Rubric Best Practices, Examples, and Templates
A rubric is a scoring tool that identifies the different criteria relevant to an assignment, assessment, or learning outcome and states the possible levels of achievement in a specific, clear, and objective way. Use rubrics to assess project-based student work including essays, group projects, creative endeavors, and oral presentations.
Rubrics can help instructors communicate expectations to students and assess student work fairly, consistently and efficiently. Rubrics can provide students with informative feedback on their strengths and weaknesses so that they can reflect on their performance and work on areas that need improvement.
How to Get Started
Best practices, moodle how-to guides.
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Step 1: Analyze the assignment
The first step in the rubric creation process is to analyze the assignment or assessment for which you are creating a rubric. To do this, consider the following questions:
- What is the purpose of the assignment and your feedback? What do you want students to demonstrate through the completion of this assignment (i.e. what are the learning objectives measured by it)? Is it a summative assessment, or will students use the feedback to create an improved product?
- Does the assignment break down into different or smaller tasks? Are these tasks equally important as the main assignment?
- What would an “excellent” assignment look like? An “acceptable” assignment? One that still needs major work?
- How detailed do you want the feedback you give students to be? Do you want/need to give them a grade?
Step 2: Decide what kind of rubric you will use
Types of rubrics: holistic, analytic/descriptive, single-point
Holistic Rubric. A holistic rubric includes all the criteria (such as clarity, organization, mechanics, etc.) to be considered together and included in a single evaluation. With a holistic rubric, the rater or grader assigns a single score based on an overall judgment of the student’s work, using descriptions of each performance level to assign the score.
Advantages of holistic rubrics:
- Can p lace an emphasis on what learners can demonstrate rather than what they cannot
- Save grader time by minimizing the number of evaluations to be made for each student
- Can be used consistently across raters, provided they have all been trained
Disadvantages of holistic rubrics:
- Provide less specific feedback than analytic/descriptive rubrics
- Can be difficult to choose a score when a student’s work is at varying levels across the criteria
- Any weighting of c riteria cannot be indicated in the rubric
Analytic/Descriptive Rubric . An analytic or descriptive rubric often takes the form of a table with the criteria listed in the left column and with levels of performance listed across the top row. Each cell contains a description of what the specified criterion looks like at a given level of performance. Each of the criteria is scored individually.
Advantages of analytic rubrics:
- Provide detailed feedback on areas of strength or weakness
- Each criterion can be weighted to reflect its relative importance
Disadvantages of analytic rubrics:
- More time-consuming to create and use than a holistic rubric
- May not be used consistently across raters unless the cells are well defined
- May result in giving less personalized feedback
Single-Point Rubric . A single-point rubric is breaks down the components of an assignment into different criteria, but instead of describing different levels of performance, only the “proficient” level is described. Feedback space is provided for instructors to give individualized comments to help students improve and/or show where they excelled beyond the proficiency descriptors.
Advantages of single-point rubrics:
- Easier to create than an analytic/descriptive rubric
- Perhaps more likely that students will read the descriptors
- Areas of concern and excellence are open-ended
- May removes a focus on the grade/points
- May increase student creativity in project-based assignments
Disadvantage of analytic rubrics: Requires more work for instructors writing feedback
Step 3 (Optional): Look for templates and examples.
You might Google, “Rubric for persuasive essay at the college level” and see if there are any publicly available examples to start from. Ask your colleagues if they have used a rubric for a similar assignment. Some examples are also available at the end of this article. These rubrics can be a great starting point for you, but consider steps 3, 4, and 5 below to ensure that the rubric matches your assignment description, learning objectives and expectations.
Step 4: Define the assignment criteria
Make a list of the knowledge and skills are you measuring with the assignment/assessment Refer to your stated learning objectives, the assignment instructions, past examples of student work, etc. for help.
Helpful strategies for defining grading criteria:
- Collaborate with co-instructors, teaching assistants, and other colleagues
- Brainstorm and discuss with students
- Can they be observed and measured?
- Are they important and essential?
- Are they distinct from other criteria?
- Are they phrased in precise, unambiguous language?
- Revise the criteria as needed
- Consider whether some are more important than others, and how you will weight them.
Step 5: Design the rating scale
Most ratings scales include between 3 and 5 levels. Consider the following questions when designing your rating scale:
- Given what students are able to demonstrate in this assignment/assessment, what are the possible levels of achievement?
- How many levels would you like to include (more levels means more detailed descriptions)
- Will you use numbers and/or descriptive labels for each level of performance? (for example 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and/or Exceeds expectations, Accomplished, Proficient, Developing, Beginning, etc.)
- Don’t use too many columns, and recognize that some criteria can have more columns that others . The rubric needs to be comprehensible and organized. Pick the right amount of columns so that the criteria flow logically and naturally across levels.
Step 6: Write descriptions for each level of the rating scale
Artificial Intelligence tools like Chat GPT have proven to be useful tools for creating a rubric. You will want to engineer your prompt that you provide the AI assistant to ensure you get what you want. For example, you might provide the assignment description, the criteria you feel are important, and the number of levels of performance you want in your prompt. Use the results as a starting point, and adjust the descriptions as needed.
Building a rubric from scratch
For a single-point rubric , describe what would be considered “proficient,” i.e. B-level work, and provide that description. You might also include suggestions for students outside of the actual rubric about how they might surpass proficient-level work.
For analytic and holistic rubrics , c reate statements of expected performance at each level of the rubric.
- Consider what descriptor is appropriate for each criteria, e.g., presence vs absence, complete vs incomplete, many vs none, major vs minor, consistent vs inconsistent, always vs never. If you have an indicator described in one level, it will need to be described in each level.
- You might start with the top/exemplary level. What does it look like when a student has achieved excellence for each/every criterion? Then, look at the “bottom” level. What does it look like when a student has not achieved the learning goals in any way? Then, complete the in-between levels.
- For an analytic rubric , do this for each particular criterion of the rubric so that every cell in the table is filled. These descriptions help students understand your expectations and their performance in regard to those expectations.
Well-written descriptions:
- Describe observable and measurable behavior
- Use parallel language across the scale
- Indicate the degree to which the standards are met
Step 7: Create your rubric
Create your rubric in a table or spreadsheet in Word, Google Docs, Sheets, etc., and then transfer it by typing it into Moodle. You can also use online tools to create the rubric, but you will still have to type the criteria, indicators, levels, etc., into Moodle. Rubric creators: Rubistar , iRubric
Step 8: Pilot-test your rubric
Prior to implementing your rubric on a live course, obtain feedback from:
- Teacher assistants
Try out your new rubric on a sample of student work. After you pilot-test your rubric, analyze the results to consider its effectiveness and revise accordingly.
- Limit the rubric to a single page for reading and grading ease
- Use parallel language . Use similar language and syntax/wording from column to column. Make sure that the rubric can be easily read from left to right or vice versa.
- Use student-friendly language . Make sure the language is learning-level appropriate. If you use academic language or concepts, you will need to teach those concepts.
- Share and discuss the rubric with your students . Students should understand that the rubric is there to help them learn, reflect, and self-assess. If students use a rubric, they will understand the expectations and their relevance to learning.
- Consider scalability and reusability of rubrics. Create rubric templates that you can alter as needed for multiple assignments.
- Maximize the descriptiveness of your language. Avoid words like “good” and “excellent.” For example, instead of saying, “uses excellent sources,” you might describe what makes a resource excellent so that students will know. You might also consider reducing the reliance on quantity, such as a number of allowable misspelled words. Focus instead, for example, on how distracting any spelling errors are.
Example of an analytic rubric for a final paper
Example of a holistic rubric for a final paper, single-point rubric, more examples:.
- Single Point Rubric Template ( variation )
- Analytic Rubric Template make a copy to edit
- A Rubric for Rubrics
- Bank of Online Discussion Rubrics in different formats
- Mathematical Presentations Descriptive Rubric
- Math Proof Assessment Rubric
- Kansas State Sample Rubrics
- Design Single Point Rubric
Technology Tools: Rubrics in Moodle
- Moodle Docs: Rubrics
- Moodle Docs: Grading Guide (use for single-point rubrics)
Tools with rubrics (other than Moodle)
- Google Assignments
- Turnitin Assignments: Rubric or Grading Form
Other resources
- DePaul University (n.d.). Rubrics .
- Gonzalez, J. (2014). Know your terms: Holistic, Analytic, and Single-Point Rubrics . Cult of Pedagogy.
- Goodrich, H. (1996). Understanding rubrics . Teaching for Authentic Student Performance, 54 (4), 14-17. Retrieved from
- Miller, A. (2012). Tame the beast: tips for designing and using rubrics.
- Ragupathi, K., Lee, A. (2020). Beyond Fairness and Consistency in Grading: The Role of Rubrics in Higher Education. In: Sanger, C., Gleason, N. (eds) Diversity and Inclusion in Global Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore.
Center for Teaching Innovation
Resource library.
- AACU VALUE Rubrics
Using rubrics
A rubric is a type of scoring guide that assesses and articulates specific components and expectations for an assignment. Rubrics can be used for a variety of assignments: research papers, group projects, portfolios, and presentations.
Why use rubrics?
Rubrics help instructors:
- Assess assignments consistently from student-to-student.
- Save time in grading, both short-term and long-term.
- Give timely, effective feedback and promote student learning in a sustainable way.
- Clarify expectations and components of an assignment for both students and course teaching assistants (TAs).
- Refine teaching methods by evaluating rubric results.
Rubrics help students:
- Understand expectations and components of an assignment.
- Become more aware of their learning process and progress.
- Improve work through timely and detailed feedback.
Considerations for using rubrics
When developing rubrics consider the following:
- Although it takes time to build a rubric, time will be saved in the long run as grading and providing feedback on student work will become more streamlined.
- A rubric can be a fillable pdf that can easily be emailed to students.
- They can be used for oral presentations.
- They are a great tool to evaluate teamwork and individual contribution to group tasks.
- Rubrics facilitate peer-review by setting evaluation standards. Have students use the rubric to provide peer assessment on various drafts.
- Students can use them for self-assessment to improve personal performance and learning. Encourage students to use the rubrics to assess their own work.
- Motivate students to improve their work by using rubric feedback to resubmit their work incorporating the feedback.
Getting Started with Rubrics
- Start small by creating one rubric for one assignment in a semester.
- Ask colleagues if they have developed rubrics for similar assignments or adapt rubrics that are available online. For example, the AACU has rubrics for topics such as written and oral communication, critical thinking, and creative thinking. RubiStar helps you to develop your rubric based on templates.
- Examine an assignment for your course. Outline the elements or critical attributes to be evaluated (these attributes must be objectively measurable).
- Create an evaluative range for performance quality under each element; for instance, “excellent,” “good,” “unsatisfactory.”
- Avoid using subjective or vague criteria such as “interesting” or “creative.” Instead, outline objective indicators that would fall under these categories.
- The criteria must clearly differentiate one performance level from another.
- Assign a numerical scale to each level.
- Give a draft of the rubric to your colleagues and/or TAs for feedback.
- Train students to use your rubric and solicit feedback. This will help you judge whether the rubric is clear to them and will identify any weaknesses.
- Rework the rubric based on the feedback.
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Creating and using rubrics for assessment, in this section, tools and ideas for creating your rubrics.
Many of these rubrics grew out of a long-term commitment to building alternative assessments in our Instructional Design , and Math Specialist and Teaching and Assessing Writing online courses.
What's New?
Video Conferencing Rubric
Our Top Five Rubrics
- Online Discussion
- Video Project
- Middle School/High School Group Work
- Elementary Teamwork
Quick Links to Rubrics
- Discussion, Teamwork, and Group Work Rubrics
- ePortfolio and Web Page Rubrics
- Concept Map and Graphic Organizer Rubric
- Video and Multimedia Project Rubrics
- Math and Science Rubrics
- Virtual Simulations and Games Rubric
- Research Process Rubrics
- Writing Rubrics
- Rubrics for Primary Grades
- Presentation Rubrics
Tools for Creating Your Rubrics
Presentation rubrics.
Video Conferencing Rubric Maggie Rouman's rubric assesses real-time sessions to foster community, present topics, and enhance learning.
Podcast Rubric Ann Bell's rubric helps students assess what makes a good podcast.
PowerPoint Rubric 10 performance categories
Oral Presentation Rubric (Word doc)
VoiceThread Participation Rubric (pdf) Michelle Pacansky-Brock's general formative assessment is used when students view a mini video lecture/presentation. Contributions are rated on originality, comprehension, and clarity.
Oral Presentation Checklist 4Teachers.org provides an online tool to customize the checklist for your grade level
Effective Project Presentations Buck Institute for Education (BIE) rubric for high school presentations
Poster Rubric
Speaking and Writing Rubrics bilingual education (English and Spanish) Spanish Partial-Immersion Program Rubrics for Writing and Speaking in English and Spanish for Grades 1-5
Social Media Project Rubrics
Wiki Rubric Criteria for assessing individual and group Wiki contributions.
Blog Rubric Assess individual blog entries, including comments on peers' blogs.
Twitter Rubric Assess learning during social networking instructional assignments.
Discussion, Teamwork, and Group Work Rubrics
Online Discussion Board Rubric Criteria for assessing the ability to share perspectives, refine thoughts through the writing process, and participate in a meaningful discussion Primary Grade Self-Evaluation Teamwork Rubric (PDF) Features of a sandwich to graphically show the criteria
Upper Elementary Teamwork Rubric Karen Franker's rubric includes six defined criteria for assessing the team and individual responsibility
Middle School/High School Collaboration Rubric Six defined criteria for collaboration with strong performance descriptors
ePortfolio and Web Page Rubrics
These rubrics are related to our Instructional Design courses.
e-Portfolio Rubric Electronic portfolio rubric created by Joan Vandervelde includes 7 categories with 4 levels of achievement
Web Page Rubric Joan Vandervelde's rubric details 9 categories for evaluating a web page
CyberFair Peer Review Student Web Page Rubric Online feedback form for CyberFair Project.
Concept Map and Graphic Organizer Rubric
Graphic Organizer and Mind Map Rubric Concept map diagram rubric to assess a visual storyboard of a final project or to chart a flow of work and ideas by Karen Franker
Storyboard Rubric Concept map and/or storyboard specification of instructional sequencing and messaging details.
Video and Multimedia Project Rubrics
These rubrics are related to our Elearning and Online Teaching course and flipped classroom course.
Video Project Rubric Joan Vandervelde lists criteria for video production and editing
Multimedia Project Rubric Rubric developed by Caroline McCullen, Jamie McKenzie, and Terrie Gray
Virtual Simulations and Games Rubric
Assessing Student Learning in Virtual Simulations and Serious Games A grading rubric created by Ann Bell with 6 performance criteria
Research Process Rubrics
Research Process Rubric - Elementary Karen Franker's rubric to assess planning, gathering, organizing and citing information in grades 3-5
Research Process Rubric - Middle School Karen Franker's rubric assesses performance with the research process
Rubric for Research Process Joyce Valenza's rubric assesses 5 research performance areas for high school students
Research Process Reflection Joyce Valenza's Question Brainstormer encourages students to ask focus questions and reflect on the research process
Academic Research Writing and APA Formatting Rubric Kay Lehmann's rubric for high school or college level
Writing Rubrics
These rubrics are related to our Teaching and Assessing Writing courses .
Student-Friendly Writing Rubric
Samples of Student Writing, Scored With a 6+1 Trait Rubric An extensive archive of assessment materials associated with the 6-Traits assessment approach.
NWREL's Six Traits of Writing Rubric English and Spanish versions of the 6-Traits of Writing Rubric and other rubrics for listening, public speaking, and reading
Writing Rubrics K-12 - Opinion/Argument, Narrative, and Informative/Explanatory
Research Paper Rubric (Word doc)
Rubric for Scoring Effective Writing (Word doc)
Persuasive Essay Rubric (Word document)
Reflective Writing Rubric (PDF)
Reflection Paper Rubric (PDF)
Historical Fiction Essay Rubric (pdf) Blake Green's history class rubric.
Rubrics for Middle School Includes invention report, book talk, persuasive essay, and autobiographical event essay
Autobiographical Rubric (PDF)
Math and Science Rubrics
These rubrics are related to our Math Specialist courses .
Math Rubrics 4 levels of math understanding with performance criteria
NCTM Math Standard Rubric (pdf) Performance criteria for problem-solving reasoning and proof communication connections representation
Science Rubric (pdf) Performance criteria for the use of scientific tools, science reasoning and strategies, science concepts and use of data and communication Scientific Report Rubric Easy to modify for any kind of high school research report
Physics Project Rubric A good example of a performance rubric tuned a specific project. Easy to adapt to other subjects.
Rubrics for Primary Grades
Kindergarten Rubrics Assess literacy development
Kindergarten Rubrics Evaluates communication, fine muscle development, emergent reading and writing, large muscle development, math development, creative arts, personal development, and work habits, play, and social skills.
Primary Grade Self-Evaluation Teamwork Rubric (PDF) Features a sandwich to graphically show when all criteria are met
Third Grade Venn Diagram Rubric
These tools are explored in our e-learning course .
Rubistar Choose a topic and create a new rubric based on a template. Save and edit your rubric online.
Rubric Template Insert the task and criteria into this template.
Rubric Template (Word doc) Word document template to download and modify to meet authentic assessment needs (University of West Florida).
Quick Rubric
iRubric develop rubrics and access them from anywhere
Single-Point Rubric (Word doc)
Rubric Generator Build your own grading rubrics online by filling out a form. You can include a graphic and print the rubric.
Readings about Authentic Assessment Helpful background information about rubric design and implementation in the classroom.
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Oral Presentation Rubric
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Have you ever used Rubistar to create rubrics? I just found out about this site this week. It’s AMAZING! Go check it out. It took me a matter of minutes to create rubrics for a Power Point/oral presentation and a reading journal I want my students to do as they explore the Harlem Renaissance.
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3 thoughts on “rubistar”.
I bought Rubistar a few weeks ago and like it. Funny though, I kind of perfected my own rubric template (the boxes, not the method) at the same time. It is handy. And it was cheap, cheap, cheap.
The downside: I can't email a rubric to someone for them to adopt and use.
I tried out rubistar but ended up shelling out for the rubricator because it offers more flexibility.
i thought rubistar is free…do they have a version with paid features?
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RubiStar is a tool to help the teacher who wants to use rubrics, but does not have the time to develop them from scratch. ... Oral Presentation Rubric : Information report. CATEGORY 4 3 2 1 Introduction of topic Topic introduced clearly and in an interesting way. Purpose of talk was made clear. Outline of points was given.
Oral Presentation Rubric : Investigative Report Presentation. Shows a full Shows a good Shows a good Does not seem to understanding of the understanding of the understanding of understand the topic topic. Implicating topic. Implicating parts of the topic. very well. evidence evidence is Implicating evidence Presentation lacks communicated ...
8/27/2015 Your Rubric Print View file:///D:/20152016/pictures/Your%20Rubric%20%20Print%20View.html 1/1 Rubric Made Using: RubiStar ( http://rubistar.4teachers ...
Step 7: Create your rubric. Create your rubric in a table or spreadsheet in Word, Google Docs, Sheets, etc., and then transfer it by typing it into Moodle. You can also use online tools to create the rubric, but you will still have to type the criteria, indicators, levels, etc., into Moodle.
The rubric allows teachers to assess students in several key areas of oral presentation. Students are scored on a scale of 1-4 in three major areas. The first area is Delivery, which includes eye contact, and voice inflection. The second area, Content/Organization, scores students based on their knowledge and understanding of the topic being ...
RubiStar, modeling different ways to use rubrics, and modeling different ways to engage students in the process. Research has shown that it saves teachers time and effort to use RubiStar to develop rubrics (Merillat, 2008a). Introduction A rubric is a scoring guide that provides students with a clear description of proficient student work
A rubric can be a fillable pdf that can easily be emailed to students. Rubrics are most often used to grade written assignments, but they have many other uses: They can be used for oral presentations. They are a great tool to evaluate teamwork and individual contribution to group tasks. Rubrics facilitate peer-review by setting evaluation ...
Oral Presentation Rubric 4—Excellent 3—Good 2—Fair 1—Needs Improvement Delivery • Holds attention of entire audience with the use of direct eye contact, seldom looking at notes • Speaks with fluctuation in volume and inflection to maintain audience interest and emphasize key points • Consistent use of direct eye contact with ...
presentation. Content is well organized using headings/bullets, etc. Makes good use of font, color, graphics, effects, etc. to enhance to presentation. Overall organization somewhat flawed. Makes use of font, color, graphics, effects, etc. but occasionally these detract from the presentation content. Content logically organized Use of font, color,
Abstract. Rubrics are commonly used, but can be difficult and time consuming to create. RubiStar is a free, Web-based tool designed to help teachers quickly and easily develop quality rubrics. It ...
PowerPoint Rubric. 10 performance categories. Oral Presentation Rubric (Word doc) VoiceThread Participation Rubric (pdf) Michelle Pacansky-Brock's general formative assessment is used when students view a mini video lecture/presentation. Contributions are rated on originality, comprehension, and clarity.
RubiStar Rubric Made Using: RubiStar ( http://rubistar.4teachers.org ). Oral Presentation Rubric : USA Road Trip Teacher Name: Mr. Gross Student Name: _____ CATEGORY ...
Stands up straight and establishes eye contact with everyone in the room during the presentation. Sometimes stands up straight and establishes eye contact. Slouches and/or does not look at people during the presentation. Volume Volume is loud enough to be heard by all audience members throughout the presentation.
Uses simple sentences _____uses phrases and is "choppy" _____uses one-word and two-word utterances
Rubistar. March 23, 2006 Dana Huff 3 Comments. Have you ever used Rubistar to create rubrics? I just found out about this site this week. It's AMAZING! Go check it out. It took me a matter of minutes to create rubrics for a Power Point/oral presentation and a reading journal I want my students to do as they explore the Harlem Renaissance.
View Your_Rubric__Oral_Presentation_Rubric___Oral_Presentation_Rubric.pdf from SOS 304 at Thomas Edison State College. RubiStar Rubric Made Using: RubiStar ( http ...
To avoid this weakness, rubrics should be improved in criteria describing Oral Presentation and comments should be considered for further uses of the BT rubric. Finally, a very good congruence was observed between the teacher's mark using the rubric as a tool and their given mark without the use of the rubric (ICC = 0.78).