A teacher asks, “What should I look for in examining students’ produces or performances to know if they are successful in meeting the course outcomes?” The criteria used for judging student performance are at the heart of effective assessment. In the absence of criteria, the activities and course tasks that are intended to measure student progress on the outcomes will remain just that—instructional activities and tasks. When you make a scoring criteria public to students and your colleagues, you are communicating your goals and achievement standards relative to the outcomes.
Scoring guides are often called, rubrics. They do not simply judge a response as right or wrong. Instead, they provide a framework for judging the quality of, and sometimes the process of, arriving at a complex product. When rubrics are well-conceived, explicitly defined and consistently applied they insure that everyone understands what is expected. Rubrics are important tools for students; they should understand them well enough to apply them to their own work and that of other students. In this way students internalize the standards they need to become independent learners and successful colleagues in professional/technical fields.
A useful rubric has four common elements**:
· One of more traits or dimensions that serve as the basis for judging a student response or product
· Definitions and examples to clarify the meaning of each trait or dimension
· A scale of values (or a counting system) on which to rate each dimension
· Standards of excellence for specified performance levels accompanied by models or examples of each level.
Using Rubrics at COCC
At COCC faculty are working toward common rubrics for assessing writing assignments and even discussions on-line. Look at the following websites of Dr. Patricia O’Neill to see examples of rubrics that you may use in your own teaching.
http://poneill.cocc.edu/Classes/default.aspx
http://poneill.cocc.edu/Classes/Western+Civ+Course+Information/default.aspx
Written Grading Criteria
http://poneill.cocc.edu/Classes/Western+Civ+Course+Information/Written+Grading+Criteria/default.aspx
Participation Rubric for FOR 251 class– Ross Tomlin
There is also a link for Discussion Grading Criteria which Patricia adapted from Stacey Donohue’s rubric used on Humanities and English courses.
http://poneill.cocc.edu/Classes/Western+Civ+Course+Information/Discussion+Grading+Criteria/default.aspx
The following is one example of a GENERALIZED RUBRIC that can be the basis for a 6-point rating**.