What is A Rubric?

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A rubric is an assessment and instruction tool that helps teachers articulate and
communicate “what counts” or “what is important” in the lessons and courses they plan
to teach. A rubric is usually designed as a one or two-page document formatted with a
table or grid that outlines the learning criteria for a specific lesson, assignment, or
project.
When used correctly, rubrics provide teachers with an accessible and effective means of
for providing learning-centered feedback and evaluation of student work. As
instructional tools, rubrics enable students to gauge the strengths and weaknesses of
their work and learning in an on-going fashion. As assessment tools, rubrics enable
teachers to provide students with detailed and informative evaluations of their final
assignment or projects.

Sample rubric for composing an email message.

What are the features of a rubric?
 Rubrics should identify learning criteria. Usually, effective rubrics feature 3 - 7
criteria. Rubrics that list many learning criteria are hard to manage; and those
that list too few often don't provide enough information about what the students'
should be learning or attending to.

 Rubrics should identify descriptions for levels of excellent, satisfactory, and

problematic work at each learning criterion.

 Numbers rather than terms like "excellent" or "poor" quality usually denote the
levels of quality. Creating informative labels can be elusive for teachers, and
unclear labels can be misleading to students. Using numbers clearly indicates
that students should avoid doing things that warrant low numbers, and should
exhibit or produce the things described under the high numbers.

 Effective rubrics usually feature four separate levels of quality. Having four levels
provides more information for students and provides greater distinctions than
three columns. Students using three-column rubrics tend to score themselves (or
other students) in the middle category.

 Rubrics describe the concrete problems and trouble spots that students will
encounter in the lesson and/or in their learning. Uninformative rubrics tend to
either describe mistakes students don't recognize, or they describe the levels of
quality vaguely so students aren't clear about what the description means. For
instance, quality statements described as "boring" or "poorly organized" are
subjective and don't inform students about what exactly the problems or
weakness may be in the work. A more informative description for "boring" work
on an essay for instance might be, "Lacks sentence variety, overuse of passive
voice, weak verb usage."

 Effective rubrics often identify thinking skills as one (or more) of the learning
criteria. Thinking critically deepens students understanding of the lesson or
subject. Identifying thinking (e.g. looking for reasons, generating options, seeking
alternative perspectives, along with dozens or other types of good thinking)
signals students to the kinds of thinking that they need to do to achieve a deeper
understanding of the lesson or topic at hand.
 Who are rubrics for?
 Educators and students alike can use rubrics as both assessment and
instructional tools. Rubrics can be used for virtually any course any level of
instruction. Even K-4 teachers and students can use very basic rubrics. Note:
Rubrics for pre-K-2 students tend to rely on graphics (e.g. smiley faces for
excellence or sad faces for needs improvement, and the like) rather than text to
describe levels of quality.

 How are rubrics used?

 Rubrics are highly versatile both assessment and instructional tools. They can be
used to support self-assessment as well as peer assessment. In addition, rubrics
 can also be used as a resource to support and collect on-going feedback on
lessons and longer-term projects. In many cases, teachers construct scoring
rubrics and infuse them into their instruction in any number of innovative ways.
But, rubrics prove especially effective when they are generated collaboratively
with students.
Why use rubrics?
 Rubrics are easy to use and explain. Despite their effectiveness, rubrics are easy
to understand. At a glance, teachers and students can make sense of what a
rubric is and what it does.

 Rubrics make teacher's expectations for student work very clear and concrete.
Typically, the criteria and standards set for student work and learning is a
mystery to most students. Students tend to hand in their work and hope for the
best. Rubrics communicate the teachers expectations for learning in a clear and
accessible format.

 Rubrics provide students with more informative feedback about their strengths
and areas that need improvement than traditional forms of assessment. A well-
written rubric gives students valuable information about their learning that they
can not get from receiving just a grade.

 Rubrics support learning. Students who use rubrics tend to be better at

assessing the progress of their own work than students who do not. Also, rubric-
supported assessment tends to encourage content learning as well.

 Instructional rubrics can help students become thoughtful judges of the quality of
their own work. Research indicates that students who use rubrics regularly tend
to "think about their own thinking" - a high order thinking skill that fosters deep
understanding of the subject or task at hand.