consistently demonstrates effective and appropriate transitions between ideas and paragraphs.
Organization is coherent and unified in support of the paper’s purpose and usually demonstrates effective and appropriate transitions between ideas and paragraphs.
Organization is coherent in support of the essay’s purpose, but is ineffective at times and may demonstrate abrupt or weak transitions between ideas or paragraphs.
Organization is confused and fragmented. It does not support the essay’s purpose and demonstrates a lack of structure or coherence that negatively affects readability.
A holistic rubric would not break down the essay's grading criteria with such precision. The top two tiers of a holistic essay rubric would look more like this:
6 = Essay demonstrates excellent composition skills including a clear and thought-provoking thesis, appropriate and effective organization, lively and convincing supporting materials, effective diction and sentence skills, and perfect or near perfect mechanics including spelling and punctuation. The writing perfectly accomplishes the objectives of the assignment.
5 = Essay contains strong composition skills including a clear and thought-provoking thesis, but development, diction, and sentence style may suffer minor flaws. The essay shows careful and acceptable use of mechanics. The writing effectively accomplishes the goals of the assignment.
Step 6: Revise Your Rubric
After creating the descriptive language for all of the levels (making sure it is parallel, specific and measurable), you need to go back through and limit your rubric to a single page. Too many parameters will be difficult to assess at once, and may be an ineffective way to assess students' mastery of a specific standard. Consider the effectiveness of the rubric, asking for student understanding and co-teacher feedback before moving forward. Do not be afraid to revise as necessary. It may even be helpful to grade a sample project in order to gauge the effectiveness of your rubric. You can always adjust the rubric if need be before handing it out, but once it's distributed, it will be difficult to retract.
Teacher Resources:
Creative Writing Prompts for High School Students
14 Ways to Write Better in High School
The Top Reading Skills to Teach Your Students
Great Books to Recommend To Teens
Create Rubrics for Student Assessment - Step by Step
Questions for Each Level of Bloom's Taxonomy
Rubrics - Quick Guide for all Content Areas
Writing Rubrics
What Is a Rubric?
How to Make a Rubric for Differentiation
Holistic Grading (Composition)
Creating and Scoring Essay Tests
Rubric Template Samples for Teachers
Sample Essay Rubric for Elementary Teachers
A Simple Guide to Grading Elementary Students
How to Calculate a Percentage and Letter Grade
Scoring Rubric for Students
Assignment Biography: Student Criteria and Rubric for Writing
Grading for Proficiency in the World of 4.0 GPAs
Authentic Ways to Develop Performance-Based Activities
Presentation Design
Presentation Rubric for a College Project
We seem to have an unavoidable relationship with public speaking throughout our lives. From our kindergarten years, when our presentations are nothing more than a few seconds of reciting cute words in front of our class…
...till our grown up years, when things get a little more serious, and the success of our presentations may determine getting funds for our business, or obtaining an academic degree when defending our thesis.
By the time we reach our mid 20’s, we become worryingly used to evaluations based on our presentations. Yet, for some reason, we’re rarely told the traits upon which we are being evaluated. Most colleges and business schools for instance use a PowerPoint presentation rubric to evaluate their students. Funny thing is, they’re not usually that open about sharing it with their students (as if that would do any harm!).
What is a presentation rubric?
A presentation rubric is a systematic and standardized tool used to evaluate and assess the quality and effectiveness of a presentation. It provides a structured framework for instructors, evaluators, or peers to assess various aspects of a presentation, such as content, delivery, organization, and overall performance. Presentation rubrics are commonly used in educational settings, business environments, and other contexts where presentations are a key form of communication.
A typical presentation rubric includes a set of criteria and a scale for rating or scoring each criterion. The criteria are specific aspects or elements of the presentation that are considered essential for a successful presentation. The scale assigns a numerical value or descriptive level to each criterion, ranging from poor or unsatisfactory to excellent or outstanding.
Common criteria found in presentation rubrics may include:
Content: This criterion assesses the quality and relevance of the information presented. It looks at factors like accuracy, depth of knowledge, use of evidence, and the clarity of key messages.
Organization: Organization evaluates the structure and flow of the presentation. It considers how well the introduction, body, and conclusion are structured and whether transitions between sections are smooth.
Delivery: Delivery assesses the presenter's speaking skills, including vocal tone, pace, clarity, and engagement with the audience. It also looks at nonverbal communication, such as body language and eye contact.
Visual Aids: If visual aids like slides or props are used, this criterion evaluates their effectiveness, relevance, and clarity. It may also assess the design and layout of visual materials.
Audience Engagement: This criterion measures the presenter's ability to connect with the audience, maintain their interest, and respond to questions or feedback.
Time Management: Time management assesses whether the presenter stayed within the allotted time for the presentation. Going significantly over or under the time limit can affect the overall effectiveness of the presentation.
Creativity and Innovation: In some cases, rubrics may include criteria related to the creative and innovative aspects of the presentation, encouraging presenters to think outside the box.
Overall Impact: This criterion provides an overall assessment of the presentation's impact on the audience, considering how well it achieved its intended purpose and whether it left a lasting impression.
“We’re used to giving presentations, yet we’re rarely told the traits upon which we’re being evaluated.
Well, we don’t believe in shutting down information. Quite the contrary: we think the best way to practice your speech is to know exactly what is being tested! By evaluating each trait separately, you can:
Acknowledge the complexity of public speaking, that goes far beyond subject knowledge.
Address your weaker spots, and work on them to improve your presentation as a whole.
I’ve assembled a simple Presentation Rubric, based on a great document by the NC State University, and I've also added a few rows of my own, so you can evaluate your presentation in pretty much any scenario!
CREATE PRESENTATION
What is tested in this powerpoint presentation rubric.
The Rubric contemplates 7 traits, which are as follows:
Now let's break down each trait so you can understand what they mean, and how to assess each one:
Presentation Rubric
How to use this Rubric?:
The Rubric is pretty self explanatory, so I'm just gonna give you some ideas as to how to use it. The ideal scenario is to ask someone else to listen to your presentation and evaluate you with it. The less that person knows you, or what your presentation is about, the better.
WONDERING WHAT YOUR SCORE MAY INDICATE?
21-28 Fan-bloody-tastic!
14-21 Looking good, but you can do better
7-14 Uhmmm, you ain't at all ready
As we don't always have someone to rehearse our presentations with, a great way to use the Rubric is to record yourself (this is not Hollywood material so an iPhone video will do!), watching the video afterwards, and evaluating your presentation on your own. You'll be surprised by how different your perception of yourself is, in comparison to how you see yourself on video.
Related read: Webinar - Public Speaking and Stage Presence: How to wow?
It will be fairly easy to evaluate each trait! The mere exercise of reading the Presentation Rubric is an excellent study on presenting best practices.
If you're struggling with any particular trait, I suggest you take a look at our Academy Channel where we discuss how to improve each trait in detail!
It's not always easy to objectively assess our own speaking skills. So the next time you have a big presentation coming up, use this Rubric to put yourself to the test!
Need support for your presentation? Build awesome slides using our very own Slidebean .
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15 Helpful Scoring Rubric Examples for All Grades and Subjects
In the end, they actually make grading easier.
When it comes to student assessment and evaluation, there are a lot of methods to consider. In some cases, testing is the best way to assess a student’s knowledge, and the answers are either right or wrong. But often, assessing a student’s performance is much less clear-cut. In these situations, a scoring rubric is often the way to go, especially if you’re using standards-based grading . Here’s what you need to know about this useful tool, along with lots of rubric examples to get you started.
What is a scoring rubric?
In the United States, a rubric is a guide that lays out the performance expectations for an assignment. It helps students understand what’s required of them, and guides teachers through the evaluation process. (Note that in other countries, the term “rubric” may instead refer to the set of instructions at the beginning of an exam. To avoid confusion, some people use the term “scoring rubric” instead.)
A rubric generally has three parts:
Performance criteria: These are the various aspects on which the assignment will be evaluated. They should align with the desired learning outcomes for the assignment.
Rating scale: This could be a number system (often 1 to 4) or words like “exceeds expectations, meets expectations, below expectations,” etc.
Indicators: These describe the qualities needed to earn a specific rating for each of the performance criteria. The level of detail may vary depending on the assignment and the purpose of the rubric itself.
Rubrics take more time to develop up front, but they help ensure more consistent assessment, especially when the skills being assessed are more subjective. A well-developed rubric can actually save teachers a lot of time when it comes to grading. What’s more, sharing your scoring rubric with students in advance often helps improve performance . This way, students have a clear picture of what’s expected of them and what they need to do to achieve a specific grade or performance rating.
Learn more about why and how to use a rubric here.
Types of Rubric
There are three basic rubric categories, each with its own purpose.
Holistic Rubric
Source: Cambrian College
This type of rubric combines all the scoring criteria in a single scale. They’re quick to create and use, but they have drawbacks. If a student’s work spans different levels, it can be difficult to decide which score to assign. They also make it harder to provide feedback on specific aspects.
Traditional letter grades are a type of holistic rubric. So are the popular “hamburger rubric” and “ cupcake rubric ” examples. Learn more about holistic rubrics here.
Analytic Rubric
Source: University of Nebraska
Analytic rubrics are much more complex and generally take a great deal more time up front to design. They include specific details of the expected learning outcomes, and descriptions of what criteria are required to meet various performance ratings in each. Each rating is assigned a point value, and the total number of points earned determines the overall grade for the assignment.
Though they’re more time-intensive to create, analytic rubrics actually save time while grading. Teachers can simply circle or highlight any relevant phrases in each rating, and add a comment or two if needed. They also help ensure consistency in grading, and make it much easier for students to understand what’s expected of them.
Learn more about analytic rubrics here.
Developmental Rubric
Source: Deb’s Data Digest
A developmental rubric is a type of analytic rubric, but it’s used to assess progress along the way rather than determining a final score on an assignment. The details in these rubrics help students understand their achievements, as well as highlight the specific skills they still need to improve.
Developmental rubrics are essentially a subset of analytic rubrics. They leave off the point values, though, and focus instead on giving feedback using the criteria and indicators of performance.
Learn how to use developmental rubrics here.
Ready to create your own rubrics? Find general tips on designing rubrics here. Then, check out these examples across all grades and subjects to inspire you.
Elementary School Rubric Examples
These elementary school rubric examples come from real teachers who use them with their students. Adapt them to fit your needs and grade level.
Reading Fluency Rubric
You can use this one as an analytic rubric by counting up points to earn a final score, or just to provide developmental feedback. There’s a second rubric page available specifically to assess prosody (reading with expression).
Learn more: Teacher Thrive
Reading Comprehension Rubric
The nice thing about this rubric is that you can use it at any grade level, for any text. If you like this style, you can get a reading fluency rubric here too.
Learn more: Pawprints Resource Center
Written Response Rubric
Rubrics aren’t just for huge projects. They can also help kids work on very specific skills, like this one for improving written responses on assessments.
Learn more: Dianna Radcliffe: Teaching Upper Elementary and More
Interactive Notebook Rubric
If you use interactive notebooks as a learning tool , this rubric can help kids stay on track and meet your expectations.
Learn more: Classroom Nook
Project Rubric
Use this simple rubric as it is, or tweak it to include more specific indicators for the project you have in mind.
Learn more: Tales of a Title One Teacher
Behavior Rubric
Developmental rubrics are perfect for assessing behavior and helping students identify opportunities for improvement. Send these home regularly to keep parents in the loop.
Learn more: Teachers.net Gazette
Middle School Rubric Examples
In middle school, use rubrics to offer detailed feedback on projects, presentations, and more. Be sure to share them with students in advance, and encourage them to use them as they work so they’ll know if they’re meeting expectations.
Argumentative Writing Rubric
Argumentative writing is a part of language arts, social studies, science, and more. That makes this rubric especially useful.
Learn more: Dr. Caitlyn Tucker
Role-Play Rubric
Role-plays can be really useful when teaching social and critical thinking skills, but it’s hard to assess them. Try a rubric like this one to evaluate and provide useful feedback.
Learn more: A Question of Influence
Art Project Rubric
Art is one of those subjects where grading can feel very subjective. Bring some objectivity to the process with a rubric like this.
Source: Art Ed Guru
Diorama Project Rubric
You can use diorama projects in almost any subject, and they’re a great chance to encourage creativity. Simplify the grading process and help kids know how to make their projects shine with this scoring rubric.
Learn more: Historyourstory.com
Oral Presentation Rubric
Rubrics are terrific for grading presentations, since you can include a variety of skills and other criteria. Consider letting students use a rubric like this to offer peer feedback too.
Learn more: Bright Hub Education
High School Rubric Examples
In high school, it’s important to include your grading rubrics when you give assignments like presentations, research projects, or essays. Kids who go on to college will definitely encounter rubrics, so helping them become familiar with them now will help in the future.
Presentation Rubric
Analyze a student’s presentation both for content and communication skills with a rubric like this one. If needed, create a separate one for content knowledge with even more criteria and indicators.
Learn more: Michael A. Pena Jr.
Debate Rubric
Debate is a valuable learning tool that encourages critical thinking and oral communication skills. This rubric can help you assess those skills objectively.
Learn more: Education World
Project-Based Learning Rubric
Implementing project-based learning can be time-intensive, but the payoffs are worth it. Try this rubric to make student expectations clear and end-of-project assessment easier.
Learn more: Free Technology for Teachers
100-Point Essay Rubric
Need an easy way to convert a scoring rubric to a letter grade? This example for essay writing earns students a final score out of 100 points.
Learn more: Learn for Your Life
Drama Performance Rubric
If you’re unsure how to grade a student’s participation and performance in drama class, consider this example. It offers lots of objective criteria and indicators to evaluate.
Learn more: Chase March
How do you use rubrics in your classroom? Come share your thoughts and exchange ideas in the WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group on Facebook .
Plus, 25 of the best alternative assessment ideas ..
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Many teachers shy away from rubrics because they are time-consuming to compose. This is true, rubrics CAN take a while to make, but rubrics will save time on the grading end. Quick Rubric makes it easy to set up your rubrics.
Many rubrics can be used again for similar assignments or can serve as templates for new rubrics. Developing rubrics for assignments and assessments helps focus teaching and learning on the most important aspects of content and skills.
To help you write the best rubrics, here are a few tips to get you started.
Decide what you want to grade for this assignment or activity
Before jumping into creating a rubric, think carefully about the performance objectives of the assignment. Keep these objectives specific and clear.
List the most relevant objectives of the assignment. There are likely many aims you have for the assignment (presentation, correctness, organization, vocabulary, etc.), but make sure you are using the criteria that relate to the assignment. What are you trying to assess with THIS assignment? You may want students’ work to be neat, or follow a certain format, but do they need to be graded on it? (Sometimes: yes!)
Choose three to seven criteria that satisfy the objectives. More than seven criteria can be overwhelming for students and teachers alike. Criteria need to be measurable: there needs to be evidence of whether or not students have achieved them. “Understanding” or “knowing” is not easily measured, but what students DO to show their understanding or knowledge can be. Sometimes one criterion will satisfy a Common Core standard, and sometimes there will be several criteria on a rubric that all satisfy the same standard.
Criteria vary greatly on the subject matter and scope of the assignment, but here is a short list of ideas to help.
Written Assignments
Performance Assignments
Behavior
Decide on a Type of Rubric: Analytical or Holistic?
There are two main types of rubrics: analytical and holistic.
Analytic
Holistic
Gives explicit actionable feedback - shows strengths and weaknesses
Not much actionable feedback
More accurate scoring options
Quicker to grade
Assess components of a finished piece of work
Overall quality of piece of work (as a whole)
Best for assignments with many components, or for targeted feedback
Best for assignments where there are large numbers to grade
For many of us, we think of analytic rubrics when we hear the word “rubric.” Analytic rubrics list the criteria for an assignment and describe these criteria in varying levels of quality. Most often an analytic rubric is in a grid or table format. The criteria are listed along one side and the performance ratings along the adjacent side. In the example below, the criteria are “Factual Information,” “Use of a Visual,” and “Speaking for a Presentation.”
Different students will perform at varying levels, so it is important to have a range of possibilities for grading, and not simply yes or no, or good or bad. The performance ratings can be either numerical, descriptive, or both. A rubric might divide quality of performance into three parts: 3 - Excellent, 2 - Satisfactory, and 1 - Needs Work. Each criterion needs to be described for each of these performance ratings. What makes the use of a visual “satisfactory” versus “excellent”? The interior of the rubric matches the criteria with the performance ratings for the different shades of merit.
Holistic rubrics are slightly different from a rubric that is set up as an extended grid. A holistic rubric describes the attributes of each grade or level. This type of rubric gives an overall score, taking the entire piece into account, which is particularly useful for essay questions on paper and pencil tests. Most student work will likely fit into more than one category for different criteria. The scorer must choose the grade that best fits the student performance. A holistic rubric scores more quickly than an analytic, and often judges the overall understanding of content or quality of performance. They do not give as detailed feedback on what aspect of the work needs to be improved, so these types of rubrics are less useful for assignments with many components. Math problems for high stakes testing will often use a holistic rubric.
Analytic Rubric Example
Holistic rubric example, determine a reasonable number of performance levels.
Performance levels can be numerical, descriptive, or both. Numerical performance levels lend themselves to easy scoring, just add up the numbers, or let Quick Rubric do it for you! Sometimes, numerical grades do not matter as much, as in a self assessment. Descriptive ratings may be more informative for students to see how well they are performing, and not necessarily what final numerical grade they are receiving.
Three to five performance levels is usually best, but use what works for your assignment. More levels might make it difficult to parse out differences between each. Fewer ratings might not account for enough variance in the quality of the assignments; different quality of work may receive the same rating because there are not enough categories to separate them out. Do you want to have a very variable grading structure, such as 1-5, or are there only a few categories, like advanced, proficient, needs improvement?
Write Explicit Outcomes that Match each Criterion with each Performance Level
What makes for a good answer? Look at each criterion separately. First, write what would satisfy that criterion the best. Then fill in the cell that would get the worst score. After you have your two bookends, go back and fill in the middle. The best part of a rubric is that it shows all the different levels, but the difference between each level needs to be clear, like steps on a ladder, so it is evident why a student received the score he did.
Use numbers where appropriate
Use consistent leveling throughout; do not make big jumps between each box for one criterion, and then do incremental steps between others.
Use descriptive adjectives to differentiate each level
Include what the performance/product is missing in the middle levels
Finally, Make sure your rubric works. Are you using the correct criteria? Do the best assignments get the best grades? If you have previous student work on the same assignment, test your rubric on a few samples. If that isn’t an option, see how well your rubric stacks up against the student work you receive and revise for future assignments.
Good luck and good assessing!
that follows. :boone 200910 -->
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Would you like to put a new spin on an old subject? Visit RubiStar's Inspiration Page or read Rubrics: Out of the Wild and On with the Project to find some innovative ways to get your class excited about learning.
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How to Make a Rubric
Last Updated: January 31, 2023
wikiHow is a “wiki,” similar to Wikipedia, which means that many of our articles are co-written by multiple authors. To create this article, 15 people, some anonymous, worked to edit and improve it over time. This article has been viewed 66,309 times.
Grading is a lot easier when it's multiple choice. But essays? Presentations? Projects? When subjectivity gets added into the mix, things can get a lot more complicated. Learning to create a comprehensive rubric for multi-part assignments helps to guide you through the grading process and it helps your students learn more about the areas in which they need to improve and what their grade actually means. You can choose your grading criteria, assign point values, and use your rubric to make your grading a whole lot easier. See Step 1 for more information.
Choosing Your Criteria
What is the main purpose of the assignment you're grading?
What are the students supposed to have learned by completing the assignment?
How will you recognize a successful assignment?
What makes a project stand out?
What's "good enough"?
Engagement with course themes or objectives
Argument or thesis
Organization
Creativity and voice
Title page, name, and date
Time or length requirements
A basic essay rubric, for example, might include five sections, weighted appropriate to their respective values: thesis or argument, organization or paragraphing, intro/conclusion, grammar/usage/spelling, sources/references/citations.
Within the larger or more basic categories on your rubric, you could get more specific if you wanted to. Within "Thesis or argument" you might assign particular point values to topic sentences, the thesis statement, claims and use of evidence, depending on your students' grade level and the particular things you're focusing on in your lesson plans.
Setting Point Values
Some teachers employ over-complicated point systems as a way of shifting the focus away from more traditional grading distinctions and the stigma associated with them. It's your classroom, but know that this tends to be more confusing than helpful for students, reinforcing the impression that they're being graded subjectively by a never-ending chain of different teachers' whims. Consider sticking with the traditional 100 point scale, flawed as it may be.
Thesis statement: _/10
Topic sentences: _/10
Claims and evidence: _/20
Order of paragraphs: _/10
Intro previews topic: _/5
Conclusion summarizes argument: _/5
Punctuation: _/5
Grammar: _/5
Works Cited Page: _/5
In-Text Citations: _/5
Alternatively, you can equally divide the individual tasks into numerical values for assignments in which all components of the project are weighted equally. This would be less applicable for a written assignment but might be appropriate for a presentation or other creative project.
Alternatively, if you dislike the connotations with traditional letter grades, you can assign terms like "Outstanding" "Satisfactory" and "Unsatisfactory" to the different levels of points to communicate grades differently to your students.
A (100-90) : The student's work fulfills all criteria of the assignment creatively and exceptionally. This work exceeds the criteria of the assignment, showing the student took the extra initiative in originally and creatively forming content, organization, and style.
B (89-80) : The student's work fulfills the basic criteria of the assignment. Work at this level is somewhat successful but could be improved in organization and style.
C (79-70) : The student's work fulfills most of the criteria of the assignment. Though the content, organization, and style are somewhat mixed in quality and may require some revision. This work does not suggest a high level of originality and creativity from the student.
D (69-60) : Work either does not complete the requirements of the assignment or meets them quite inadequately. Work at this level requires a good deal of revision and is largely unsuccessful in content, organization, and style.
F (Below 60) : Work does not complete the requirements of the assignment. In general, students who put forth a genuine effort will not receive an F.
Place each objective or task in its own row, making the different possibilities for points at the top of each column. List the expectations for each quality level under each heading. The headings should be in order from the lowest quality to the highest quality or vice versa, depending on your preference.
Using Rubrics
You're still the teacher. If students are united in wanting to assign 99 points to grammar, you can end the exercise without completing it. Use it as a teachable moment, though. Pick on students with bad spelling and ask if they'll really want the bulk of their grade to come from sentence-level nitpicking. They'll get the picture.
Expert Q&A
The style and appearance of a rubric can change depending upon the type of work being assessed. The rubric you create should be easy and understandable for you to use. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
Search online sites for pre-made rubric templates. Simply enter your information and criteria once you find a template you can use. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
Try not to use negative language or descriptions when discussing the criteria for each quality level. Simply state what items were expected and which ones were missing. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0
Rubrics can be effective assessment tools when constructed using methods that incorporate four main criteria: validity, reliability, fairness, and efficiency. For a rubric to be valid and reliable, it must only grade the work presented (reducing the influence of instructor biases) so that anyone using the rubric would obtain the same grade (Felder and Brent 2016). Fairness ensures that the grading is transparent by providing students with access to the rubric at the beginning of the assessment while efficiency is evident when students receive detailed, timely feedback from the rubric after grading has occurred (Felder and Brent 2016). Because the most informative rubrics for student learning are analytical rubrics (Brookhart 2013), the steps below explain how to construct an analytical rubric.
Five Steps to Design Effective Rubrics
The first step in designing a rubric is determining the content, skills, or tasks you want students to be able to accomplish (Wormeli 2006) by completing an assessment. Thus, two main questions need to be answered:
What do students need to know or do? and
How will the instructor know when the students know or can do it?
Another way to think about this is to decide which learning objectives for the course are being evaluated using this assessment (Allen and Tanner 2006, Wormeli 2006). (More information on learning objectives can be found at Teaching@UNL). For most projects or similar assessments, more than one area of content or skill is occurring, so most rubrics assess more than one learning objective. For example, a project may require students to research a topic (content knowledge learning objective) using digital literacy skills (research learning objective) and presenting their findings (communication learning objective). Therefore, it is important to think through all the tasks or skills students will need to complete during an assessment to meet the learning objectives. Additionally, it is advised to review examples of rubrics for a specific discipline or task to find grade-level appropriate rubrics to aid in preparing a list of tasks and activities that are essential to meeting the learning objectives (Allen and Tanner 2006).
Once the learning objectives and a list of essential tasks for students is compiled and aligned to learning objectives, the next step is to determine the number of criteria for the rubric. Most rubrics have three or more criteria with most rubrics having less than a dozen criteria. It is important to remember that as more criteria are added to a rubric, a student’s cognitive load increases making it more difficult for students to remember all the assessment requirements (Allen and Tanner 2006, Wolf et al. 2008). Thus, usually 3-10 criteria are recommended for a rubric (if an assessment has less than 3 criteria, a different format (e.g., grade sheet) can be used to convey grading expectations and if a rubric has more than ten criteria, some criteria can be consolidated into a single larger category; Wolf et al. 2008). Once the number of criteria is established, the final step for the criteria aspect of a rubric is creating descriptive titles for each criterion and determining if some criteria will be weighted and thus be more influential on the grade for the assessment. Once this is accomplished, the right column of the rubric can be designed (Table 1).
Table 1. Structure of a rubric with three different criteria (Content Knowledge, Research Skills, and Presenting Skills) and five levels of performance (mastery, proficient, apprentice, novice, missing). Note that only three performance levels are included for the “Research Skills” criterion.
Criteria
Mastery
Proficient
Apprentice
Novice
Absent
Content Knowledge (weight = 3)
Details for highest performance level
Details for meeting the criteria
Details for mid-performance level
Details for lowest performance level
No work turned in for project
Research Skills (weight = 1)
Details for highest performance level
.
Details for mid-performance level
.
No work turned in for project
Presentation Skills (weight = 2)
Details for highest performance level
Details for meeting the criteria
Details for mid-performance level
Details for lowest performance level
No presentation given
The third aspect of a rubric design is the levels of performance and the labels for each level in the rubric. It is recommended to have 3-6 levels of performance in a rubric (Allen and Tanner 2006, Wormeli 2006, Wolf et al. 2008). The key to determining the number of performance levels for a rubric is based on how easy it is to distinguish between levels (Allen and Tanner 2006). Can the difference in student performance between a “3” and “4” be readily seen on a five-level rubric? If not, should only four levels be used for the rubric for all criteria. If most of the criteria can easily be differentiated with five levels, but only one criterion is difficult to discern, then two levels could be left blank (see “Research Skills” criterion in Table 1). It is also important to note that having fewer levels makes constructing the rubric faster but may result in ambiguous expectations and difficulty providing feedback to students.
Once the number of performance levels are set for the rubric, assign each level a name or title that indicates the level of performance. When creating the name system for the performance levels of a rubric, it is important to use terms that are not subjective, overly negative, or convey judgements (e.g., “Excellent”, “Good”, and “Bad”; Allen and Tanner 2006, Stevens and Levi 2013) and to ensure the terms use the same aspect of language (all nouns, all verbs ending in “-ing”, all adjectives, etc.; Wormeli 2006). Examples of different performance level naming systems include:
Additionally, the order of the levels needs to be determined with some rubrics designed to increase in proficiency across the levels (lowest, middle, highest performance) and other designed to start with the highest performance level and move toward the lowest (highest, middle, lowest performance).
It is essential to evaluate how well a rubric works for grading and providing feedback to students. If possible, use previous student work to test a rubric to determine how well the rubric functions for grading the assessment prior to giving the rubric to students (Wormeli 2006). After using the rubric in a class, evaluate how well students met the criteria and how easy the rubric was to use in grading (Allen and Tanner 2006). If a specific criterion has low grades associated with it, determine if the language was too subjective or confusing for students. This can be done by asking students to critique the rubric or using a student survey for the overall assessment. Alternatively, the instructor can ask a colleague or instructional designer for their feedback on the rubric. If more than one instructor is using the rubric, determine if all instructors are seeing lower grades on certain criterion. Analyzing the grades can often show where students are failing to understand the content or the assessment format or requirements.
Next, look at how well the rubric reflects the work turned in by the students (Allen and Tanner 2006, Wormeli 2006). Does the grade based on the rubric reflect what the instructor would expect for the student’s assignment? Or does the rubric result in some students receiving a higher or lower grade? If the latter is occurring, determine which aspect of the rubric needs to be “fudged” to obtain the correct grade for the assessment and update the criteria that are problematic. Alternatively, the instructor may find that the rubric is good for all criteria but that some aspects of the assessment are under or over valued in the rubric (Allen and Tanner 2006). For example, if the main learning objective is the content, but 40% of the assessment is on writing skills, the rubric may need to be weighed to allow content criteria to have a stronger influence on the grade over writing criteria.
Finally, analyze how well the rubric worked for grading the assessment overall. If the instructor needed to modify the interpretation of the rubric while grading, then the levels of performance or the number of criteria may need to be edited to better align with the learning objectives and the evidence being shown in the assessment (Allen and Tanner 2006). For example, if only three performance levels exist in the rubric, but the instructor often had to give partial credit on a criterion, then this may indicate that the rubric needs to be expanded to have more levels of performance. If instead, a specific criterion is difficult to grade or distinguish between adjacent performance levels, this may indicate that too much is being assessed in the criterion (and thus should be divided into two or more different criteria) or that the criterion is not well written and needs to be explained with more details. Reflecting on the effectiveness of a rubric should be done each time the rubric is used to ensure it is well-designed and accurately represents student learning.
Rubric Examples & Resources
UNCW College of Arts & Science “ Scoring Rubrics ” contains links to discipline-specific rubrics designed by faculty from many institutions. Most of these rubrics are downloadable Word files that could be edited for use in courses.
Syracuse University “ Examples of Rubrics ” also has rubrics by discipline with some as downloadable Word files that could be edited for use in courses.
University of Illinois – Springfield has pdf files of different types of rubrics on its “ Rubric Examples ” page. These rubrics include many different types of tasks (presenting, participation, critical thinking, etc.) from a variety of institutions
If you are building a rubric in Canvas, the rubric guide in Canvas 101 provides detailed information including video instructions: Using Rubrics: Canvas 101 (unl.edu)
Allen, D. and K. Tanner (2006). Rubrics: Tools for making learning goals and evaluation criteria explicit for both teachers and learners. CBE – Life Sciences Education 5: 197-203.
Stevens, D. D., and A. J. Levi (2013). Introduction to Rubrics: an assessment tool to save grading time, convey effective feedback, and promote student learning. Stylus Publishing, Sterling, VA, USA.
Wolf, K., M. Connelly, and A. Komara (2008). A tale of two rubrics: improving teaching and learning across the content areas through assessment. Journal of Effective Teaching 8: 21-32.
Wormeli, R. (2006). Fair isn’t always equal: assessing and grading in the differentiated classroom. Stenhouse Publishers, Portland, ME, USA.
This page was authored by Michele Larson and last updated September 15, 2022
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Research Presentation Rubric
The format of research presentations can vary across and within disciplines. Use this rubric (PDF) to identify and assess elements of research presentations, including delivery strategies and slide design. This resource focuses on research presentations but may be useful beyond.
How to Create Rubric in UFUTURE (for UiTM Lecturers)
Creating rubric using Gemini
COMMENTS
Rubric Best Practices, Examples, and Templates
Step 7: Create your rubric. Create your rubric in a table or spreadsheet in Word, Google Docs, Sheets, etc., and then transfer it by typing it into Moodle. You can also use online tools to create the rubric, but you will still have to type the criteria, indicators, levels, etc., into Moodle.
Writing Rubrics [Examples, Best Practices, & Free Templates]
1. Define Clear Criteria. Identify specific aspects of writing to evaluate. Be clear and precise. The criteria should reflect the key components of the writing task. For example, for a narrative essay, criteria might include plot development, character depth, and use of descriptive language.
How to Create a Rubric in Five Steps (With Examples)
Step 2: Clarify the criteria within those categories to differentiate each level. Once you have your categories, consider the criteria that differentiate a "meets standards" from an "exceeds standards" and so on. If you use a rubric generator, the criteria will populate itself. That is helpful.
Creating and Using Rubrics
Creating and Using Rubrics. A rubric is a scoring tool that explicitly describes the instructor's performance expectations for an assignment or piece of work. A rubric identifies: ... Example 3: Group Presentations This rubric describes a set of components and standards for assessing group presentations in history (Carnegie Mellon).
Rubrics
Applying your rubric consistently means using a stable vocabulary when making your comments and keeping your feedback focused on the criteria in your rubric. How to Build a Rubric Rubrics and assignment prompts are two sides of a coin. If you've already created a prompt, you should have all of the information you need to make a rubric.
Creating an Oral Presentation Rubric
Create a second list to the side of the board, called "Let it slide," asking students what, as a class, they should "let slide" in the oral presentations. Guide and elaborate, choosing whether to reject, accept, or compromise on the students' proposals. Distribute the two lists to students as-is as a checklist-style rubric or flesh ...
Creating and Using Rubrics
Creating and Using Rubrics. A rubric describes the criteria that will be used to evaluate a specific task, such as a student writing assignment, poster, oral presentation, or other project. Rubrics allow instructors to communicate expectations to students, allow students to check in on their progress mid-assignment, and can increase the ...
How to Use Rubrics
3. Create the rating scale. According to Suskie, you will want at least 3 performance levels: for adequate and inadequate performance, at the minimum, and an exemplary level to motivate students to strive for even better work. Rubrics often contain 5 levels, with an additional level between adequate and exemplary and a level between adequate ...
How to (Effectively) Use a Presentation Grading Rubric
Professors need to be picky when choosing a presentation rubric for their courses. Rubrics should clearly define the target that students are aiming for and describe performance. 2. Fine-Tune Your Rubric. Make sure your rubric accurately reflects the expectations you have for your students. It may be helpful to ask a colleague or peer to review ...
Oral Presentation Rubric
The rubric allows teachers to assess students in several key areas of oral presentation. Students are scored on a scale of 1-4 in three major areas. The first area is Delivery, which includes eye contact, and voice inflection. The second area, Content/Organization, scores students based on their knowledge and understanding of the topic being ...
Creating and Using Rubrics
A rubric is an assessment tool often shaped like a matrix, which describes levels of achievement in a specific area of performance, understanding, or behavior. There are two main types of rubrics: Analytic Rubric: An analytic rubric specifies at least two characteristics to be assessed at each performance level and provides a separate score for ...
PDF Research Presentation Rubrics
The goal of this rubric is to identify and assess elements of research presentations, including delivery strategies and slide design. • Self-assessment: Record yourself presenting your talk using your computer's pre-downloaded recording software or by using the coach in Microsoft PowerPoint. Then review your recording, fill in the rubric ...
How to Create a Rubric in 6 Steps
Step 3: Determine Your Criteria. This is where the learning objectives for your unit or course come into play. Here, you'll need to brainstorm a list of knowledge and skills you would like to assess for the project. Group them according to similarities and get rid of anything that is not absolutely critical.
Presentation Rubric for a College Project
A typical presentation rubric includes a set of criteria and a scale for rating or scoring each criterion. The criteria are specific aspects or elements of the presentation that are considered essential for a successful presentation. The scale assigns a numerical value or descriptive level to each criterion, ranging from poor or unsatisfactory ...
PDF Rubric Roadmap: A Guide for Creating Rubrics
To create the rubric: Identify the assignment's dimensions (the skills/knowledge involved) Determine the scale you will use (three, four, or five-point) Describe the performance levels for each dimension (starting with the highest) Dimensions. Scale 1.
15 Helpful Scoring Rubric Examples for All Grades and Subjects
Presentation Rubric. Analyze a student's presentation both for content and communication skills with a rubric like this one. If needed, create a separate one for content knowledge with even more criteria and indicators. Learn more: Michael A. Pena Jr. Debate Rubric.
Tips for Writing a Strong Rubric
Decide what you want to grade for this assignment or activity. Before jumping into creating a rubric, think carefully about the performance objectives of the assignment. Keep these objectives specific and clear. List the most relevant objectives of the assignment. There are likely many aims you have for the assignment (presentation, correctness ...
PDF Grading Rubric for PowerPoint Presentation
Grading Rubric for PowerPoint Presentation Rubric. Information is organized in a clear, logical way. It is easy to anticipate the type of material that might be on the next slide. Most information is organized in a clear, logical way. One slide or item of information seems out of place. Some information is logically sequenced.
Create a New Rubric
Create Rubrics for your Project-Based Learning Activities Choose a Customizable Rubric Below: Oral Projects Class Debate Historical Role Play Interview Newscast - Presentation and Planning Oral Presentation Rubric Puppet Show Story Telling Video - Talk Show. Products Making A Brochure Making A Game Making A Map Making A Poster Newspaper Public ...
Create Rubrics for your Project-Based Learning Activities
Create a Rubric : Choose a Topic below to create a new rubric based on a template: Log In Register: First Initial: Last Name: Modifier: Zip Code: Password: Go To a Saved Rubric View, Edit, or Analyze a Rubric Please enter your Saved Rubric ID below: ...
How to Make a Rubric: 13 Steps (with Pictures)
4. Tabulate the grades and show the students the completed rubric. Assign points to each category, tabulate the grade at the end, and share the finished product with the student. Save a copy for your records, and return the table with the individual grade breakdown to each student.
How to Design Effective Rubrics
Five Steps to Design Effective Rubrics. 1 Decide What Students Should Accomplish. 2 Identify 3-10 Criteria. 3 Choose Performance Level Labels. 4 Describe Performance Details. The final step in developing a rubric is to fill in the details for each performance level for each criterion. It is advised to begin by filling out the requirements for ...
Research Presentation Rubric
The format of research presentations can vary across and within disciplines. Use this rubric (PDF) to identify and assess elements of research presentations, including delivery strategies and slide design. This resource focuses on research presentations but may be useful beyond.
IMAGES
VIDEO
COMMENTS
Step 7: Create your rubric. Create your rubric in a table or spreadsheet in Word, Google Docs, Sheets, etc., and then transfer it by typing it into Moodle. You can also use online tools to create the rubric, but you will still have to type the criteria, indicators, levels, etc., into Moodle.
1. Define Clear Criteria. Identify specific aspects of writing to evaluate. Be clear and precise. The criteria should reflect the key components of the writing task. For example, for a narrative essay, criteria might include plot development, character depth, and use of descriptive language.
Step 2: Clarify the criteria within those categories to differentiate each level. Once you have your categories, consider the criteria that differentiate a "meets standards" from an "exceeds standards" and so on. If you use a rubric generator, the criteria will populate itself. That is helpful.
Creating and Using Rubrics. A rubric is a scoring tool that explicitly describes the instructor's performance expectations for an assignment or piece of work. A rubric identifies: ... Example 3: Group Presentations This rubric describes a set of components and standards for assessing group presentations in history (Carnegie Mellon).
Applying your rubric consistently means using a stable vocabulary when making your comments and keeping your feedback focused on the criteria in your rubric. How to Build a Rubric Rubrics and assignment prompts are two sides of a coin. If you've already created a prompt, you should have all of the information you need to make a rubric.
Create a second list to the side of the board, called "Let it slide," asking students what, as a class, they should "let slide" in the oral presentations. Guide and elaborate, choosing whether to reject, accept, or compromise on the students' proposals. Distribute the two lists to students as-is as a checklist-style rubric or flesh ...
Creating and Using Rubrics. A rubric describes the criteria that will be used to evaluate a specific task, such as a student writing assignment, poster, oral presentation, or other project. Rubrics allow instructors to communicate expectations to students, allow students to check in on their progress mid-assignment, and can increase the ...
3. Create the rating scale. According to Suskie, you will want at least 3 performance levels: for adequate and inadequate performance, at the minimum, and an exemplary level to motivate students to strive for even better work. Rubrics often contain 5 levels, with an additional level between adequate and exemplary and a level between adequate ...
Professors need to be picky when choosing a presentation rubric for their courses. Rubrics should clearly define the target that students are aiming for and describe performance. 2. Fine-Tune Your Rubric. Make sure your rubric accurately reflects the expectations you have for your students. It may be helpful to ask a colleague or peer to review ...
The rubric allows teachers to assess students in several key areas of oral presentation. Students are scored on a scale of 1-4 in three major areas. The first area is Delivery, which includes eye contact, and voice inflection. The second area, Content/Organization, scores students based on their knowledge and understanding of the topic being ...
A rubric is an assessment tool often shaped like a matrix, which describes levels of achievement in a specific area of performance, understanding, or behavior. There are two main types of rubrics: Analytic Rubric: An analytic rubric specifies at least two characteristics to be assessed at each performance level and provides a separate score for ...
The goal of this rubric is to identify and assess elements of research presentations, including delivery strategies and slide design. • Self-assessment: Record yourself presenting your talk using your computer's pre-downloaded recording software or by using the coach in Microsoft PowerPoint. Then review your recording, fill in the rubric ...
Step 3: Determine Your Criteria. This is where the learning objectives for your unit or course come into play. Here, you'll need to brainstorm a list of knowledge and skills you would like to assess for the project. Group them according to similarities and get rid of anything that is not absolutely critical.
A typical presentation rubric includes a set of criteria and a scale for rating or scoring each criterion. The criteria are specific aspects or elements of the presentation that are considered essential for a successful presentation. The scale assigns a numerical value or descriptive level to each criterion, ranging from poor or unsatisfactory ...
To create the rubric: Identify the assignment's dimensions (the skills/knowledge involved) Determine the scale you will use (three, four, or five-point) Describe the performance levels for each dimension (starting with the highest) Dimensions. Scale 1.
Presentation Rubric. Analyze a student's presentation both for content and communication skills with a rubric like this one. If needed, create a separate one for content knowledge with even more criteria and indicators. Learn more: Michael A. Pena Jr. Debate Rubric.
Decide what you want to grade for this assignment or activity. Before jumping into creating a rubric, think carefully about the performance objectives of the assignment. Keep these objectives specific and clear. List the most relevant objectives of the assignment. There are likely many aims you have for the assignment (presentation, correctness ...
Grading Rubric for PowerPoint Presentation Rubric. Information is organized in a clear, logical way. It is easy to anticipate the type of material that might be on the next slide. Most information is organized in a clear, logical way. One slide or item of information seems out of place. Some information is logically sequenced.
Create Rubrics for your Project-Based Learning Activities Choose a Customizable Rubric Below: Oral Projects Class Debate Historical Role Play Interview Newscast - Presentation and Planning Oral Presentation Rubric Puppet Show Story Telling Video - Talk Show. Products Making A Brochure Making A Game Making A Map Making A Poster Newspaper Public ...
Create a Rubric : Choose a Topic below to create a new rubric based on a template: Log In Register: First Initial: Last Name: Modifier: Zip Code: Password: Go To a Saved Rubric View, Edit, or Analyze a Rubric Please enter your Saved Rubric ID below: ...
4. Tabulate the grades and show the students the completed rubric. Assign points to each category, tabulate the grade at the end, and share the finished product with the student. Save a copy for your records, and return the table with the individual grade breakdown to each student.
Five Steps to Design Effective Rubrics. 1 Decide What Students Should Accomplish. 2 Identify 3-10 Criteria. 3 Choose Performance Level Labels. 4 Describe Performance Details. The final step in developing a rubric is to fill in the details for each performance level for each criterion. It is advised to begin by filling out the requirements for ...
The format of research presentations can vary across and within disciplines. Use this rubric (PDF) to identify and assess elements of research presentations, including delivery strategies and slide design. This resource focuses on research presentations but may be useful beyond.