This was a workshop prepared for Paratol members about using and creating rubrics to assess subjective language production..

1. Effective Use of Rubrics
to Assess Student
Learning
Rocío Fusillo & Mirtha Insfrán
Paratesol
June 2009

2. Oral Evaluations!!!
What words come into mind?

3. We must change from a
model that PICKS winners…
To one that CREATES
winners…
Harold Hodgkinson

4. What is a Rubric?
“A scoring tool that lists the
criteria or 'what counts’ for
a piece of work.“
Heidi Goodrich

5. The Cookie…
Which one is the best one???

6. Let’s try again
Follow the instructions…

7. A good chocolate chip
cookie should…
Have enough chips…
Be chewy and moist…
Have a nice tan color…
Have a buttery taste…

8. A chocolate chip cookie that I
would want to eat.
4 3 2 1
Number of Chips in 75 % chips 50% chips Less than
chips every bite 50% chips
Texture Consistently Chewy, Crunchy Dog Biscuit
chewy crispy
edges
Color Golden Brown, with All brown, or Burned, too
brown pale center all pale pale
Richness Buttery, Medium fat Low fat Non fat
High fat

9. Assess each cookie…
 Overall score
 Delicious
 Tasty
 Edible
 Not yet edible
 By criteria
 Number of chips
 Texture
 Taste
 Richness

10. Rubrics
 Powerful communication tool
 When shared among constituents it
communicates in concrete and
observable terms what we value most.
 Provides a means to clarify our vision
of excellence and conveys it to our
students
 Provides a rationale for assigning
grades to subjectively scored
assessments.

11. Is it worth it?
Teachers are very busy people.
Is learning and using a new
assessment tool worth it?

12.  Rubrics help teachers teach in that they help
clarify what teachers want students to learn.
 Using rubrics help teachers think about the
learning outcome, essential questions, and then
target specific steps or performance tasks.
 Rubrics help motivate students. Educational
research has revealed that students are
motivated by “real life” learning scenarios.
 Rubrics demystify grades by defining teacher
expectations. Most students want to “work for the
A” and will work for it if they know what’s
expected.
 Because by their nature performance tasks
encourage more than just memorizing facts “for
the test”, real learning takes place.
 Using rubrics helps to identify strengths and
weaknesses in certain areas.

13. In addition, with rubrics we
can…
Assess student Assess student Assess individual
work in all work at all or group
curriculum areas grade levels projects
Provide students Let students know
Provide students
with a tool what they must do
with a tool for to find success in
for “peer
“self assessment” the assignment
assessment”
Address multiple Use technology! Make adjustments
intelligence for students with
issues learning differences

14. Creating Rubrics
Performance Descriptors
(column headings)
Describes the qualitative and/or
quantitative differences upon
which student responses will
be evaluated.
 Let’s start with the simple
terminology
 It is a matrix (or table) with
columns and rows
Evaluative criteria (row headings)
•Documentation of Events
•Accuracy
•Requirements
•Legibility

15. Main Components of Rubrics
 Dimensions, Criteria, Traits, Attributes
 Elements that characterize good performance of
a task
 Definitions and Descriptors
 To specify and clarify the meaning of each
dimension
 Scale of Values
 Numerical or Qualitative or Combination
 Optional
 Weights
 Examples or Models

16. Advantages of using rubrics
For the Professor For Students
Allow evaluation and Help them define "quality“
assessment to be more
objective and consistent Promote student awareness
about the criteria to use in
Help focus to clarify his/her assessing peer performance
criteria in specific terms
Provide useful feedback Help students judge and revise
regarding the effectiveness of their own work before handing
the instruction in their assignments.
Provide benchmarks against
which to measure and Clearly show the student how
document progress their work will be evaluated and
what is expected

17. Let’s try it! Developing a Rubric
 Choose a learning goal or assignment.
 Identify at least three (3) critical
dimensions or elements of the task
 Design a scale of at least 3 levels
 For each dimension describe
behaviors that represent each level of
quality

18. Tip Time…
Remember…

19.  Criteria clearly aligned with the
requirements of the task and the stated
goals and objectives.
 Criteria should be expressed in terms of
observable behaviors or product
characteristics.
 Scoring rubrics should be written in
specific and clear language that the
students understand.

20.  The number of points that are used in
the scoring rubric should make
sense.
 The separation between score levels
should be clear.
 The statement of the criteria should
be fair and free from bias.
 There are no final versions!!!

21. Caution…
Don’t let the rubric stand alone:
ALWAYS, ALWAYS
provide specific “Comments”
on your rubric and/or on the student
product itself.

22. This is VITAL!!!
Sharing the rubric with
students is vital—and only fair
—if we expect them to do their
best possible work.

23. Thank you!!

24. Works Consulted…
 Effective Use of Rubrics. Power Point by
Marta Colon de Toro.
 Tips for Effective Rubric Design. Power
Point by
 Rubrics. Another Tool for Improving
Students Performance. Power Point by
Debbie Mattson
 Northwetern Regional Educational
Laboratory. 6+1 Traits Handbook
 Mr. Cray Staggs, thanks for the videos!