Overview of Rubrics
On this page:
A rubric is a scoring tool that is used to assess student learning for an assignment. Rubrics state the learning objectives for an assignments and describe how the teacher is measuring student performance. Rubrics help students and parents understand the expectations for each objective and they also help teachers to objectively score student assignments.
The two dimensions of a rubric are:
- Criteria. These are the specific objectives you want to evaluate for the assignment. Criteria can be associated with a competency if you calculate a student's mark for these learning objectives.
- Performance levels. These represent the rating scale for student performance.
The following example illustrates a rubric for a presentation project.
Criteria | Performance Levels | ||
Incomplete | Proficient | Advanced | |
Research Questions | 0 - 5 Wrote fewer than 5 questions or wrote many questions that did not apply for the topic. | 6 - 8 Wrote at least 5 clear questions that related to the topic. | 9 - 10 Wrote at least 10 clear and creative questions that related to the topic. |
Source Selections | 0 - 1 Selected fewer than 3 sources from one format. | 2 - 4 Selected 5 or more sources from at least two different formats. | 5 Selected 10 or more sources from at least three different formats. |
Preparation for Presentation | 0 - 1 Did not outline presentation. | 2 - 4 Wrote a brief outline for the presentation. | 5 Wrote a detailed outline for the presentation and included follow-up question and answer notes. |
Presentation | 0 - 10 Presentation was disorganized and not clear. | 11 - 20 Most of the presentation was organized and well-structured. | 21 - 25 Entire presentation was organized and well-structured. |
Bibliography | 0 - 1 Did not provide a bibliography. | 2 - 4 Provided a bibliography and most sources were documented in the correct format. | 5 Provided a bibliography where all sources were documented correctly. |
Full Rubrics and Simple Rubrics
TAC supports two types of rubrics:
- Full rubrics use criteria and performance levels to score an assignment. Criteria can be associated with competencies, if desired.
- Simple rubrics use criteria, but not performance levels. These rubrics use competencies as the criteria to score for an assignment. This type of rubric allows a teacher to associate an assignment with multiple competencies so scores can be entered to indicate how the student performed for each competency.
How Rubrics Are Used in Teacher Access Center
Administrators can control if and how teachers can use and define rubrics. For more information on the options to control access to rubrics, refer to the TAC Building Configuration Page.
If the configuration is defined to allow teachers to use rubrics, then a teacher can link rubrics to assignments using the Gradebook Setup page or the Gradebook Entry page's Assignment Details drawer.
Teachers can:
- create a new rubric for an assignment,
- select a saved full rubric that they used for another assignment,
- select a public full rubric. A public rubric is defined by an administrator in eSchoolPlus or another teacher. Note that only full rubrics can be saved or shared with other teachers as a public rubric.
- create a copy of a saved or public full rubric.
If an assignment is associated with a rubric, then the teacher enters scores on a rubric score entry page so the teacher can enter the student's score for each of the rubric's criteria. A student's total assignment score is calculated as either the average or sum of the rubric scores, depending on how the rubric is defined.
How Public Rubrics Are Created
To define a public rubric that your district's teachers can link to their assignments, use the eSchoolPlus Gradebook Rubrics (Administration > Mark Reporting Setup > Gradebook Setup > Rubrics) option. For detailed information on the Rubric Setup page, refer to the Rubric Setup Page topic.
You can create public rubrics for full rubrics, but not simple rubrics. Full rubrics include both criteria and performance levels to measure performance.
You can associate standards-based competencies with the various assessment criteria in the rubric. However, note that this is only useful for teachers if the competencies are valid for the course or student competency group that the teacher is grading for the assignment.