Unit 3: Process-Oriented Assessment and Development of Paper and Pencil Test

Topic 2: Rubric
Time Allotment: 3 hours

Learning Objectives
Upon the completion of this topic, you are expected to:
 Identify good features of a rubric;
 Discuss the importance of rubric in Mathematics instruction; and
 Construct holistic and analytical scoring rubric.

Presentation of Content
Rubric
In Mathematics instruction, how can we establish and communicate the
criterion for success? One way is to prepare a rubric.

Good Rubric
A rubric is a guide listing specific criteria for grading or scoring academic
papers, projects, or tests. The rubric criteria must match the outcome and
include higher order thinking skills. Objective criteria is important since it
specifies HOW something is performed and is laid out on a continuum from
“exemplary” to “not evidenced”. A rubric should communicate expectations to
students and serve as feedback on how to improve.

The Need for Criteria

Because the kinds of open-ended prompts and performance tasks needed to
assess for understanding do not have a single, correct answer or solution
process, evaluation of student work is based on judgment guided by criteria.
Clear and appropriate criteria specify what we should look at to determine the
degree of understanding and serve us in making a judgment-based process
consistent and fair (Wiggins, 1998, pp. 91–99). How, then, do we come up
with appropriate criteria and how do we make them clear to learners?

Appropriate criteria highlight the most revealing and important aspects of the
work (given the goals), not just those parts of the work that are merely easy to
see or score. When identifying appropriate criteria, we must clarify a set of
independent variables in the performance that affect our judgment of quality.
The criteria would then specify the conditions that any performance must meet
to be successful; they define, operationally, the task requirements.

Many teachers make the mistake of relying on criteria that are merely easy to
see as opposed to central to the performance and its purpose. Just as we need
to derive assessments from the goals and understandings, we need to derive
criteria from the goals.

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 Unit 3: Process-Oriented Assessment and Development of Paper and Pencil Test

From Criteria to Rubric

A rubric is a criterion-based scoring guide consisting of a fixed measurement
scale (4 points, 6 points, or whatever is appropriate) and descriptions of the
characteristics for each score point. Rubrics describe degrees of quality,
proficiency, or understanding along a continuum. (If the assessment response
needs only a yes/no or right/wrong determination, a checklist is used instead
of a rubric.) Rubrics answer the questions:
 By what criteria should performance be judged and discriminated?
 Where should we look and what should we look for to judge
performance success?
 How should the different levels of quality, proficiency, or
understanding be described and distinguished from one another?

Guidelines for Creating Rubrics

The following can serve as your guide in preparing rubrics for Mathematics
instruction:
 Keep it Simple: Three columns are all you need: Exceeds
Expectations, Meets Expectations, and Approaches Expectations
 Identify the Meets Expectations (proficient) level first. This level is an
acceptable score and shows proficiency
 Build the rest of the rubric around proficiency. From this point,
building the remainder of the rubric is fairly easy: a 1 shows some
understanding/performance but with significant gaps; and a 3 shows an
advanced level of understanding or performance.

Types of Rubrics
Two general types of rubrics—holistic and analytic—are widely used to judge
student products and performances. A holistic rubric provides an overall
impression of a student’s work. Holistic rubrics yield a single score or rating
for a product or performance. An analytic rubric divides a product or
performance into distinct traits or dimensions and judges each separately.

Although a holistic rubric is an appropriate scoring tool when an overall

impression is required, we propose that assessors of understanding use
analytic rubrics. Why? Because the quality of the feedback to the student is
easily compromised in the name of efficiency when we boil down evaluation
to a single (holistic) score. There are always independent criteria at work in
performance, especially when understanding is a target, so we should try to
strike a balance between appropriately varied criteria and feasibility.

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 Unit 3: Process-Oriented Assessment and Development of Paper and Pencil Test

Example:

A rubric to assess students in employing hypothesis testing to solve research

problems
Criteria Exceeds Meets Approaches
Expectation Expectation Expectation
(3 points) (2 points) (1 point)
Hypothesis Followed the Most of the steps Some of the
Testing correct procedure in hypothesis important steps
Process of hypothesis testing were were not
testing followed followed
Accuracy of Computations are Included the Included some of
Results accurate, included important values the values with
all the important and computations errors in the
values and results are correct computations and
were explained results
accurately

Questions to Consider in the Use of Rubric

These are questions that you need to ask yourself when preparing a rubric:
● Do we share our rubrics or criteria with students and actively engage
them in the review process?
● Do students score themselves first and specify why they scored
themselves the way they did?
● Do students reflect on what they need to do to advance/improve?
● Do faculty communicate why they gave the score they did?
● Do faculty give targeted feedback to improve?

Resources for Rubric Building

You can consider the following online resources when preparing your rubrics.
 Rubistar http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php
 iRubric https://www.rcampus.com/indexrubric.cfm?
 Teacher Planet http://www.teacherplanet.com/rubrics-for-
teachers?ref=rubrics4teachers
 University of Wisconsin-Stout
https://www.uwstout.edu/academics/online-distance-education/online-
professional-development/educational-resources-rubrics/creating-and-
using-rubrics-assessment
 Quick Rubric https://www.quickrubric.com/r#/create-a-rubric

Try to visit the sites and see how useful they are in preparing rubrics. Enjoy
your learning experience!