Rubric Construction, Part 2

Color image of a black chalkboard with word "feedback" written in white chalk in cursive.

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. 

Whenever I sit down to create rubrics one of the things I often struggle with is how to allocate points.
Commonly, we see rubrics with a simple point-to-point system. Something like this:

My problem with this approach is that it is possible for someone to do okay on each item, score 3s, but end up getting a 60% on the assignment. For me the middle of the scale should end up much closer to the middle of the letter grading scale, around a C. I also think that if someone has included all of the elements required on the assignment, they should get no lower than a 50%; they have at least tried and followed directions.

​With these two thoughts in mind, I have come up with the following grading scale, which varies based on point allocation, but follows the same logic.

With this approach, the lowest grade a person gets if they included all of the required things is a 50% or an F. Each subsequent level corresponds to the next letter grade: 65%, 75%, 85%, and 100%.  

There are definitely some things about this approach that some people won’t like. The difference between grade allocations are not equal. Not doing something results in a big hit compared to doing something badly.

I sometimes struggle with these things too, but this works for me.
​
That said, I welcome feedback. How can I improve this approach? Do you do something different that you think works better? Comment below or email us at thenoviceprofessor@gmail.com
 
Written by Ciara Kidder