Sustainable Grading & Meaningful Assignment Feedback

Why use rubrics?

As detailed descriptions of expectations for student work, rubrics allow instructors to:

1. Align their grading with the goals they have for their students’ learning,
2. Communicate assignment expectations to their students,
3. Be more objective and consistent in their grading across students and courses,
4. Provide structured feedback to students when returning assignments, and
5. Make grading go a little faster.

For more information on teaching with rubrics, see Chapter 4, “Establishing Criteria and Standards for Grading,” in Effective Grading, 2nd edition, by Barbara Walvoord and Virginia Johnson Anderson (Jossey-Bass, 2009), which provides a comprehensive introduction to rubrics and their value in teaching and learning. See also the Vanderbilt Center for Teaching’s guide to grading student work for strategies and advise on using rubrics.

Instructors can use rubrics outside of Blackboard, but using the Blackboard rubric tool can save time, given its integration with inline grading and the Blackboard grade center.

(Vanderbilt University, https://www.vanderbilt.edu/brightspace/2015/05/01/rubrics-now-available-in-blackboard/)

Online free rubric makers

• Annenberg Learner  (custom)
• iRubric (custom)
• Essay Tagger  (Common Core)
• RubiStar (customizable templates)
• Teachnology  (premade and customized)
• Schrockguide  (Common Core)
• ThemeSpark (Common Core)
• PBL Checklist (project based learning)
• RubricMaker  (customizable templates)
• Teacher Planet (premade)