What is a rubric?  Webster says it is “a rule for conduct.”  In education, it might be a rule to measure student progress.  A rubric is a graduated performance indicator that assesses student performance and measures the effectiveness of a lesson. It is actually a roadmap of sorts that gives both the student and the teacher clear directions for success. Assessment therefore becomes more consistent and objective. A rubric enables the teacher and the student to remain focused with clear expectations. Although there are different types of rubrics, they contain common features. They focus on measuring a stated objective, use range to rate performance, and contain specific performance characteristics arranged in levels indicating the degree to which a standard has been met. 

 Requirements for the Rubric:
1. One learning expectation per URL (minimum of 5) 
2. Each learning expectation must have a minimum of 4 levels of achievement written in grade level appropriate language (poor, good, better, best or beginning, intermediate, mastery, outstanding, etc.) (Evidence File Examples) 

A rubric has two parts.
1. What do teachers want students to learn?  ( the objective/Learning Expectation)
2. How many tasks or to what extent must the student perform the tasks to receive an A, a B, a C, or a D? Instead of A, B, C, or D, rubric descriptions might be Distinguished, Outstanding, Average, Fair   OR   Awesome, Average, Adequate, Acceptable.

In a rubric, which is really a chart, both the teacher and students can readily see what students are expected to learn and what standards must be met to reach a certain level of mastery. 

A good rubric will have at least five objectives.

Follow these steps in rubric development. 

1. Draw a block with 5 columns and at least 4 rows.  (For this grant, teachers do not have to draw blocks.  They simply fill in the blanks on-line.) 
2. In the top row, label your columns: 
a.   Objective, Beginning, Developing, Mastery, Exemplary or 
b.   Fair, Average, Outstanding Distinguished (teacher should use your own terminology.) 
3. In the other blanks, list the required student behavior for each level of achievement. 
Teachers should create their rubrics at a level beneficial to them and their students.  Sometimes, simple is better.  Sometimes, the difficulty of the unit and the ability level of students warrant detail. 
Some rubric samples can be found at the Rubric Bank
http://intranet.cps.k12.il.us/Assessments/Ideas_and_Rubrics/Rubric_Bank/rubric_bank.html) 
To view these you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader. 

A good rubric site to visit is http://discoveryschool.com/schrockguide/assess.html

Create a rubric and place it in Tennessee's rubric template found at http://170.142.130.39/rubric/. See Examples.  Share the rubric in some manner in advance of teaching the unit with the students so they will know what is expected of them. 

Need more help with rubrics?

• Sample Rubric Template
• Rubric Resources

On the Online Submission Form report your information. 

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