Rubrics

About Rubrics in:
Making the Grade: The Role of Assessment in Authentic Learning By Marilyn M. Lombardi
Evaluating Individual Work

Students have traditionally been graded on individual performance, and this structure
remains valuable for many learning exercises. That said, different assessment methods are
more or less appropriate for different kinds of authentic learning projects.
Rubrics
The word rubric derives from the Latin rubrica, or “red,” and relates to red print used to direct or redirect readers’ attention to text of special importance. Today’s grading rubric is essentially a set of scoring guidelines that are disclosed to students—or, in many cases, actively developed in collaboration with students. A good rubric identifies the criteria by which work will be judged and describes the difference between excellent and weaker work.
When an instructor accompanies an open-ended challenge with an effective rubric, the instructor is actively directing the learner’s attention toward potential solutions that are more reasonable than others. Often the rubric will come into play most dramatically during authentic learning experiences at the critical moment when students realize there is no one “right answer” to the challenge before them. They confront the limits of their conditioned responses, question what the instructor wants, and recognize for the first time that they really have no idea how to deliver a high-quality response in an ambiguous, real-world dilemma.

What would such a response consist of? The rubric helps redirect their attention to the concerns that matter most when choosing the most reasonable solution and the strongest argument among many possibilities.

One noteworthy example of institutional commitment to assessment through effective rubric design is the Critical Thinking Project at Washington State University that identifies seven key performance criteria for assessing student writing across the curriculum:

• Identifies and summarizes (and appropriately reformulates) the problem, question, or issue
• Identifies and considers the influence of context (cultural/social, educational, technological, political, scientific, economic,
ethical, or experiential) and assumptions
• Develops, presents, and communicates individual perspective, hypothesis, or position
• Presents, assesses, and analyzes appropriate supporting data/evidence
• Integrates issue using other disciplinary perspectives and positions (to qualify analysis)
• Identifies and assesses conclusions, implications, and consequences
• Communicates effectively