Late last week Jen shared this post about how she has tackled creating rubrics from scratch for her assignments. Today, I share my thoughts on how points can be allocated in your rubrics. 

​This semester, I’ve put the task upon myself to give my students a variety of ways that they are engaging with course material and subsequently being assessed. This means I’ve create a lot of new projects. The easiest way to convey what you want the students to do for these assignments is to give them a detailed description but also a rubric. A rubric is a “document that articulates the expectations for an assignment by listing the criteria or what counts, and describing levels of quality from excellent to poor” (Reddy & Andrade, 2010, p. 435). Most folks (myself included) probably already knew that.  

During a discussion about conditioning, one of my Introduction to Psychology students asked if conditioning can help explain why students feel so much anxiety when the walk onto campus. The question caught me off guard. It lead to a discussion that went far beyond conditioning. Inspired by Dr. Dena Simmons’ TED Ed talk, my students and I talked about imposter syndrome in higher education.

​Like many General Psychology courses, I have a research participation requirement. Along with this, I also have to provide an alternative assignment as research participation is voluntary. In the past when I’ve taught General Psychology, I had students write article summaries as the alternative assignment, but this isn’t the most exciting assignment for the student or the instructor. (Grading these is less than thrilling.) One of my fellow faculty members, Dr. Kayce Meginnis-Payne felt the same way. At our first faculty meeting this year, she brought up the subject and wanted to come up with a different approach to the typical alternative assignment. She proposed that we give students opportunities to get involved with the department outside than research. 

​This is the first year where I’ve had free reign over my courses. I can make my own syllabi and do whatever I want with my classes. (Yay to being a new faculty member!) As I sat down to prepare my syllabi, I was given some advice from my department chair; she told me that our students typically aren’t great test takers. Okay, no problem. This got me thinking about other ways that students can engage with the material. 

A new school year dawns and with it, a whirlwind of course prep, in-services, and last minute advising abounds! To lend a hand, The Novice Professor has combed our archives for past posts that might provide some inspiration. Check out our list below!!!