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A grading rubric is a coherent set of criteria to assess the students’ work that includes descriptions of levels of performance quality for each criterion.  By offering a descriptive document identifying the various values of components of an assignment, the grading rubric helps students understand the manner in which the assignment will be assessed.

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Carriveau, R. (2010). Connecting the Dots. Denton, TX: Fancy Fox Publications, Inc.

Kelly-Riley, D., Brown, G., Condon, B., & Law, R. (2001). Washington State University critical thinking project resource guide. Retrieved from

Rucker, M. L., & Thomson, S. (2003). Assessing student learning outcomes: An investigation of the relationship among feedback measures. College Student Journal, 37(3), 400–404.

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Grading Rubrics are easy to create and often there are plenty of templated tools to help you.  You must identify:

The type of rubric. Do you want to group the headings (holistic) or just list the criteria separately (analytic)?

The rubric’s criteria. These are the aspects of performance to be assessed.  These will define the rows and the descriptors (cells) in each.

The performance levels: that will rate the students’ level of mastery (the columns).

Describe each level of mastery for each descriptor (the cells)

Once you have these, you are ready to make a rubric.  There are plenty of free online tools that can assist you such as:  Rubric maker or Rubistar.

There are even grading rubric tools in Learning Management Systems, such as Blackboard.  These are easy to use and sync to the grade center.

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Whether or not you use group headings to classify different criterion, i.e. holistic rubrics, or simply list all the criteria separately, i.e. analytic rubrics, both offer several benefits for the instructor and the students (Carriveau, 2010). After implementing a grading rubric, students’ scores at Washington University improved 3.5 times over their pre-rubric performance (Kelly-Riley, Brown, Condon, & Law, 2001).  This is not surprising since students can benefit from grading rubrics in many ways, including:

Encouraging critical thinking by increasing students’ ability to notice recurring issues that they can address to improve their work.

Facilitating communication about assessment that gives students insight illustrating what is expected from them and key aspects about assignment. This can help the student outside of class as well, for example, they can share the rubric with tutors to get focused help.

Making feedback timely and this is critical for student success. (Rucker & Thomson, 2003)

Grading Rubrics also assist instructors by:

Illustrating how effective instructional materials are at preparing students for assessments.

Offering insight on areas where students need the most help

Providing information to refine our teaching skills.

Ensuring consistency in grading across courses

Reducing time spent writing comments when grading because of preset substantive descriptions.

With all these benefits, the real question is why wouldn’t you want to use a grading rubric?

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5. How to Create a Grading Rubric in Blackboard Learn

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5. How to Create a Grading Rubric in Blackboard Learn

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Blackboard offers an option in its tools to create a rubric that can be used for grading.  This rubric is integrated with the grade center and makes its use easy for both the faculty and students. Let’s look at how to create a rubric in Blackboard.

1. Select the Rubric option from the list on Course Tools on the menu.  From there you can either create a rubric or import one.  You will need to have a have a rubric made in Blackboard, (in a .ZIP formatted file) to import the file, so let’s start as if you do not have a rubric and want to create one.

2. Select the “Create Rubric” button.

3.  Give your Rubric a Name and then write a brief description.

4.  In the “Rubric Detail” section you can choose many different rubric types.  Let’s choose one for point ranges.

5.  You can also edit or create rows and columns to meet your needs.  Be sure to label the rows with criteria that is meaningful and easy for the students to understand. Then the level of achievement should likewise have meaningful descriptions.

6. Now it is time to Describe each level of mastery for each descriptor (fill in the cells) This will help students better understand why they received their grade and assists them at getting better.

7. Hit “Submit” and you saved your rubric.

Now you are ready to go. You can use this rubric by selecting the “Add Rubric” button under the Grading section whenever editing an assessment.

Remember, rubrics help you as an instructor and contribute to student success, so let’s start using them more often.

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4. What are the Best Practices when Creating a Grading Rubric?

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4. What are the Best Practices when Creating a Grading Rubric?

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There are a few things to keep in mind when making your rubrics. Be sure to:

Keep your language consistent

Use language that is accessible to the students.

Keeping it simple. Not having a plethora of columns helps students focus on the criteria.

Choose an even number on the mastery scale and keep is small (such as 4).  When there is an odd number, instructors gravitate to the middle.

Focus your descriptions on the presence of the quantity and quality that you expect. This is more positive.

Share your rubric with the students in advance to clarify what is expected

While the rubric may seem rigid, be sure to accommodate and promote creativity.  Grading rubrics should not hamstring the creative process required by such assessments as art projects.

Remember, your rubric should look to Blooms taxonomy to promote high levels of learning in students. Luckily there are online tools that can help such as the Differentiator: (http://byrdseed.com/differentiator/)

Finally, test your rubric.  This helps to ‘calibrate’ the rubric to ensure that it accomplishes what you want as an instructor.