Creating Effective Rubrics
Using Online Tools
LearnIt Conference, 2012
Cynthia Campbell, PhD
Dept. of Educational Technology, Research and Assessment
Northern Illinois University
What is a Rubric?
 A systematic approach for scoring student work
consistently
 Provides “rules” for evaluating quality
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Rubrics: Why Use Them?
 Improves student performance by making
expectations clear
 Communicates the “what” and “how”
 Encourages student metacognition
 Reduces teachers’ scoring time
 Increases scoring consistency (when well designed)
 Decreases “scoring drift” and scoring bias
 Leads to fair assessment for ALL students
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Scoring Constructed Response
 Holistic scoring – focuses on the overall content
 Analytic scoring – specific point allocation
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Developing a Scoring Rubric
 Step 1:
– “Unpack” critical knowledge and skills (refer to
objectives that assessment is aligned)
 Step 2:
– List Criteria (in first column)
 Step 3:
– Define Criteria (in second column)
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Identify and define criteria for
assessing students’ ability to make a
peanut butter and jelly sandwich
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PBJ Rubric
Criteria
Description
Ingredients PB, jelly, &
2 pieces of
bread
Spread
PB & jelly
coverage
on bread
Ratio
PB & jelly
about equal
Assembly
Bread
Alignment;
PB & jelly
on inside
Integrity
Bread
appearance
Developing a Scoring Rubric
 Step 4:
– Determine points and weight for each criteria
 Step 5:
– vividly describe performance expectation across
point levels
PBJ Rubric
Description
Criteria
Sequence
1. bread
2. PB or jelly
3. put bread
together
Spread
PB & jelly
coverage on
bread
Ratio
PB & jelly
ratio
Assembly
Bread
Alignment;
PB & jelly
on inside
Product
Integrity
Bread
appearance
3
2
1
Correct
sequence
0
Incorrect
sequence
Both
Both
ingredients ingredients
are crust to almost ctc
crust (ctc) (< .5 inch
from crust)
Only one
ingredient
is ctc or
almost ctc
Both
ingredients
blobbed in
middle-very
little spread
Slight
difference
Moderate
difference
Extreme
difference
Aligned to
Mostly
bread
aligned
shape &
&
ingredients ingredients
on inside
on inside
Aligned or
mostly
aligned,
however,
ingredients
on outside
Poor
alignment
&
ingredients
on outside
2-3 holes
a/o tears
4+ holes a/o
tears
Approx.
equal
No holes
or tears
1 hole or
tear
RubiStar
A free online site to assist in creating
rubrics
Intended for teachers who want to use
rubrics, but do not have time to develop
them from scratch.
Benefits
Build on content specific templates
Create original rubrics
Customizable
Examine existing teacher created rubrics
Store your classroom rubrics
Interactive design
New User Registration
http://rubistar.4teachers.org/
Design a Rubric to Assess
a Written Report
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