Alternatives to Rubrics
Why might an instructor avoid using a rubric to grade with? Scholarship shows that rubrics can optimize the time spent grading by the teacher, but this isn't exactly put into practice in the most proficient ways. Some instructors will find it difficult to compartmentalize their students work into a generalized rubric. This is why we need to provide alternatives to standard rubrics.
Problems with RubricsWhile not all rubrics are superficial, most have been accused of offering students little feedback in terms of improvement. Rubrics will not work for every instructor, and there are a number of healthy alternatives. Peter Elbow and Jane Danielewic (2009) offer their advice on creating a grading contract. In this, students are able to focus more on their own development rather than using a writing assignment as a means to demonstrate knowledge. While Elbow and Danielewic provide rigid rules as an example for how the grading contracts might function at the classroom level, there are any numbers of way to implement this into your classroom in place of rubrics.
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