Rubrics
This article is a work in progress but since it’s such a hot topic I wanted to post as I write.
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Rubrics tend to look something like this:
0-5 points =bad, 6-10 better, 11 – 19 good, 20-30 points = great or really just:\
Bad, Good, Very Good, Outstanding
How is this different than old school grading? We think that if we used words instead of letter grades we were doing a better job as educators. Ha!
It seems they still arbitrary but now the capricious decisions are just in smaller chunks. Taking a vague and arbitrary grading process and dividing into smaller bits does not make it more helpful or valid.
Here’s another example actually taken from state contests:
Look at the qualifiers in the examples – sometimes, rarely, seldom. How is that helpful? Wouldn’t it be better AND easier to have a blank piece of paper to write comments such as:
“In measure 12 the phrase ends, consider a decrescendo.” or “In measure 6 and 15 your tone was weak due to poor breath control caused by a slouching posture.”
Now below is a project a colleague and I designed. We ditched this rubric model in favor of clarity and to promote critical thinking, individuality, and differention.
