading can often leave student feeling that writing is a “demonstrative act” (Bauman 162), and evaluative rubrics can add to this. Lynn Holiday offers even more on feedback that can be useful for students (1997).
In short, these tools can be used to evaluate students in other means. Not all rubrics rely on formulaic approaches and can have value in being used. Critical arguments against rubrics may state that they offer students little feedback, but they can be paired with other strategies to make them more beneficial to fostering growth.