Setting the Standard
September 14, 2007
When I was in school, I think the idea of the rubric was dismissed for the utilization of a simpler scale– ranging from “Great Job!” to “Please see me about this…” For the more progressive and discerning teachers of today’s educational systems, rubrics are used more widely and carefully. Teachers want to nurture their students’ creativity, certainly. Often times, you’ll assign creative projects so that students can show off their skills and demonstrate that they are learning all the while. But how do you properly grade such projects?
With rubrics, of course. Check out Rubistar, where you’ll be able to quickly find a rubric for your project based assignments in one of many examples available. You can also design your own using one of the easy templates. Rubistar offers a variety of customizable rubrics in an array of categories, including Oral Projects, Multimedia and Work Skills. Within each category, customizable rubrics range from Class Debate to Writing a Musical, so even if you have a project in mind but don’t know quite how to get it started, these will give you a base line.
Rubistar is free to use and is another great resource from 4Teachers.org, who also bring you QuizStar and TrackStar. Rubistar allows for you to integrate with both BlackBoard and Moodle, so you can directly interact with student via the web for your online course. If you’re totally unsure of what to do, the site offers a few tutorials to get you started. It’s tough to grade creativity, but rubrics will help give you a place to start. –JEREMY S. GRIFFIN
