Making the Most of Discussions
Creating Discussion Rubrics
Now that you can easily grade discussions in Blackboard Learn™, the critical
question becomes how do you evaluate participation, quality, and quantity of
responses? Rubrics, which are scoring guidelines for evaluating work, help to
establish standards for grading assignments, quizzes, participation, performance,
problem solving, and critical thinking when there is no cut and dry right or wrong
answer.
Rubrics allow students and teachers to evaluate subjective endeavors and
convert something observable to a numerical grade. Rubrics support education
reform principles by shifting the focus of assessment from teaching to learning,
that is, from what was taught to what was learned. In turn, students are able to
take more responsibility for their own learning, including a greater awareness of
their achievement and growth.
Rubrics appeal to teachers and students for many reasons:





Rubrics are powerful tools for both teaching and assessment. Rubrics can
improve student performance, as well as monitor it, by making instructors'
expectations clear and by showing students how to meet these
expectations. The result is often marked improvement in the quality of student
work and in learning. Thus, the most common argument for using rubrics is
they help define quality.
Rubrics are useful to help students become more thoughtful judges of the
quality of their own and others' work. When rubrics are used to guide self-and
peer-assessment, students become increasingly able to spot and solve
problems in their own and others’ work. Repeated practice with peerassessment, and especially self-assessment, increases students' sense of
responsibility for their own work.
Rubrics reduce the amount of time teachers spend evaluating student work.
Teachers tend to find that by the time a task has been self-and peer-assessed
according to a rubric, they have little left to say about it. Rubrics provide
students with more informative feedback about their strengths and areas in
need of improvement.
Teachers appreciate rubrics because they can accommodate
heterogeneous classes. The same rubric can be used to reflect the work of
both gifted students and those with learning disabilities.
Rubrics are easy to use and explain.
© 2010 Blackboard Inc.
1
Creating Discussion Rubrics
A typical rubric:





Articulates the standards, such as the learning targets, or an assessment
task, which in turn articulates the standards.
Includes a performance scale that identifies various levels of
performance.
Frequently breaks down an assessment task into dimensions, such as
components.
Provides students with performance criteria for work at the various levels of
the performance scale for each dimension.
Is given to students at the beginning of learning.
Rubrics can be:


Holistic, producing a single score.
Analytic, producing scores for several distinctive dimensions and then
combining the scores.
Holistic rubrics consist of a scoring system emphasizes the importance of the
whole and the interdependence of its parts. Only one rating is generated using a
holistic rubric based on the performance scale.
Analytic rubrics, on the other hand, consist of a scoring system that divides the
performance into dimensions—such as elements, logical parts, categories, or
domain areas. Such rubrics employ the concept of analytical trait scoring by
judging a performance several times along different dimensions. Typically the
scores for each dimension are provided an appropriate weight and are
combined into an overall score.
© 2010 Blackboard Inc.
2
Creating Discussion Rubrics
Guidelines for Rubric Development:
Terms to use in measuring range/scoring levels
Needs Improvement — Satisfactory — Good — Exemplary
Beginning — Developing — Accomplished — Exemplary
Needs work — Good — Excellent
Novice — Apprentice — Proficient— Distinguished
Numeric scale ranging from 1 to 5
Concept words that convey various degrees of performance
Depth, Breadth, Quality, Scope, Extent, Complexity, Degrees, Accuracy
Presence — Absence
Complete — Incomplete
Many — Some — None
Major — Minor
Consistent — Inconsistent
Frequency: Always — Generally — Sometimes — Rarely
- Nancy Pickett
San Diego State University
Characteristics of a Good Rubric
Jonassen, Peck, and Wilson (1999) identify five characteristics of a good rubric.
All important dimensions are included.




The rubric is a contract between students and the instructor. It identifies all
criteria of student performance that will be graded.
Each scoring element is one-dimensional. For analytic rubrics, avoid
combining basic criteria into broader elements that contain
subcategories. Ratings then become too complex. The elements of good
rubrics are irreducible.
Ratings are distinct, comprehensive, and descriptive. Do not force the
same rating scale on all elements of an analytic rubric. Perhaps some
elements can be rated using a scale consisting of two ratings – pass or fail
or yes or no. Other elements of the same rubric may require more than
two ratings. Additionally, ratings for each element should be distinct from
each another and should cover the full range of expected performances.
Rubrics are easy to understand. The ultimate purpose of a rubric is to
assess learning and improve performance. To do so, it must be understood
by both the instructor and all students. After all, the rubric clarifies
expectations, and to do so effectively, it must be easily understood by
everyone.
© 2010 Blackboard Inc.
3
Creating Discussion Rubrics

Rubrics provide rich information about the multiple aspects of
performance. The real value of rubrics is to provide information on the
separate elements of a complex task. Specific information for each
element of the rubric should facilitate student development.
The format and attention to all of the critical elements of a rubric support the
principles of outcome-based education: the alignment of specific standards,
instruction, and assessment. Rubrics help ensure that assessments are correctly
aligned and address issues related to connecting assessment tasks to standards,
providing meaningful feedback on performance, and calling up criteria that
match the goals of the task.
Regardless of the rubric you use, be sure to explain the criteria to your students.
Knowing your expectations in advance will help most students produce better
work.
© 2010 Blackboard Inc.
4
Creating Discussion Rubrics