The document outlines strategies for creating rubrics in STEM higher education, focusing on integrating formative assessment and backward design principles. Key components include measuring student learning outcomes with defined criteria and ensuring rubrics are reliable and valid. It also provides resources and examples to aid educators in developing effective assessment tools.

1. Ideas for Rubrics in STEM Higher
Education
Teaching & Learning
Jace Hargis, PhD

2. Agenda
Building Rubrics
IP
Assess
Bloom
BWDesign
-SLO
-Evidence
-Instruct
Rubric Examples

3. Following this session, the participant will
•
Integrate Information Processing as a
foundational aspect of teaching, learning and
assessment, indicated by the frequency of
formative assessments;
•
Create Rubrics addressing authentic assessment,
measured by the ‘Evidence’ step of Backward
Design.

4. Information Processing
(Atkinson and Shiffrin,1971)
Input Sensory STM LTM
Recall
“Rubrics”

5. •
Assessment: Vehicle for gathering
information about learners’ behavior.
•
Measurement: Assignment of marks based
on an explicit set of criteria.
•
Evaluation: Process of making judgments
about the level of understanding.

6. Assessment of Understanding
You really understand when you can…
1. explain, connect, systematize, predict;
2. show its meaning, importance;
3. apply or adapt it to novel situations;
4. question its assumptions;
5. see it as its author saw it; and
6. identify misconceptions or simplistic views

7. What is Formative Assessment?
•
Part of instructional process
•
Provides information at a point when
adjustments to teaching can be made.
•
Self-reflective process - bidirectional.

8. Blooms Taxonomy for Assessment
Knowledge (facts): Who, What, Why, When, Where
Comprehension (interpret): Example, Classify, Infer
Application (new situations): Predict, Select, Identify
Analysis (break into parts): Distinguish, Conclusions
Synthesis (patterns): Create, Propose, Plan, Design
Evaluation (criteria): Appraise, Criticize, Defend

9. Course [re]Design: Understanding by
Backward Design
Wiggins &
McTighe (1998)
1. Identify desired results
2. Determine acceptable evidence
3. Plan learning experiences
& instruction

10. Student Learning Outcome (SLO)
•
Knowledge, Skills & Dispositions
– active, high level
– specifically under certain conditions;
– to what degree they will be measured.
– Substance (subject);
– Form (action the learner performs)
[analyze, demonstrate, derive, integrate, interpret, propose]
1. Identify Desired Results

11. •
Authentic
•
Aligned to Outcomes
•
Experiential
•
Measureable
2. Determine Acceptable Evidence
Using Rubrics …

12. Students
SLOs
Assessment
Bloom’s
Taxonomy
Course-specific
goals & objectives
Cooperative
learning
Lectures Labs Other
experiences
Classroom
assessment
techniques
Projects
Instruction
Other
measures
Technology
(Felder & Brent, 1999)
3. Plan learning experiences & instruction

13. Measuring Assessment Using a Rubric
•
Oxford Dictionary – mid 15th century, rubric
referred to headings of sections of a book,
stemmed from monks who reproduced
literature, initiating each section of a copied
book with a large red letter. The Latin word
for red is ruber, rubric came to signify the
headings for divisions of a book.

14. What are Measurement Rubrics
•
Bridge between SLOs and assessment;
•
Students and teachers use;
•
Defines criteria, especially in dealing with
processes or abstract concepts;
•
Common language to assess complex process.
•
3 Features – evaluative criteria; quality
definitions; scoring strategy

15. Example Rubric -

17. Engineering Lab Reports

18. Critical Thinking Rubric

19. Rubric Resources
•
Rubistar Online Rubric Tool
(http://rubistar.4teachers.org)
•
Assoc. for Assess of Learning in Hi Ed
(http://course1.winona.edu/shatfield/air/rubrics.htm)
•
Rubrix ($50) - http://rubrix.com
•
UCF Faculty Center Rubric Page
www.fctl.ucf.edu/TeachingAndLearningResources/CourseDesign/Assessment/AssessmentToolsResources/rubrics.php

20. How Do You Know When A Rubric is Good?
•
Reliable (r, between -1 and 1)
• consistency which the measurement provides;
• how well a test agrees with itself;
• is it measuring same thing with similar results.
•
Valid
– does it measure what it is intended to measure;
– differences represent true differences in what is
being measured and not from other factor!

21. Thank You!
Jace Hargis, PhD