THE NOVICE PROFESSOR
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Course Studies
  • About
    • Meet the authors
  • Resources

 The Novice Professor Blog

Meet the Authors

Using rubrics to benefit both instructors and students

2/21/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture“Good grade”, created by oksmith available at openclipart.org
​As Brian mentioned earlier this week, grading is not always our favorite part of the job, but there are some things we can do to make our lives a little easier. 

​We previously discussed some grading tips and tricks in previous posts (find them here and here and in this guest post here) that could apply to writing assignments. Some of those include setting a time limit per assignment, grading by section (if you are grading a paper with multiple sections), and grading a small amount of papers at a time to break down the big task into smaller ones. Another strategy discussed in those earlier posts is creating and using quality rubrics.

Picture“Bad grade”, created by oksmith available at openclipart.org
​Rubrics are useful for a variety of reasons. They can make grading more efficient for instructors because it requires you to think critically about point delegation beforehand. Rubrics also help make grading more fair. Detailed rubrics give us a standard to hold to, preventing us from taking off different amounts of points for the same error, which reduces discrepancies in students’ grades. 

If students have the rubric at their disposal when they’re working on the assignment, they can use that information to guide their effort. For example, by seeing how many points are delegated to organization and clarity, the student will know to put more thought and effort into organizing their writing. This not only helps the students, but also makes our lives easier when we are grading. It is always easier to grade good papers than to poorly written ones!

After papers have been graded, rubrics also give students a clear idea of what they did well, and what they need to work on. Rubrics provide students a clear breakdown of where they missed points, which can be particularly helpful when students ask questions about their grade. They know where to direct attention based on where they missed points on the rubric.
​Finally (and maybe most importantly?), rubrics can be an excellent tool for self-assessment. In a guest post, Eric Landrum made a thoughtful comparison of grading and assessment:
“Grading is a process by which feedback is provided to students to help improve their performance; assessment is a process by which feedback is provided to faculty to help improve their performance.”
​In his guest post, he details how rubrics can be modified to not only meet grading needs, but to also meet our assessment needs. Remember, student performance is affected by so much more than just their effort and ability. If all of my students score poorly on a certain section of an assignment, it tells me that I (as the instructor) have room for improvement. Maybe my instructions were unclear, or maybe we need to spend more time on that topic in class. We, just like our students, always have room for improvement. Check out his post for more details, but rubrics don’t just have to grade students. They can also grade your instruction! 
Do you use rubrics in your classes? Want to see examples of our rubrics? What to share your super effective rubrics? Let us know! Comment below, or email us at thenoviceprofessor@gmail.com
Written by Jen Blush and Karly Schleicher

​Images sources:
“Good grade”, created by oksmith available at openclipart.org
“Bad grade”, created by oksmith available at openclipart.org

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    October 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018

    Categories

    All
    Assessment
    Bob
    Brian
    Ciara
    Conferences
    Favorite Things
    Grading
    Grad School
    Guest
    Guest Post
    How I Got Here
    Intro Psych
    Jen
    Jenel
    Job Market
    Karly
    Learning
    OER
    Online
    Pop Culture
    Reflection
    Research
    Research Methods
    SoTL
    Statistics
    STP
    Student Perspectives
    Student Resources
    Teaching
    Tech Corner
    Writing

Picture
Home   Blog   Course Studies   About  
© COPYRIGHT 2020. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Photo used under Creative Commons from Carol (vanhookc)
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Course Studies
  • About
    • Meet the authors
  • Resources