I recently led a professional development session for my colleagues on a workshop day. In it, we compared rubrics for different types of assignments. It ended up being quite informative, so I’ve synthesized the information into this blog post.
Comparing rubric types
As we all know, not all rubrics are created equal. To start, I shared three types of rubrics, all of which have come from my own classroom. I asked teachers to compare the ease of use for each rubric type.
Rubric 1
Rubric 2
Rubric 3
Rubric 1: This rubric identifies the goals of the assignment, but doesn’t give a lot of opportunity for feedback. This requires the teacher to write notes in the document, the rubric, or both, in order to communicate how to improve. Feedback will be hard to gather and time-consuming to give.
Rubric 2: Expectations are clearly laid out and you can see the scaffolding of expectations and skills. There are areas where students may straddle both descriptors (what if I had a strong attention-getter but poor thesis statement?) This rubric is fairly well set-up, but could potentially be time-consuming to give feedback.
Rubric 3: In this rubric, expectations are separated by bulletpoints, allowing the assessor to circle descriptors that best fit up. The right column allows the assessor to give a total grade, with room for comments below. This is spatially clear and informative and requires the least amount of extra writing.
The Goal of Rubrics
When designing rubrics, it’s important to remember that they serve two purposes:
First, rubrics prepare students for the assessment. Rubrics explain the expectations of an assignment BEFORE students complete it. It should be clear what students must do to succeed on the assignment.
Second, rubrics help teachers give clear feedback.. The grade and how it was computed should be clearly indicated.
Therefore, when creating a rubric, it is important to think of both teacher and student use.
My philosophy for creating rubrics is the more effort I put into creating them, the less time it should take me to grade with them.
My philosophy for creating rubrics is the more effort I put into creating them, the less time it should take me to grade with them.
Alternative Rubric Types
I think we all know about analytical and holistic rubrics by now, so I’m not even going to cover those (plus, a lot of these are still analytical). However, I am intrigued by creative rubric options. Here are six different kinds of rubrics you can use that might give clearer expectations and feedback for your particular assignment.
The Checklist
I use the checklist rubric for my career paper. We have so many things to accomplish in this paper that it requires multiple drafts and over a week of pure research. By the time it is submitted, I’ve already read through the paper several times and given feedback on drafts. The checklist rubric helps me track that each section of the paper covers the required material, plus reflects on it personally and uses research correctly. The rest of the areas cover the basic requirements of a paper. I’ve found that this checklist is clear for students and fast for me to use.
The Class Designed Rubric
I got this example from my friend David Rickert. He likes class-designed rubrics as it gives students ownership in their learning and how they will be assessed. This is similar to student-pitch rubrics (see below), but it can also be done with an entire class. Read more about class designed rubrics here.
The Student Pitch
I like using student-created rubrics for personal projects or PBLs. Most times, I will write a rubric and descriptors for non-negotiable items. But I leave one row empty, giving students the option to be assessed on one of 3 areas. See the sample to see how I’ve used this in my PBL Identity project.
The Single-Point Rubric
Single-point rubrics are a new trend as they streamline grading and make the expectations as clear as possible for students. These are especially useful in grading highly subjective assignments, such as projects or works of art. To read more about single-point rubrics, read this blog post from Jennifer Gonzalez of the Cult of Pedagogy.
The Checkbric
Checkbrics are some of my favorite types of rubrics. I think I first learned of this from Kelly Gallagher, but I couldn’t find it to confirm. The checkbric blends checklists with rubrics in a helpful blended assessment. The idea is that students self-assess in one column or on one side. Then, an assessor, either the teacher or a peer reviewer, assesses in the other area. I like checkbrics for peer reviewing. I’ve found that the self-review helps students catch mistakes before they give their assignment to another, plus it garners helpful student self-reflection.
The Hyperrubric
This is so genius I can’t believe I didn’t think of it until I read about it on the Cult of Pedagogy. Hyperurbrics link to skills or expectations to give students a clearer idea of their expectations. This helps avoid the “I wasn’t there when we learned that!” excuse, or give demonstrations for finite things. Read more about hyperrubrics here.
Going Forward
Many of us fall into a rubric rut. We find a rubric style we like and we apply it to all assignments. I hope this post has helped you reconsider rubric types and introduced some different ways to style rubrics to fit the needs of you and your students.
By the way, I highly recommend trying the peer-taught workshop model on a professional development day. I learned so much from colleagues who teach just down the hall, all in the comfort of my own school. Each of us who presented was given a small stipend and it was a great way to spend a workshop day!
