Rubrics - what are they really for?

[Cheerful]

The syllabus is about 10 pages single spaced. It includes lots of university and departmental policies and statements. There is one about attendance that once I tried to follow and the dean told me not to. I don't think anyone reads most of the syllabus.

This trend of having to pack all kinds of boilerplate policy language into syllabi is dumb.  It's not enforced where I work but yearly there's something new admin says should go in the syllabus.  What is the purpose of the student handbook or guide to academic policies and procedures (often called a "bulletin") if faculty are asked to cram half of it into the syllabus?

On grading, I agree with Aster to be careful.  If you say one thing in the syllabus and do something quite different, this can create problems later for grade appeals, even legal action.

A concise, easy-to-understand syllabus is a good thing.

[downer]

The syllabus is about 10 pages single spaced. It includes lots of university and departmental policies and statements. There is one about attendance that once I tried to follow and the dean told me not to. I don't think anyone reads most of the syllabus.

This trend of having to pack all kinds of boilerplate policy language into syllabi is dumb.  It's not enforced where I work but yearly there's something new admin says should go in the syllabus.  What is the purpose of the student handbook or guide to academic policies and procedures (often called a "bulletin") if faculty are asked to cram half of it into the syllabus?

On grading, I agree with Aster to be careful.  If you say one thing in the syllabus and do something quite different, this can create problems later for grade appeals, even legal action.

A concise, easy-to-understand syllabus is a good thing.

I agree that if you want the students to read the syllabus carefully it needs to be fairly short. Most of the time I put all the boiler plate stuff clearly in Part II of the syllabus, with the implication that it's not worth reading. It is hard to keep my part down to 3 pages, because of the need to spell everything out in excrutiating detail.

For this school, it's much harder to separate out my policies from the school ones, since so much is prescribed.

As for the risks, apart from what I said above, I don't think students would have much clue whether I was using a rubric or not. It's not as if using a rubric or not would make a difference to the grade they get.

[polly_mer]

As for the risks, apart from what I said above, I don't think students would have much clue whether I was using a rubric or not.

Did you plan to not share the rubric with the students ideally at the time of the assignment as guidance on how to succeed doing the assignment and then after the assignment with their individual scores on a completed rubric?

People who know how rubrics work would suggest sharing the rubrics with the students for a variety of reasons.  Some clueless students may not click or turn to the rubric, but it's hard to assert that students wouldn't know if one were using rubrics in any of the standard manners.

[downer]

As for the risks, apart from what I said above, I don't think students would have much clue whether I was using a rubric or not.

Did you plan to not share the rubric with the students ideally at the time of the assignment as guidance on how to succeed doing the assignment and then after the assignment with their individual scores on a completed rubric?

People who know how rubrics work would suggest sharing the rubrics with the students for a variety of reasons.  Some clueless students may not click or turn to the rubric, but it's hard to assert that students wouldn't know if one were using rubrics in any of the standard manners.

It certainly makes sense that a well implemented approach to rubrics would mean that everyone was clear on what was going on and how it works, so students are able to use it.

Presumably such an approach would require some training for both faculty and students, given that it is apparently not all self-evident, especially as implemented in the LMS.

Obviously, I am not invested in a well-implemented approach to rubrics in the LMS. It might be useful in some cases. Maybe I will investigate it at some point in the future. Right now, it is clear that the dean just wants to satisfy the higher ups, who want to satisfy Middle States. It remains to be seen how closely Middle States focuses on the implementation of rubrics. So what will happen for now, for me and probably for most other faculty, is that there will be a half-assed implementation of rubrics which confuses everyone.

[polly_mer]

Rubrics have been a thing at the college level for more than a decade and almost three decades for those who were early on the assessment bandwagon in the 1990s.

All the common LMSs have rubric training available via a quick web search using any of the standard search engines.

The time required to find out about rubrics is less time than you've spent on this thread.

It's almost like a professional educator doesn't want to teach well and help the students learn better by showing them what's expected and then the instructor having the data to help students improve.

It's almost like someone is acting as a widget maker going through the bare motions to get paid instead of being a professional teacher.

If the response is they aren't paying me enough to care, then, again, a professional only does the work for compensation with commensurate with expertise or as a joyful volunteer.  Either way, the person who is working for too little pay to do the job well might reflect on how to do differently next time.

[downer]

As it happens, I have looked at the relevant pages of the LMS help facility.

The issue is that, as several people have already pointed out upthread, it takes a great deal of time to create a good rubric. It is easy to use a vague generic rubric, but if you really want to make it work, you have to put a lot of thought into individualizing the rubric for the particular assignment.

My reluctance to put the energy into creating good rubrics has very little to do with money or compensation. It is that I will quite likely be wasting my time, and I can better spend my time focusing on other aspects of the course that will be more productive for me and the students.

Why would I be wasting my time? Because this school may well fold pretty soon, and so developing something for their LMS may turn out to not be usable for a different school's LMS. Because their deans will start focusing on some other "crucial" teaching innovation next year, without actually following through on rubrics. And because I've not seen any actual evidence that doing rubrics (as opposed to setting out general criteria for what I'm looking for in assignments, or providing examples of work that meet those standards).

Of course, I could fully implement the vague and fairly useless rubric into the LMS that I have already put into the syllabus, but I don't really see the point of doing that. Indeed, it might rob me of grading flexibility, so it could create a problem for me.

[AvidReader]

I substituted for a colleague this semester and was surprised to learn that my definition of a rubric did not match my colleague's.

When I give an assignment, I provide a set of directions. For a major essay, these are usually between 1 and 3 pages and broken down into parts. I overview the project and its goals, then break it down into bits: what to do first, what topics/approaches/research to include/cover, and then how to structure each part of the essay.

Separately, I give a rubric; if my own, it is twinned with the directions so students can see how many points each element is worth. If we have a departmental rubric, I sometimes make an extra document showing which parts of the directions correspond with each part of the rubric (more earlier in a semester).

I was intrigued to find that what I call "directions," my colleague calls "rubric." The directions are still something against which the final essay is evaluated, so I think it works; I mention it here because it is possible that you can make something you already have work as the required rubric, downer.

AR.

[Aster]

Right. Rubrics can be useful in some forms of assessment. They are simply a tool in an educator's toolbox. The tool can be used differently by different people, or not used at all.

In many ways, the same thing can be said of a syllabus, or a textbook, or an LMS, or (insert whatever). The ability for a professional educator to have broad discretion with their curriculum design is one of the hallmarks of high quality teaching practices, and also for innovation in teaching. Broad discretion in curriculum design is also one of the benchmark principles behind Academic Freedom within the U.S. Higher Education system.

[Hibush]

Right. Rubrics can be useful in some forms of assessment. They are simply a tool in an educator's toolbox. The tool can be used differently by different people, or not used at all.

In many ways, the same thing can be said of a syllabus, or a textbook, or an LMS, or (insert whatever). The ability for a professional educator to have broad discretion with their curriculum design is one of the hallmarks of high quality teaching practices, and also for innovation in teaching. Broad discretion in curriculum design is also one of the benchmark principles behind Academic Freedom within the U.S. Higher Education system.

Nicely put.

A completely separate issue is how much effort one should expend on administrative compliance activities where it only matters that the papers are filed, not what they say. That is the underlying issue that concerns OP downer, with the rubrics only being the immediate manifestation.

Ideally, we don't need to do that triage a lot, but is it something to watch for. Administrators who engage in it a lot are a topic for discussion in another section of these boards.

[mamselle]

As I noted at the start of the thread, OP is is using this sounding board to garner ammo by which to develop an apologetic stance against, not for, the correct use of rubrics.

It's their picnic...or whatever.

M.

[downer]

As I noted at the start of the thread, OP is is using this sounding board to garner ammo by which to develop an apologetic stance against, not for, the correct use of rubrics.

It's their picnic...or whatever.

M.

Sort of, but not really.

I've been open to stating standards to students and making expectations clear, and I do that quite a lot in my own teaching.

I do have reservations about the overuse of rubrics -- and I resist the simplification of a complex assessment that they promote. In some circumstances, I am sure rubrics are helpful. I am concerned that proponents overlook the downsides of placing a lot of emphasis on rubrics.

What does annoy me is the policy adopted by the school I work for of requiring rubrics of all faculty, explicitly as part of gaining favor with the accreditation agency, and implemented in a way that is more likely to be detrimental to student learning than helpful. Another example of of a school adopting a policy in a rushed way (in the middle of the school year, during a pandemic) because they hadn't planned ahead well.

But I'm not in a battle with the admins at the school. It is true that it is an issue of faculty autonomy, and this is a school that has little respect for faculty. But that's not my battle. I've already done what the dean asked, and it will make no difference to how I teach the course next semester.

I have found the discussion on this thread useful as a way for helping me sort out the issues to my own satisfaction, and I'm grateful to thread participants.

[marshwiggle]

I've been open to stating standards to students and making expectations clear, and I do that quite a lot in my own teaching.

I do have reservations about the overuse of rubrics -- and I resist the simplification of a complex assessment that they promote. In some circumstances, I am sure rubrics are helpful. I am concerned that proponents overlook the downsides of placing a lot of emphasis on rubrics.

In my experience, the people most opposed to providing clear expectations to studenst, in whatever form that takes, are those who can't be bothered trying to figure it out themselves.  And the students who find that the most frustrating are the good students who will actually pay attention to the guidance. The apathetic students won't care one way or the other.

[polly_mer]

The issue is that, as several people have already pointed out upthread, it takes a great deal of time to create a good rubric. It is easy to use a vague generic rubric, but if you really want to make it work, you have to put a lot of thought into individualizing the rubric for the particular assignment.

That's not true.  As an experienced faculty member, you know the kinds of mistakes that students make on these kinds of assignments as well as what skills/knowledge the assignment is exercising.  A physics problem set will require a very different rubric than a research paper, but most paper rubrics look pretty similar (e.g., addressing the prompt/question, logical flow, using the recently taught skills/knowledge, grammar, citation).  I borrowed the rubric I use for science papers from an English professor and added a brief section on scientific accuracy.  Pretty good rubrics exist on the internet for many types of assignments and can be modified. 

As I mentioned upthread, don't put weights on the categories.  Instead, failing one category is failing the assignment and having most of the scores be in the middle means the professor can use the flexibility to assign the grade they know the paper deserves.

My reluctance to put the energy into creating good rubrics has very little to do with money or compensation. It is that I will quite likely be wasting my time, and I can better spend my time focusing on other aspects of the course that will be more productive for me and the students.

Putting energy and time into deciding what a good assignment will look like for a given outcome or to reinforce the material/skills in a unit and using subject matter expertise to predict where the students could go wrong is not wasted effort.  Thoughtful construction of rubrics helps inform presentation of the material and what type of assignment would be most useful to the students.  As Marshwiggle wrote, the folks I've seen push back hardest against using rubrics are those who aren't clear in their own minds what the goal of a unit is, why students are doing each of the activities to build up to the goal, and what a good completion of the activity looks like.

And because I've not seen any actual evidence that doing rubrics (as opposed to setting out general criteria for what I'm looking for in assignments, or providing examples of work that meet those standards).

If you already have those things, then constructing the rubric should be under half an hour for a category of assignments across all your classes.  Again, you've spent more time here pushing back instead of embracing rubrics as a standardized way to present the general criteria and provide examples of work that meet those criteria.

Could you give an example of the rubrics you think are useless because I spent years as the assessment coordinator and spent a lot of time helping people construct rubrics for all kinds of assignments and a variety of subject areas.  I've seen useless rubrics and inflexible rubrics (I'm telling you, don't put points or weightings on any categories to provide flexibility).

However, the most useless rubrics I've seen where those constructed by people who were checking the box to provide a rubric instead of starting from what students should be getting out of an activity and how that activity fit into the overall goals of the course.

[marshwiggle]

The issue is that, as several people have already pointed out upthread, it takes a great deal of time to create a good rubric. It is easy to use a vague generic rubric, but if you really want to make it work, you have to put a lot of thought into individualizing the rubric for the particular assignment.

That's not true.  As an experienced faculty member, you know the kinds of mistakes that students make on these kinds of assignments as well as what skills/knowledge the assignment is exercising.  A physics problem set will require a very different rubric than a research paper, but most paper rubrics look pretty similar (e.g., addressing the prompt/question, logical flow, using the recently taught skills/knowledge, grammar, citation).  I borrowed the rubric I use for science papers from an English professor and added a brief section on scientific accuracy.  Pretty good rubrics exist on the internet for many types of assignments and can be modified. 

Long ago, I used to have separate marking schemes for each lab that TAs would use to mark. Then I developed a checklist that is generic, so it works for ANY lab. Now the TAs have a much easier job. (Instead of "How much does each of these three graphs count for?" It's more like "Graphs should have: clear axis labels, scales on both axes, etc." It doesn't matter if there's one graph or 10.

As I mentioned upthread, don't put weights on the categories.  Instead, failing one category is failing the assignment and having most of the scores be in the middle means the professor can use the flexibility to assign the grade they know the paper deserves.

My reluctance to put the energy into creating good rubrics has very little to do with money or compensation. It is that I will quite likely be wasting my time, and I can better spend my time focusing on other aspects of the course that will be more productive for me and the students.

Putting energy and time into deciding what a good assignment will look like for a given outcome or to reinforce the material/skills in a unit and using subject matter expertise to predict where the students could go wrong is not wasted effort.  Thoughtful construction of rubrics helps inform presentation of the material and what type of assignment would be most useful to the students.  As Marshwiggle wrote, the folks I've seen push back hardest against using rubrics are those who aren't clear in their own minds what the goal of a unit is, why students are doing each of the activities to build up to the goal, and what a good completion of the activity looks like.

And because I've not seen any actual evidence that doing rubrics (as opposed to setting out general criteria for what I'm looking for in assignments, or providing examples of work that meet those standards).

If you already have those things, then constructing the rubric should be under half an hour for a category of assignments across all your classes.

Absolutely. Coming up with good examples (which is a great thing that I definitely support) takes at least as much time (usually much more) as coming up with a checklist. (Like I said, my checklists work a lot like rubrics.)
Since creating an example requires you to be specific about expectations, abstracting that for a general requirement is pretty straightforward.

[downer]

Thanks for the ideas. Now I have mixed evidence -- some say that developing a good rubric for a particular assignment is laborious, while others say that a generic one works fine.

If you don't put weights on the different dimensions, then the rubric just serves as a vague guide for why the student got the grade they did. That goes back to my title question -- what are rubrics for?

Anyway, I have found yet another reason not to do much with rubrics at this stage! Turns out that the department is now suggesting that all faculty need to be using the same rubric for the gen ed courses. Of course, this is despite the fact that there are no uniform syllabi for these courses, and there is no requirement for particular kinds of assignment. Seems like they want to use the grading rubrics as part of their outcomes assessment. I was always told that grades could not be part of outcomes assessment, so that could be interesting. But whatever, seems like I can just sit back and let the department give me a rubric.