When you think of a rubric, what comes to mind? Probably some type of chart with headings and empty boxes, right? I know that’s exactly what I imagined. But thanks to our nifty friend, technology, rubrics are now so much more. This week I used iRubric to create a project rubric for my digital storytelling project I have been working on. In the past I have used Rubistar, but it was so long ago I don’t remember much about it. The great advantage of using iRubric is that you can quickly create rubrics online that will automatically weight and grade assignments for you with just a few clicks of your mouse. Here is the rubric I created for my project. All I would need to do to grade is click on the cell in each row that the student satisfied, and the tool produces a grade for me!
Why am I creating a rubric in the first place, you ask? The digital storytelling project that I am working on is a way to perform what Shelly refers to as project-based assessment. It is a type of authentic assessment associated with authentic learning. (2010) Students will be engaged in authentic learning while completing my project, because they will be dealing with real-life problems and solutions, critical thinking and creativity, and creating a product to show off what they have learned. Any time students produce a final product as a result of their learning, it is a good idea to use a grading rubric as a means of authentic assessment.
In case you’re wondering just what, besides typing and clicking, goes into rubric creation here are the steps I took to prepare mine.
1. Brainstorm the types of skills you want your students to practice by completing the assigned project. A great place to start is the lesson standards. You will want to grade performance of these, because you want to be sure your students are all demonstrating them proficiently.
2. Consider any content that absolutely must be seen in each final product.
3. Create categories of skills such as Lesson Standards, Content, and Presentation and Design. While not always necessary, these helped me cover all the bases in terms of what I wanted demonstrated.
4. Decide if and how you want to weight different areas. For example, demonstrating a lesson standard is pretty much always more important than writing mechanics. Assign different points to each skill based on importance, and be sure they add up to 100.
5. Finally, before entering your info into your rubric, consider how many levels of skill your students can demonstrate. For mine, I chose 4 levels ranging from Poor to Excellent. Each level should convey a certain level at which that the student could potentially demonstrate that skill.
6. Enter in all the information for your rubric, and you’re good to go!
Have fun creating your own rubrics with iRubric, and remember that you can edit them any time to more appropriately fit a different grade level or assignment.
Shelly, G. B., Gunter, G. A., & Gunter, R. E. (2010). Teachers discovering computers:
Integrating technology and digital media in the classroom (6th ed). Australia:
Course Technology Cengage Learning.
"In case you’re wondering just what, besides typing and clicking, goes into rubric creation here are the steps I took to prepare mine." The thought process was part of the learning process of creating a rubric for me. It seems like I learned more about what I wanted out of this project by creating the rubric than any other activity thus far.
ReplyDeleteAs far as actually creating a rubric, iRubric seems to be the way to go. While perusing blogs to leave some comments, the consensus seems to be that iRubric was the best choice, and I like the fact that yours is quite extensive. Good Luck!
I thought it was great that you included the steps in making your rubric so that beginning teachers know what they need to do in order to create their own rubric. Often people who are making their first rubric don't think it through so your list has given those people specific help.
ReplyDeleteI liked your rubric. It was very thorough, detailed, and gave the students plenty of information to let them know what you expected out of your project. I also thought that it graded it for you was extremely helpful and fantastic and was just another way to make things easier for teachers.