A grading rubric is system of accounting for every point that can be earned in the class. At the end of the semester, a final grade is submitted in letter form, but the letter is generally equal to a numerical percentage. So all (or nearly all) classes can be constructed around a 100 point system.
The first step in the rubric is also often the last step for many instructors. That's the step you take on the syllabus of proportioning various assignments into the 100 percentage points. Here's a hypothetical example:
Attendance: 10%
Participation: 10%
Midterm: 25%
Final: 25%
Journals: 15%
Paper: 15%
Usually we use numbers divisible by 5 or 10 to keep it simple.
A grading rubric forces you to then account for each point within those larger percentages. This is easier for some assignments than others. For midterms and finals, for instance, the points are usually accounted for by specific questions. A midterm worth 25% of the final grade might consist of 25 multiple choice questions. Done. All points accounted for.
I should note here that most people grade individual assignments out of 100. I stopped doing that a few years ago. It never felt like a meaningful grade. I had a clear sense of the difference between an 80 and a 90, but I wasn't so clear on the difference between a 20, a 30, a 40 or a 50 as variations of failing. Then once you have a grade out of 100, you twist it around again by multiplying by the percent that it's worth. I give grades that are equivalent to actual points earned in a class. If a midterm is worth 25%, then a perfect score is a 25, not a 100.
Going back to the hypothetical midterm, let's say instead of 25 multiple choice questions, there were 20, plus a 5 point essay question. In that case, a complete rubric would force you to account for all 5 points. So you might say that 1 point is for accurate discussion of the text, 1 point is for a clear argument, 2 points are for thorough evidence (only 1 point given for mediocre evidence) and 1 point given for referencing statistical data. That, combined with allotting 1 point to each multiple choice question, gives you a full rubric for the test. You could go even further and decide how many test questions will be on each of the subjects that are covered by the test. That will help you ensure proportional coverage of the various topics.
Papers are much more difficult to create rubrics for. It forces you to articulate everything you expect to see in the paper. Here's a sample from one of my classes for a paper that is worth 25% of the final grade:
Expectation Weight
· Clearly stated argument that is creative and original 4
· Thorough content analyses 4
· The paper is well-written and the meaning of the sentences is clear 3
· Argument is explicitly linked to an important sociological issue 2
· The literature on the topic is sufficiently reviewed 2
· The paper demonstrates a thorough knowledge of all material that is cited 2
· Paper has been carefully proofed for any errors 2
· Paper conforms to the ASA style guide 2
· Findings demonstrate a good comparison 2
· Paper tells the reader how to respond 2
(25 pts total)
This is the rubric I place in the syllabus. For my own purposes, I also have a more detailed rubric that accounts for each point within the items. I share that with students as they are preparing the final draft of the paper. For most of the items, I allot one point for modest performance and two points for excellent performance.
Using rubrics makes some of my numbers a little messier than the typical class. The paper above is from a course where the overall breakdown looks like this:
Journal: 35% (7 submissions X 5% each)
Attendance: 14% (28 classes X .5% each)
Participation: 11%
Content Analysis: 40% (consisting of the elements listed below)
- Content Analysis 1: 3%
- Content Analysis 2: 3%
- Discussion: 3%
- Conclusion and References: 3%
- Introduction: 3%
- Completed Final Paper: 25%
Participation is easy to adjust in order to accommodate odd numbers on the other assignments. Attendance, when fully quantified, tends to produce a weird number--like the 14 above. 15 would have been prettier on paper, but I wouldn't have been able to explain that last point, so I found a way to incorporate it into participation instead. For each of the items, a detailed rubric is also presented on the syllabus. Examples...
Grading rubric for participation
Expectation Weight (out of 11)
Consistently participates 4
Good participation in group work 2
Clearly familiar with the readings 2
Punctual 2
Not disruptive or dominating 1
(11 pts total)
Grading rubric for journals (5 pts each)
All readings are summarized (half point each) 2 points
Summaries are sufficiently detailed 1 point
An application is presented that is specific and detailed 1 point
Application is creative 1 point
(35 pts total)
Grading rubric for the staged assignments:
3 points for each of the five writing assignments during the semester
o You will earn the full 3 points if it is submitted and shows clear effort (need not be perfect—but should be proofread)
o You will earn 2 points if it shows clear effort but has not been proofread
o You will earn 1 point if it is submitted but shows no clear effort
o You will earn 0 points if it is not submitted
o No late papers accepted and I will not provide feedback on papers that were never submitted
Pros and Cons
Using rubrics removes a lot of professor subjectivity. I think it is common for professors to read a paper and say "this just feels like a B," even if they have trouble explaining why. The rubric system might force a professor to give an A to a paper that feels like a B. But that's an important learning moment for a professor. If it feels like a B, but it's an A according to the rubric, then there's an expectation that hasn't yet been articulated. Once that's realized, you should work on naming the expectation. Words like creativity and originality are helpful here. Creativity and originality often make the difference between an A and a B. So you can include them in the rubric. If an assignment is worth 10 points, award the last point or two for creativity. But that means you should also have a discussion in class about what creativity looks like. That doesn't mean you have to give a formula for being creative--I know of no such formula--but you do need to talk about the process of being creative.
The Curve
I find that grading rubrics flip the usual curve on its head. Because the expectations for the course, and for each assignment, are clearly named, students who are interested in meeting those expectations often do very well, while students who are not interested do very poorly. Last semester, I gave just as many A's as I gave C-'s (several of each). I gave very few C+'s and even fewer B's. Because the math is so straightforward, it was easy to identify folks early on who were headed towards D's and F's. So I pushed those students to withdraw from the course by the withdrawal deadline. For students with low grades, grading rubrics made it very easy to explain why their grades were so low and I never had a student complain about unfair grading. More importantly, the rubrics allowed good students to excel because the expectations were very clear.
Here's a nice example of a detailed rubric online.
Comments
Post a Comment