November 29, 2008 at 2:59 pm
· Filed under Uncategorized
I’m a big proponent of rubrics. I truly believe that rubrics are beneficial for students in that they clearly know ahead of time how their performance will be assessed, and they can see from the rubric specifically which areas need improvement. There is no guessing as to why a student earned a B versus an A, and rubrics tend to be a great learning tool for students. But, is there any way to use rubrics without it taking so much time?
I teach six classes of 24 students each. When I assign a composition, it takes hours for me to grade all of my students papers in the traditional sense, without a rubric. When I have tried using rubrics, and have to select between different ratings for different components of their work, it multiplies the time required to assess their work. I can spend an entire weekend using rubrics in an attempt to effectively assess my students’ compositions, and still not finish. Help!
Are there any strategies for using rubrics effectively while still making the task of assessing students’ work manageable?
Eva Maria
Permalink
Create a free edublog to get your own comment avatar (and more!)
Eva Maria,
I agree that using rubrics can be time-consuming, especially if you are evaluating every possible thing to be assessed. I used to use rubrics like grading sheets: so many points for spelling, so many for grammar, etc. Then I attended a class where the professor said you have to determine what it is you are assessing and then assess only that. In other words, what’s more important to the objectives of the particular lesson? If the main objective is to demonstrate understanding of content, then you don’t need to focus on spelling, etc. However, if it is an English class, then the focus might be on grammar, usage and mechanics, but your rubric should be created accordingly. The great thing about rubrics is that you can create them any way you want them; there are no hard and fast rules.
Of course, I haven’t seen your rubrics, but you might want to look over them and see if maybe you are trying to cover too much territory. Focus on only one or two main things and skim the rest. You can always catch them on a future assignment.
Good luck!
Viki Gardner
HTML-Tags:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
