Rubrics: More Than Just a Post-Assessment Tool

When most of us think about rubrics, we automatically picture ourselves filling them out as we grade a summative assessment, circling and highlighting and jotting down notes. This is certainly a valid and effective use of rubrics -- they can help us provide important feedback for student growth. But they can do more, too . . .

Here's an idea from Quate and McDermott's Clock Watchers: Six Steps to Motivating and Engaging Disengaged Students Across Content Areas (2009). Consider using your rubrics as an opportunity for student self-assessment and for pre-assessment of skills. Give students the rubric nice and early -- well before the assignment is due. Ask students to read the skills listed on the rubric, and to think about whether or not they could teach someone how to do that skill (i.e., they feel they've mastered that skill). If so, students should highlight it in yellow. If they come across skills on the rubric they have no idea about and feel they cannot do at the moment, they should highlight those in a different color.

Once this fairly quick and easy self-assessment is complete, the student and the teacher have a lot of useful data. We now know what areas this student is going to need teacher support in in order to meet success and master skills. We can differentiate our instruction leading up to the final completion of the assignment, providing scaffolding for some students, meeting others in small groups. We may also learn that, for some students, the assignment really isn't offering much of a challenge. We may want to think about providing some sort of extension to these students.

You've already put all that time into creating that rubric -- might as well make as much use out of it as possible!!